By Lisa Jackson, Interim Vice President of Grants
This year, WestCare has been fortunate to be awarded four new grants from proposals authored in 2019, 2020, and 2021. The funders have reached back into their past applications to find deserving programs that they can now fund. WestCare Pacific Islands (WPI) was awarded $400,000 from a 2020 application for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Grants for the Benefit of Homeless Individuals (GBHI) program. Additionally, they have awarded another $400,000 GBHI grant to WestCare Georgia that was authored in 2019. These were happy surprises that the programs are working hard to prepare for implementation. They are both scheduled to begin providing services on September 30, 2022. This funding will support programming for the next five years in each location.
WPI proposed The Project Håtsa or Uplift, an intensive outpatient treatment, case navigation, mental health services, and supportive services project. It will utilize the Housing First model to assist homeless and chronically homeless families in obtaining permanent housing and treatment for substance use disorders (SUD) and/or co-occurring disorders (COD). In Georgia, the grant will support The Women’s Place (TWP) by serving homeless adult women with SUD/COD’s in Atlanta and Fulton County, Georgia.
Additionally, WestCare Illinois was awarded a SAMHSA Treatment, Recovery, and Workforce Support grant authored in 2020. This grant will provide Illinois $500,000 for five years to provide workforce programming to the Chicago neighborhoods of Little Village, Englewood, and the City of Markham (A south suburb of Chicago). In partnership, WestCare Illinois and Hope Technology and Education Center will provide integrated SUD and workforce development services for adults diagnosed with SUD who need workforce development assistance.
Last but not least, WestCare Texas wrote a grant for WestCare Foundation that was awarded $582,000 for the first year and $600,000 for years two through four to provide trauma-informed ministry training in Texas and other WestCare regions over the next five years. WestCare Foundation will work with clergy and their congregations to develop and disseminate an effective and culturally-responsive Trauma-Informed Ministry (TIM) model to 620 faith-based organizations nationally. This training will enable faith-based organizations to use their platforms to build bridges between formal and informal systems of care and promote individual and communal trauma recovery.
But, this is just the beginning, the award period for most federal funding has not started yet! WestCare is still waiting for many of our continuations and new competitions to be awarded. During the coming months, the grants team will keep you informed as we learn what programs are approved for implementation. Good luck to all of our programs!
