The Division administers three housing programs funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): Section 8 Rental Assistance; Community Development Block Grant (CDBG); and HOME Investment Partnerships. All three programs are designed primarily to benefit lower income persons and households, and most of the rules governing them are set by HUD. The programs help pay families' rent, create new affordable housing, and provide needed services.
The Division also oversees the Human Services Advisory Council, which serves as the County's comprehensive human services planning entity. The staff is responsible for the development and distribution of Support Grant Applications, proposal review, fund allocations, appeals processes, quarterly reporting, vouchering and monitoring of funded programs.
For more than twenty-five years, the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders have provided funding to the County’s various social service agencies that serve our County’s most vulnerable residents: the poor, the homeless, the disabled, immigrants, and other special populations. For at the past five years, the Freeholders have allocated just over $900,000 each year in these County Freeholder Support Grants.
The County Freeholders Support Grant Process is administered by the staff of the County Office of Human Services, who utilize the membership of the Middlesex County Human Services Advisory Council (HSAC) to devise the annual application process, review the applications, and make funding recommendations to the Freeholders. After the Freeholders approve the annual County Budget, including these support grants, County staff prepare the contracts, and conduct the fiscal and programmatic monitoring.
The HSAC takes very seriously the fact that the Freeholders entrust the Council with the facilitation of these public funds. To that end, the Council uses all methods available to ensure that the process is as objective, open and transparent as possible. These support grants, which on average are no more than 10% of a program’s overall budget, are meant to supply the funded programs with the flexibility to make their programs “whole” and best serve the County’s most vulnerable.
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Commission on Child Abuse and Missing Children (CCAMC)
The Middlesex County Housing Continuum of Care Committee (MCHC³) is the primary vehicle for planning and coordinating the delivery of services to the homeless and collaborating with Coming Home of Middlesex County, Inc. to implement the Middlesex County Plan to End Homelessness. MCHC³’s membership comprises mainly homeless service, providers, advocates for the homeless and low income families and individuals.
The Middlesex County Plan to End Homelessness, Coming Home of Middlesex County, and the Housing First Fund are part of a multi-pronged approach to ending homelessness in Middlesex County.
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Middlesex County Plan To End HomelessnessClick here to download the Middlesex County Plan to End Homelessness.•
Coming Home Coming Home, Inc., is the not-for-profit organization that is taking the lead on ending homelessness in Middlesex County.
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Housing First FundThe Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders has included funds in the capital budget, totaling $1,000,000 each year, to be used as seed or leveraging funds for housing for the homeless. Specifically, the purpose of this “Housing First” Fund is to assist in the creation of permanent affordable and accessible units which implement the Middlesex County 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. This could include, but is not limited to, the construction of new housing units, the rehabilitation of existing units, the acquisition of land or existing structures for the purposed construction or rehabilitating of units to be used as permanent housing for homeless individuals and/or families.Visit
Coming Home to access the procedure for applying for Housing First funds.