LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — City leaders are re-evaluating their plan to end homelessness by 2025 after failing to meet its initial fundraising goals.
Background
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government's (LFUCG) Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention (OHPI) created The Lex End Homeless Fund in July 2018 through a partnership with Blue Grass Community Foundation, Inc., a charitable community foundation.
The fund aimed to support innovative and sustainable solutions to end homelessness in Lexington. So, any donations would not be used to support any emergency shelter, transitional housing, or other system function that is not permanent housing.
Lexington became a permanent housing-focused community in 2014, meaning all housing
investments would be made toward ending homelessness, not managing homelessness.
The Lex End Homelessness Fund differs from "Lex Gives/ "Change the way you give," which you may see signs for around town. The city's anti-panhandling fund was created in partnership with United Way of the Bluegrass and run by the New Life Day Center. That fund has raised $37,000 since 2019.
The Issue
In January 2021, OHPI shared a five-year strategic plan to reduce and end homelessness and enhance affordable housing in the area by 2025. That plan intended to strengthen the use of the Lex End Homeless Fund to increase funding sources for possible solutions.
The city paid Analytic Insight, LLC (AI) $1,993.75 to complete the plan and support the research.
OHPI later contracted with Untold Content for the public education and outreach campaign. It paid $233,763 in 2021.
However, two years later, OHPI told council members that 19 of 55 recommendations were complete, and they're re-evaluating some of those goals.
Homeless Prevention Manager Jeff Herron, who took over in late 2022, says donations to the fund have not supported their original plans.
"The Lex End Homelessness fund was established to supplement local and federal funding toward ending chronic homelessness in Fayette County. At its launch, the fund aimed to raise $1.5 million annually. Unfortunately, donations to the fund have not been received at nearly this level," explained Herron in an email.
Herron says the fund aimed to raise $1.5 million annually by reaching high-end donors.
The donations of $1.5 million annually for three years, combined with local and federal dollars, were supposed to end chronic homelessness in Lexington permanently.
Records obtained by LEX 18 show that $2,507.67 was donated to the fund in 2021.
That's far from the $15,000 a year per donor they were hoping for. They estimated that would be the initial investment needed for the first three years to house a chronically homeless family.
As of spring 2018, the number of people in the community they identified would need help was 92 individuals and two families.
The fund has received no grants.
Herron says the original spirit of the fund was to have an outside funding source from local donors that wasn't tied to the same stipulations of federal dollars and could be used more flexibly. However, he says the pandemic, high turnover, and difficulty getting a fundraising position contributed to the low donations.
With the city's focus on permanent housing instead of just managing homelessness, Herron says the cost is too great for the fund to house one chronically homeless individual or family.
The Positives
While it has not accomplished its original goal, Herron says the Lex End Homelessness campaign has succeeded in other ways, such as through the public education campaign that included an interactive website with lessons for the community.
OHPI plans to continue to work towards the strategies and interventions in the strategic plan using the rest of its available resources besides the Lex End Homelessness Fund.
He also says the campaign has refined the city's continuum of care. The network of providers that partner with the town coordinates the policies, strategies, and activities to prevent and reduce homelessness.
Herron says the campaign has also created an onboarding system to train new hires for provider organizations since turnover is high.
OHPI itself is more of a coordinator and does not operate direct services.
The city says their work over the years has contributed to a decrease in chronic homelessness by 55% since 2014 by supporting permanent housing solutions.
The Hope Center is a non-profit in Lexington that has been a part of the Continuum of Care even before the campaign. Senior Director of Programs David Shadd says they now share several practices and protocols, host meetings, and communicate regularly.
What Happens Next?
Herron says conversations will continue.
"The Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention is in the process of engaging the Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Board to determine any viable strategies to increase donor gifts in line with the fund’s original mission or smaller-scale interventions that can be facilitated with the level of donations currently being received," wrote Herron.
The issue of chronic homelessness also continues.
According to their plan, the city would need a three-year investment of $10,009,589 to end chronic homelessness in Lexington permanently.
