Rent assistance in Gaston County: What are the options?
Leah Hedgpath receives at least 10 calls a day from people in need of rental assistance.
In her role as the executive director of the Dallas High Shoals Christian Ministry, Hedgpath interacts with Gaston county residents in need of many different services.
“We don’t do rental assistance because we’re such a small agency,” Hedgpath said.
According to Hedgpath, a recent experience assisting a friend who suddenly became homeless has left her with a new perspective on the needs of those facing possible homelessness.
“I knew housing was an issue, but until I actually sat down myself, I didn’t know how hard it was,” Hedgpath said.
“One of my childhood friends left an abusive situation and took her two daughters with her,” Hedgpath said. “She had been on waitlists for affordable housing in every county nearby and even all the way down to Myrtle Beach.”
Despite Hedgpath’s access to information on services offered to those in need, her friend would spend six months living in a motel where she paid $600 per week to keep a roof over her and her daughters' heads.
“I put out an email to 50 different people from organizations that help with this and didn’t get a response from any of them,” Hedgpath said.
By the time something affordable became available, every friend and family member had to come together to help her pay deposits for the place, utilities, and first month’s rent.
“There are so many hurdles,” Hedgpath said. “This is a working mother who found herself in a bad situation, not someone who did anything to land herself there.”
While this experience with a loved one brought the problem into perspective for Hedgpath, her career has shown her how widespread the issue really is.
“Some of the homeless we’ve worked with, we have literally watched them go from having homes, cars, and jobs to having nothing,” Hedgpath said.
In January 2022, Hedgpath recorded 10 clients working with the organization who were classified as homeless, by April they had 16, and today, 32 people that Hedgpath works with are classified as homeless.
In light of that increase, Hedgpath included rental assistance in the latest FEMA proposal for Dallas Christian Ministry.
While they still currently do not have the funding to offer rental assistance, Hedgpath uses available utility assistance funding to the fullest extent anytime it can help prevent a family from losing their home, she said.
The county initiated a homelessness prevention committee in 2021 after reports showed there would likely be an increase in need for affordable housing and assistance programs.
Emergency rental assistance funds provided by the county are currently exhausted, according to its website. County spokesman Adam Gaub said that those funds were provided to the county in the height of COVID, and were all spent.
The county does offer two programs relating to housing which include the Crisis Intervention Program and the Low Income Energy Assistance Program, according to Gaub.
Both programs have a focus on supporting people in paying their utility bills.
Gaub says this issue is an ongoing conversation for county officials.
The county is planning to host the second Hope Fest later this year to bring different service providers together in one space for people in need.
Hope Fest will take place from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Sept. 14, and will be located at First United Methodist Church on East Franklin Boulevard in Gastonia.
According to Gaub, several departments of Gaston County's Social Services Department will be in attendance along with third-party support organizations.
This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Rent assistance in Gaston County: What are the options?
