Carbon County wants to help additional families facing homelessness.

On Thursday, a public hearing was held for comment on the application for the 2015 Pennsylvania Emergency Solutions Grant.Carbon County is applying for $40,000 to expand its existing Emergency Housing Services by offering Rapid Rehousing or Homeless Prevention assistance to at least 16 additional families between Oct. 1 and March 31, 2017.Kim Miller, director of the Carbon County Action Committee for Human Services, who is in charge of these projects, said that the $40,000 grant, if successfully secured, would be matched with $40,000 by the Carbon County Action Committee for Human Services for case management, data collection and entry and other financial assistance.Kelly Cummings, case manager for CCAC said it is hard to determine how many are homeless in Carbon County because they are either living in abandoned buildings or moving from place to place.She said Family Promise has served 13 families since the beginning of the year. The figures for Peaceful Knights have not yet been received."When you think of homelessness, you think of people laying under a bridge or in a corner or on cardboard," Commissioner William O'Gurek said."We don't have that type of situation here," Miller responded, noting that the group tries to work with the local police departments to learn about homeless people, and try to do sweeps of areas where people have been known to live."It's very difficult to do," she said.Cummings added that through her discussions with Lansford police, it is estimated that there are 26 people in that town who are homeless, living in either abandoned buildings or on someone's couch."It is important to note that although both the Rapid Rehousing and Homeless Prevention components of this proposed ESG program offer the same services, by ESG standards 'Rapid Rehousing' assistance is only available to 'homeless individuals and families' while 'Homeless Prevention' assistance is available to 'individuals and families in imminent danger or at risk of homelessness that have annual household incomes below the 30 percent area median income guidelines," Miller said.The Rapid Rehousing program would target four groups: homeless families with children who are currently residing in the Family Promise shelters and either qualify for public or section 8 housing via a "homeless priority" or now have or will soon have adequate income/resources to afford future rent and household expenses; homeless families fleeing from domestic violence that have adequate resources to demonstrate affordability or future affordability; homeless disabled veterans or other homeless disabled individuals and families that possess adequate resources to demonstrate affordability or future affordability; and other homeless individuals or families referred by the Carbon County Housing Authority as anticipated to qualify for public housing or section 8 housing in the near future.The Homeless Prevention assistance, which would be in the form of security deposits, utility deposits and payments, rental arrears, targets families with children that can demonstrate affordability or future affordability within the next 90 days; eligible disabled veterans or other disabled individuals or families that can demonstrate affordability or future affordability within the next 90 days; families fleeing domestic violence that can demonstrate affordability or future affordability within the next 90 days; and disabled or nondisabled individuals or families qualifying for public housing or section 8 assistance.Miller said that these programs are only temporary services that will be utilized to help families resolve a housing crisis, and families participating in the programs must complete monthly case management visits.This is the first time CCAC has applied for this grant, Miller said, adding that the reason is because the group has not had the $40,000 match before.She added that she is not sure if the county will be successful in securing the funding, noting that it is a very competitive grant.