Two local non-profit groups that work with the homeless were awarded half a million dollars in grant money today from Wells Fargo as part of the bank’s national NeighborhoodLIFT program.
NeighborhoodLift provides grants for communities to address low-income housing needs. Last fall, the program helped more than 100 Salt Lake City families put a down payment on a new home. Wednesday, Wells Fargo gave another $500,000 to The Road Home shelter and The Community Foundation of Utah to start up two other programs. Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker says the money will help him realize his 5-year-plan to create 5,000 affordable homes.
“Incomes have been rising at a much slower pace than housing costs in Salt Lake City,” Becker says. “We don’t want to be forcing people out of our city because they can’t afford housing.”
Matt Minkevitch is executive director of The Road Home. He says the organization will use the money to place 20 of the city’s most vulnerable homeless individuals in housing.
“Those 20 people who we help to move out of long-term homelessness, out of living at the shelter and into housing with supportive case management services, which is what the Wells Grant allows us to do can turn the page on that and start a new chapter of their lives where they’re living in housing,” Minkevitch says.
The Community Foundation of Utah will leverage their $200,000 portion of the grant to create a rental subsidy program that offers developers an incentive to set aside affordable units for low-income wage earners.
