NSB provides grants to 6 nonprofits to help homeless, disadvantaged community

NEW SMYRNA BEACH — Continuing a food donation program and helping residents affected by last year’s storms repair their homes are just some of the ways six nonprofit organizations plan to help the homeless and disadvantaged community in the city.

Last month, the City Commission awarded $40,000, to be divided among these organizations, in the seventh year of the Homeless and Disadvantaged Program, which since 2016 has helped families and individuals in need.

This year’s organizations are Southeast Volusia Habitat for Humanity; God’s Bath House; Under the Sars Mission, LLC.; First United Methodist Church: Mary Martha’s Mission; the New Smyrna Beach Housing Authority; and the Church Parish Nurse Ministries, Inc.

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The New Smyrna Beach Housing Authority has received the grant for the past four years. This year’s $6,000 allotment will again be divided equally between funding the children and senior food bag program and helping to pay resource center manager Loriann Morris' salary.

Morris, who has been with Housing Authority for five years, runs all the programs out of the resource center, located on South Orange Street.

The grant is crucial to maintain the Housing Authority’s operation at the resource center, Teresa Pope, executive director, said in an interview.

Morris is “registered with the homeless management information system through the Volusia Flagler Coalition for the Homeless, and she inputs homeless data into the management system, which provides coordinated entry for the homeless community,” Pope said.

Through the resource manager, homeless individuals receive help obtaining IDs. Morris also helps them apply for or update their food stamp information and social security applications.

“We just have a lot of services that are run out of our resource center,” Pope said in an interview. “We have a church that comes in on Tuesdays and supplies gift cards; we have somebody that donates bus passes; and although some of these services are being paid for, donated by other agencies, (the homeless community) is still coming to our resource center for those services.”

The other $3,000 will be spent on the organization's children and senior food bag program, which provides “healthy snack bags to children after school three days a week,” and to seniors weekdays at the resource center.

“Our seniors, even if they’re getting Section 8 assistance, only get about $20 a month now in food stamps,” Pope said. “Now, the price of an 18-count of eggs is almost $10, so that’s half of their food stamps for 18 eggs. It’s ridiculous — they run out of food.”

Pope said the Housing Authority prepares bags for these senior residents in need. The agency also works with God’s Table, another nonprofit organization based in Daytona Beach, which brings frozen meats every two weeks as part of the food bags given to seniors.

“The bags that we prepare with the $3,000 grant, we do like, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter and jelly — things that are going to last them for a little while. They can come every week and get a food bag.”

She added: “When the money runs out, it runs out. But we still collect donations from other organizations to try to keep this program going.”

Habitat among recipients for the first time

This year, Southeast Volusia Habitat for Humanity received funding for the first time in the grant program’s history.

The nonprofit will designate the full $10,000 to help New Smyrna Beach residents affected by Tropical Storms Ian and Nicole with repairs to properties damaged mainly by flooding, Habitat’s Executive Director Mark Billings said in an interview.

“When we had back-to-back hurricanes, we had a number of people in our community reach out to us,” Billings said. “These are individuals who don’t have the means or the capacity to repair their homes … . As you might imagine, with the storms, and the significant flood damage, our applications went up significantly.”

Habitat will help these residents with replacement of sheet rock, doors, insulation, flood replacement and other necessary safety repairs, such as HVAC systems, plumbing and electrical repairs.

The nonprofit also receives funding from its thrift shop operations, local philanthropy, and through the Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in New Smyrna Beach — all of which goes toward helping repair homes in critical condition, Billings said.

“We saw there was a huge need, and we needed the resources, fiscal resources and human resources in individuals willing to help,” he said. “We’ve seen a tremendous response locally and nationally. We have three people here this week helping with critical home repairs from other parts of the country.”

He said when the opportunity to apply for the grant program presented itself, “we thought ‘if we can get people as the resource, then how can we go for more additional funding?'”

He said one of the organization's program managers, Brittany Rider, put together the grant application.

“We are very thankful and grateful that we were approved to use these funds to go toward repairing homes in our community here,” Billings said.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NSB awards grants to six nonprofits to be used for homeless assistance