AUSTIN, Texas (Feb. 3, 2021) – Ten homeless service providers in Austin/Travis County will be renewed for funds of more than $11 million in federal dollars to support permanent housing programs and administrative projects in the upcoming year, the most our community has ever received from the CoC Program to date for us to work toward ending homelessness.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced the renewal awards Friday, the result of an annual grant cycle for Continuums of Care (CoCs) across the country. As lead agency for Austin/Travis County’s CoC, ECHO is responsible for coordinating the area-wide strategy to end homelessness and submit the application for these federal funds every year on behalf of direct service providers.

In normal years, the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) process for CoCs includes a competitive application process for renewal and new additional funds. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 NOFA cycle did not include this competition, and projects were renewed based on 2019 funding levels with some increases based on community statistics such as Fair Market Rent. This year’s grant awards represent an increase of $628,455, or 6%, from last year.

“ECHO congratulates all the Continuum of Care funded agencies who were awarded renewal funding to house people experiencing homelessness in our community,” said Kate Moore, ECHO’s Vice President of Strategic Planning & Partnerships. “Through this funding we are able to help hundreds of families and individuals end their homelessness. ECHO is grateful for the incredible tenacity each of these agencies has shown during the pandemic to continue to provide much-needed services to our vulnerable neighbors.”

Austin/Travis County’s CoC partners were awarded a total of $11,011,967 for 15 projects across 10 organizations:

• Caritas of Austin: $1,807,856
• Housing Authority of the City of Austin (HACA): $765,486
• Housing Authority of Travis County: $1,126,479
• SAFE Alliance: $1,998,498 (for two projects)
• Green Doors: $96,550
• Front Steps: $486,580
• Integral Care: $482,964
• Salvation Army Austin: $646,730
• LifeWorks: $3,147,346 (for four projects)
• ECHO: $453,478 (for two administrative projects)

Despite the pandemic, ECHO’s community partners connected 1,879 people to permanent housing in 2020, an 8% increase from 2019, using a combination of local, state, and federal funding.

“We are honored and humbled to advocate alongside the group of providers who make up our CoC-funded programs. The programs being funded end homelessness for hundreds of community members each year using harm reduction and Housing First principles,” said ECHO Executive Director Matt Mollica. “Our hope is that our federal partners begin to fund homelessness to the scale necessary in our community. Our future needs to include scaled investments to meet the needs of our country so it is possible to imagine a world without homelessness.”