The Bucks County Opportunity Council recently announced the results of its latest Community Needs Assessment, which shed light on the lack of affordable housing and resources locally.
The BCOC’s mission is to “reduce poverty and partner with our community to promote economic self-sufficiency” according to its website. The Opportunity Council is the leading anti-poverty agency in the Bucks County.
The needs assessment is conducted every three years to find out what services those in low-income communities need most. Its results help the BCOC to strategically expand and improve its offerings.
This year’s survey determined that 71% of respondents named affordable housing as the leading challenge facing Bucks County. It also found that 45% of renters are currently paying more than 30% of their income for rent.
According to the BCOC, “focus group participants talked about paying rents so high it took most of their paychecks; working two jobs and still not having enough money for food and other necessities; waiting years for Section 8 housing (government assistance); and high deposits and late fees that made it impossible for them to catch up.”
To adjust, BCOC officials said they’ve improved its Eviction Prevention and Court Mediation programs.
According to Erin Lukoss, Executive Director and CEO of the BCOC, the Court Mediation Program is a collaboration between BCOC, Legal Aid of Southeastern PA, and the Bucks County Bar Association.
“We currently work with one district court in Lower Bucks to address individuals and families facing eviction in that court,” said Lukoss. “All parties work with the landlords and the families being evicted to address the issues and hopefully prevent the eviction from happening either through payment or mediation.”
In an effort to step up this program, she explained that the partners intend to include more district courts with high rates of eviction filings to help a larger portion of the community.
She also explained that improvements to the Eviction Prevention Program have already been a success.
“Over the past several years, BCOC has been working with several providers and the county’s housing department to administer the Bucks Emergency Rental Assistance (BERA) program,” Lukoss said. “That program was federally funded during the pandemic. When that funding ended, we returned to pre-pandemic funding sources from the state and private resources. With the assistance of the County’s Housing and Human Services departments and a large private donation, BCOC was able to double the amount of assistance available from $1,500 to $3,000. Rents have increased significantly over the past several years and people are in need of more assistance to remain housed.”
The BCOC also plans to strengthen relationships with are landlords.
“We need to find landlords with available units and who are willing to work with people who have barriers to accessing housing on their own,” Lukoss said. “We have increased the number of landlords we work with to more than 120.”
Working with the county’s Housing Continuum of Care, BCOC Housing Locators have hosted events “for new landlords to get to know us and the many programs available in the county, and to thank current landlords for their work with all of the providers.”
Housing Locators at the BCOC were introduced in 2018.
“As the program has evolved, we have seen a need for specialty housing location services in the areas of families with children, senior citizens and people with mental health diagnoses,” Lukoss said. “In collaboration with the county’s human services and housing departments, we have expanded our staffing to include locators who specialize in these populations’ unique needs.”
The needs assessment also concluded that about 42% of the general population and 72% of stakeholders listed higher wages as the highest priority behind affordable housing.
The BCOC has implemented programming in conjunction with Bucks County Community College to help students increase their earnings. Called “Coaches on Campus,” it aims to help students who struggle financially to stay in college and put them on a career path that will increase their wages.
To learn more about the BCOC and the results of the needs assessment, visit www.bcoc.org.
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