For Mary Hamlett, the numbers announced by the city Tuesday, June 23, at Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library were not abstract.
The $191,000 Emergency Solutions Grant awarded to the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association, or MIFA, will help families with children avoid homelessness, find shelter when they have nowhere else to go and, in some cases, move into new housing.
“It means homelessness prevention,” said Hamlett, MIFA’s housing stability programs vice president. “It means kids not sleeping on the street.”
That ground-level impact was the main point, as the City of Memphis Division of Housing and Community Development awarded nearly $6 million through its fiscal year 2027 Strategic Community Investment Fund, or SCIF, to dozens of nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups and educational institutions focusing on housing, homelessness services, youth opportunity programs and community development.
The awards were funded by the city’s Neighborhood Partnership Grant program and federal resources from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including the Emergency Solutions Grant, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, HOME-Funded Tenant-Based Rental Assistance and the Community Development Block Grant.
A total of 10 local organizations were granted awards through the federal agencies’ programs. Another 27 received Neighborhood Partnership Grant awards, and four educational institutions received block grant funds to support internship programs.
Ashley Cash, director of the city’s housing and community development department, called the awards “our annual investment into Memphis communities and Memphis organizations.”
“Really, it’s an opportunity to be able to provide service to the community.” Cash said before the ceremony. “We’re supporting community agencies that are doing great work.”
‘Brighter hope’
For MIFA, that work is focused on families with children — a population Hamlett said can be deeply affected when housing becomes unstable.
“We know the impact of homelessness on children,” said Hamlett. “It can impact their education. It impacts their health. It impacts the parents’ ability to work and provide for the family.”
MIFA expects its grant to help shelter about 60 families, assist another five families through rapid rehousing and help about 10 families through homelessness prevention, said Hamlett. Depending on family size, she estimated the funding could affect 250 to 300 children.
“What these programs do is keep families together,” said Hamlett. “It keeps children able to go to school, and it gives them a brighter hope for the future.”
The funding, she noted, is essential to MIFA’s work.
“This is our biggest funding stream for shelter services,” said Hamlett. “How many people may be in their cars at night because they don’t have a place to go? This grant gives them a place to go.”
More than awards
This year’s community investment ceremony introduced a shift in format.
Rather than simply bringing organizations together for award presentations and photographs, the housing and community development department followed the ceremony with a workshop designed to help grant recipients understand how to manage the awarded funds, document their work and strengthen their capacity.
The change was tied to the city’s desire to make the gathering more useful for the organizations receiving support, said Cash.
“We know people’s time is valuable,” said Cash. “If we can get everybody here together, hearing the same thing instead of asking them to come back out for another thing, it’s just a great opportunity.”
The workshop was designed to help nonprofits with “their actual planning, their budget planning, understanding how to manage their program, what we’re looking for in terms of program management,” said Cash, whose department aims to provide information that will help agencies leverage city support as they seek additional funding.
During the ceremony, Cash told recipients the city recognizes the awards represent only part of what it takes to keep community programs operating.
“It’s not just what we’re giving,” Cash told the room. “You all are putting in your time, looking at the other funds, making programs work. You’ve got people depending on you.”
Cash said the department she leads has been administering the funding for more than two decades, dating to 2001, while the public awards ceremony and workshop format began in recent years as a way to better recognize the work of community partners.
“We really had the idea to be able to celebrate with each other,” she said.
Connecting to city priorities
Felicia Harris, deputy director of programs for the city’s housing and community development department, also connected the work of the funded agencies to Mayor Paul Young’s broader priorities for the city, including public safety, housing and neighborhood investment, youth opportunity and workforce development, city infrastructure and services, culture, and economic growth.
The work of many of the agencies in the room for the ceremony directly supports the housing and neighborhood investment pillar, which includes expanding housing opportunities, addressing blight and strengthening neighborhoods.
Harris also pointed to Young’s stated goal of creating 10,000 housing units in Memphis by 2030.
The largest award, $4,094,863, was allocated to Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, or HOPWA. Hope House Day Care Center received the largest individual award of $1,722,058, also through HOPWA.
Friends For Life Corp., also known as Friends For All, received three HOPWA awards totaling nearly $1.9 million. CMI Healthcare Services received $472,940 through HOPWA and $375,000 through HOME-Funded Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, or HOME-TBRA. Cocaine & Alcohol Awareness Program Inc., or CAAP Inc., received $375,000 through HOME-TBRA.
Awards administered by the Emergency Solutions Grant totaled $490,810.55, and were allocated to Hope House Day Care Center, MIFA, Catholic Charities of West Tennessee, YWCA Greater Memphis and Room In the Inn.
Neighborhood Partnership Grant awards totaled $405,000, with 27 organizations receiving $15,000 each. Those recipients included YMCA of Memphis & the Mid-South, RISE Memphis, Young Actors Guild, Heal Memphis DBA Heal 901, Klondike Smokey City Community Development Corporation, Junior League of Memphis, Peer Power, Community Legal Center, Binghampton Development Corporation, Service Over Self, Forward Memphis, Mustard Seed Inc., The Works Inc., World Relief Memphis, United Housing Inc., Victorian Village Inc., Alcy Ball Development Corporation, and Young, Gifted and Green.
The city also awarded $220,000 in block grant funds for internships to the University of Memphis, which received $100,000, and LeMoyne-Owen College, Christian Brothers University and Rhodes College, which each received $40,000.
The range of recipients reflected the breadth of community work the city is trying to support, said Cash.
“There’s just a host of agencies,” said Cash, “that are spanning from community service activity all the way to internships, to housing support and homelessness services.”
For Hamlett, the value of that support comes back to families trying to survive.
“As rental prices go up and people become more unstable, it takes a little more to keep them stable and to help them regain housing,” said Hamlett. “We’re always open for more funding so we can help more families.”
