Emergency Solutions Grant

The ESG program is available to Non-Profit Organizations and Units of Local Government to help provide transitional housing, emergency shelter, and rental assistance to help people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

Overview

If you are in need of direct assistance, call 211 or contact the Continuum of Care for your County from the link below:

Continuums of Care Contacts

The Emergency Solutions Grant Program (ESG) was first enacted under Title V of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s appropriation act for the fiscal year 1987, and was fully established by the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act in 1988. The original program name at that time was the Emergency Shelter Grant Program.

The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009 amended the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The HEARTH Act included major revisions to the Emergency Shelter Grant Program, essentially changing it to the Emergency Solutions Grant Program.

The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. ESG is a program that may provide assistance to all areas of the state.

Grant funding is used to upgrade existing homeless facilities and domestic abuse shelters, to help meet the operating costs of such facilities, to provide essential services (such as health and mental health services) to both sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons, to help prevent homelessness, to rapidly re-house homeless persons and to assist in the costs of administering the Homeless Management Information System.

Eligible activities for homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing include: rental assistance, utility assistance, moving costs, case management and limited legal assistance.