The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will devote $35 million to helping “low-income residents become self-sufficient” in housing, the department announced Tuesday.
Public housing authorities, public housing resident associations, Native American tribes and non-profits will receive funding to pay service coordinators to help people with job training, education, job placement and computer and financial literacy with the goal of economic and housing independence.
The program, run through HUD’s Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency Service Coordinators Program, aims to link public housing with those kinds of public and private resources.
“It’s part of our mission to help connect public housing residents to better, higher paying jobs and critical services as a means of helping them move beyond public assistance and toward self-sufficiency,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement. “This funding gives our local partners resources they can use to help residents become economically independent and achieve the dreams they have for themselves and their children.”
Along with funding service coordinator positions, the grants will be allocated toward improving living conditions in public housing for senior citizens.
The vast majority of the grants are assigned to local housing authorities and span 36 states.