Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 10, 1993                   TAG: 9311100205
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TAP SHELTER GETS $1.2 MILLION GRANT

The five-year grant - from the Department of Housing and Urban Development's supportive housing program - will provide $231,000 a year to TAP's Transitional Living Center. TAP must provide $200,000 each year in matching funds to receive the federal money.

The grant is a renewal of matching funds awarded to TAP in 1988, the year the center opened. That grant - totaling $846,000 - provided funding each of the center's first five years of operation.

TAP announced the grant award at a celebration banquet Tuesday recognizing the center's fifth anniversary.

Since it opened, the center has operated at capacity, serving more than 1,300 homeless people. The center combines long-term supportive housing and case management services to help homeless people become self-supporting. A maximum stay is 24 months.

The center now has 75 occupants, 55 percent of them families, said Ellen Brown, TAP's director of human resources.

"The percentage of families has steadily increased," she said. "Our first year, it was 33 percent. Now it's 55. That's a big increase in five years."

Brown attributed that to economic hard times.

"You just can't take care of a family on less than five bucks an hour," she said.

Over the years, TAP has secured matching funds from local, state and private sources. Roanoke, Salem and Roanoke and Botetourt counties have made allocations to the center each of its five years of operation.

State funding comes through a Shelter Support Grant. Private donations come in part through United Way of Roanoke Valley, churches, civic groups - and individuals.

"We rely a lot on individual donations," Brown said. "That's what keeps us going."

The state award has not been substantial, Brown said. She hopes people, through their interest in homelessness, will encourage state legislators to provide more money for transitional housing.

"People go to a shelter, where they can only stay for a couple nights. Then they leave, go to a soup kitchen, go to another place for help," Brown said. "These people need case management, coordination of services and round-the-clock care. We need to make investment and lasting change."