Over the course of two weeks in late April and early May, HousingForward Virginia and the Virginia Housing Alliance interviewed CEOs of 21 housing and homeless services providers in the Richmond region. We asked about the impact of COVID-19 on their organizations and on the households and individuals that they serve.
These conversations revealed a wide range of new issues that these organizations are facing. It also demonstrated the resilience of these groups in rapidly adapting to new circumstances. There are heroic stories of the long hours, fatigue and stress that front-line staff are experiencing as well as notable successes in meeting new housing needs through unprecedented collaboration.
This week, we’re finalizing our interim report to the funders of the study. We’ll be publishing it shortly after that. The second phase of the research will take place in late summer and will measure longer term responses and, in particular, utilization of federal resources from the CARES Act and state and local responses. With support from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, we’ll be expanding this research to include more of the state in the next few weeks.