Hope Is Moving In Initiative

In October 2009, the City of St. Louis took a giant leap in the battle of ending long term homelessness for families and individuals residing on the streets and in emergency shelters for months and even years.  On October 6, 2009, the City’s Homeless Services Division in conjunction with the City of St. Louis Continuum of Care for Ending Homelessness launched the Hope Is Moving In initiative.

Title XII of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 created funding for homelessness prevention, referred to by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid ReHousing Program (HPRP).  HPRP funds provide temporary financial assistance and housing relocation and stabilization services to individuals and families who are homeless or would be homeless but for this assistance. Resources are targeted and prioritized to serve households that are most in need of this temporary assistance and are most likely to achieve stable housing, whether subsidized or unsubsidized, outside of HPRP after the program concludes.

The funds are intended to target two populations of persons facing housing instability: 1) individuals and families who are currently in housing but are at risk of becoming homeless and need temporary rent or utility assistance to prevent them from becoming homeless or assistance to move to another unit (prevention), and 2) individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness (residing in emergency or transitional shelters or on the street) and need temporary assistance in order to obtain housing and retain it (rapid rehousing).

Hope Is Moving In represents a new service delivery model requiring close collaboration between participating agencies and designed to provide easy access for those in need of help.  It combines the efforts of preventing homelessness, rapidly rehousing persons that become homeless, reducing barriers to securing housing, linking persons with needed resources and providing permanent supportive housing.  

Central to Hope Is Moving In is the establishment of four hubs which are located throughout the city where people can receive assistance. One hub is located downtown at the Housing Resource Center, 800 N. Tucker, which provides rapid rehousing services for homeless people. The other three hubs provide services to prevent households from becoming homeless.  The prevention hubs are located within St. Louis Public Schools that are considered Community Education Full Service Schools (CEFSS). These schools currently provide a variety of education, health and cultural activities to the community and are ideally positioned to provide easy access to these new services. 

For more information about HPRP and program requirements, please review the Hope Is Moving In Informational Guidelines.

ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST HAVE AN APPOINTMENT TO RECEIVE PREVENTION SERVICES.  WALK-IN SERVICES ARE NOT AVAILABLE AT THE SCHOOLS.