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kneecap director briefs county on homelessness program, HUD rules and local need
Summary
Belinda Estes, director of community services at kneecap, described the agency's tenant‑based Continuum of Care rental assistance, HUD inspection and eligibility rules, outreach and data showing about 300 regional pre‑applications per year and local enrollment constraints tied to funding.
Belinda Estes, director of the community services department at kneecap, explained the agency's Continuum of Care (CoC) tenant‑based rental assistance program and why kneecap submitted an environmental‑review exemption form for signature. "My name is Belinda Estes. I am the director of the community services department at kneecap," she told commissioners as she began the presentation.
Estes described how the CoC program functions like a tenant‑based voucher: eligible households locate rental units, which must pass HUD‑approved inspections and meet fair‑market‑rent standards. She explained that HUD's environmental review requirements can be satisfied through an exemption form when no construction is involved and that the form sought county sign‑off because the program serves the entire county and multiple neighboring counties.
Estes discussed program operations and services, noting kneecap provides more intensive wraparound support than typical housing vouchers: case management, coordination with mental‑health providers, in‑home visits and partnerships with health and social service agencies. She also reviewed HUD definitions of homelessness, pointing out the CoC program serves people who are literally homeless and survivors of domestic violence; "before COVID, it was about 30 percent of our participants. Now it's closer to 44 percent," she said.
On data and capacity, Estes cautioned that the annual point‑in‑time counts undercount local need and shared kneecap's figures: "Between the 2 years, you can see on average, we have about 300 pre applications per year," and for Atchison County she reported roughly 44–45 households applied in the latest grant year. She stressed funding limits: "we only have 252,000 to be able to use for that whole year for housing," which she said typically covers housing for about 20–25 families annually.
Estes described coordinated entry, referrals and outreach (meeting people where they are and using a regional waiting list and referral platforms such as Unite Us/Iris) and offered to return for annual briefings or to supply brochures and contact information to county staff and the public.
