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Salisbury Rowan Community Action Agency homeownership due to low incomes and poor credit ratings. Services related to improving credit stability and financial literacy are offered every year. Reduced subsidized housing stock and long waitlists for city and county housing authorities in both counties contribute to program participants making choices to live in substandard housing or in crowded conditions with family members. CSBG funds are utilized to relocate participants and improve their housing conditions. Area shelters are over - crowded and the homeless rate has increased with a continuous migration from other service areas causing shelters to reach capacity. Rowan County Helping Ministries for the homeless has sheltered 623 different men, women and children with 22,009 nights of shelter services in the last year. This high increase of individuals needing shelter still contributes to families living in cars, abandoned homes or wherever they can find shelter. Each year those in our community who struggle financially seem to face additional challenges. Families continue to be at risk for homelessness due to the lack of jobs, education and limited job skills. In Cabarrus County over the last several months (according to Cooperative Christian Ministries who operate the shelters), both the men's, women's and women with children programs designed to serve the homeless in Cabarrus have been full. The last five (5) applicants to the SRCAA Cabarrus Self- Sufficiency program indicated their housing status as homeless. They were living in shelters, temporarily with families, in cars and in hotels. Cabarrus County does not have a unified strategy to address homelessness, primarily because social service providers were formerly able to meet the need. That is no longer the case. Subsidized housing waitlists in both counties can be as long as two years and private income -based housing options are full and wait listed as well. Salisbury Rowan Community Action Agency, Inc. intends to address the issues related to employment, education and housing, that face our families. In their quests for self - sufficiency. We want our families to have the opportunity to be employed or better employed, obtain better educations and job training skills, and live in the housing of their choice, strengthening their families and their communities. Section II: Resource Analysis (use additional sheets if necessary) 3. Resources Available: Salisbury Rowan Community Action Agency has the internal capacity to serve its families. Support from three other programs internally for Youth, Weatherization and Head Start and Early Head Start allow us to assess families' needs beyond what is provided by CSBG funding. Family and Youth Development Specialists are now collaborating on referrals within the agency. They work together to help families solve their own problems and meet their goals. This shift to collaboration increases the potential for success for program participants while it minimizes the stress for competing goals set by multiple programs. It also enhances the capacity for families to receive additional services of which they were not previously aware. a. Community Resources: SRCAA partners with many nonprofit human service agencies, schools, colleges, community development organizations, governmental entities and faith organizations to aid our participants in Fiscal Year 2014 -15 Community Services Block Grant Application Page 20 of 49 Attachment number 2 G -2 Page 288