Nearly 500 New Housing Units Established for Youth Through Round Two of Homekey
A total of 499 (7.5%) of the 6,578 new housing units created with funding from round two of the Homekey program will serve youth and young adults experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Final round two Homekey awards were announced by Governor Newsom on August 24th, totaling $1.89 billion. Of the total round two awards, 24 of the 108 projects awarded will serve youth, including both mixed population projects and youth-only projects.
Round two of Homekey included a “youth set-aside,” requiring the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to reserve at least 8% of total funding for projects establishing housing for youth. HCD developed a number of strategies to encourage and promote submission of applications for youth-serving projects, resulting in a significant increase in youth-serving projects from round one, which resulted in less than 1% of its units being created for youth.
The youth set-aside will continue into round three which will launch this fall. Of the $2.90 billion appropriated for Homekey over 2021-22 and 2022-23, a total of approximately $1 billion remains. JBAY is offering planning grants and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations located in Northern California and the Central Valley that are interested in partnering with a public entity—the eligible Homekey applicants—to apply for round three Homekey funding to establish housing for youth.
To assist projects serving youth, JBAY has also established this list of youth-specific funding sources for operating, rental subsidies, and services to pair with Homekey’s capital development funding. For more information, contact Andy Lomeli at andy@jbay.org.
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