Comment Submitted by Cheryl Holcomb, Central Nebraska Community Services

Our agency has been providing services to the homeless since 1997 through several HUD grants. Our agency covers a very large geographic area with very limited resources. Since our grant's inception, we have always been able to match the HUD (Supportive Services) but now with this new change being presented to choose between leasing and rental assistance, it is creating an additional financial burden. In our struggles to decipher this information, it is important to look at all aspects: 1). if we put the lease in our agency's name, we open ourselves to liability within the parameters of leasing. The tenant will not take ownership with that property. 2). if we provide the rental assistance, we must come up with 25% match for that funding. This can be a significant amount of money. Our agency strives to deliver the best services possible with the funding we are allocated. However, this change will be detrimental to our agency in its capacity to deliver services to a very vulnerable population. We have made great strides to address the needs of the homeless population, this change is taking steps backwards in those efforts.