Emergency Shelter Grants Program

Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas - 060008

Abstract Number: 060008

February 2006

For more than ten years, Legal Aid of Northwest Texas' Emergency Shelter Grants Program (ESG) has provided homeless persons with essential supportive services in the form of legal representation to obtain government benefits, employment benefits, and child support, and in other legal matters to obtain income for homeless persons to help them obtain housing. The ESG program also provides short-term homeless prevention assistance in the form of actual monetary assistance to persons at imminent risk of losing their homes due to eviction or foreclosure. Grantees, which are state governments, large cities, urban counties, and U.S. territories, receive ESG grants and make these funds available to eligible recipients, which can be either local government agencies or private nonprofit organizations. The recipient agencies and organizations, which actually run the homeless assistance projects, apply for ESG funds to the governmental grantee, and not directly to HUD.

Legal Aid of Northwest Texas has successfully applied for and administered emergency shelter grant funds to its client base for over a decade. Fortunately, these critical funds have given attorneys extra leverage to combat homelessness when legal defenses alone will not provide the desired relief or they do not exist. Accordingly, Legal Aid of Northwest Texas has well-established systems in place to negotiate written agreements with landlords and mortgage companies, and send payments on the clients' behalf. Quality control mechanisms are also in place to insure that ESG funds are appropriately expended.

Contact Information:

Sam Prince
Legal Aid of Northwest Texas
2212 Arlington Downs Road, Suite 102
Arlington, Texas 76011
Phone: (817) 649-4740
Fax: (817) 649-4758
Email

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