“United Way Leeds & Grenville releases Community Impact Report and Regional Data and launches the Urgent Needs Fund

Brockville – Today United Way Leeds & Grenville announced the release of the Community Impact Report and Regional Data and launched the Urgent Needs Fund 2024.

Community Impact Report, Regional Data and Resulting United Way Leeds & Grenville Urgent Needs Fund: Overview

Over the last year, we held Community Conversations and identified several needs in Leeds & Grenville. The Survey done in the Fall of 2022 identified the top issues in our community as Housing and Homelessness.

In 2023 the 11 Community Conversations with 371 people, housing and homelessness were identified often. To address this need from a prevention perspective, United Way Leeds & Grenville is launching an URGENT NEEDS FUND.

The URGENT NEEDS FUND is available to people in Leeds & Grenville who are at risk of homelessness due to an extraordinary cost that would leave the person or family at risk of not being able to pay their rent or mortgage that month. The program offers emergency financial assistance with modest one-time grants to address this extraordinary cost such as a winter furnace repair or a car battery for a vehicle that is required to access or maintain employment.

This extra cost may cause that family to be at risk of homelessness, which ultimately increases the numbers requiring shelter accommodation or looking for subsidized housing. This experience is devastating and disruptive for the family. URGENT NEEDS FUND will not, however, cover housing payments or arrears.

We are following a proven model from United Way Simcoe Muskoka, where they assisted almost 1,800 individuals through their pilot project, as well as our own experience with Low-Income
Energy Assistance Program. United Way Leeds & Grenville will be investing 5% of our available campaign dollars in 2024 into this fund for one-time disbursement to families.

Thanks to Rotary Brockville, Brockville Women in Business, the Brockville Business Network and a number of anonymous donors for their support for the URGENT NEEDS FUND.

About Urgent Needs Fund 2024:

Providing financial support to households at risk of homelessness due to poverty, who have emergency or time-sensitive urgent needs that cannot be filled by other available community supports.

About Collective Impact:

This project is the next step in the evolution of the Community Impact agenda and will guide and support the future direction and focus of United Way Leeds & Grenville. Collective Impact brings people together in a structured way to achieve social change. Using this framework allows United Way to approach old and complex problems in a new way by leveraging likely and unlikely partnerships to change the conditions in our community. Collective Impact is a network of community members, organizations, and institutions who advance equity by learning together, aligning, and integrating their actions to achieve population and systems-level change.

About United Way Leeds & Grenville:

United Way Leeds & Grenville is a non-profit agency that supports many local partner agencies in the community. Its mission is to improve lives and build community by engaging individuals and mobilizing collective action. UWLG is dedicated to bringing people together to build vibrant and caring communities. For more information, please visit www.uwlg.org.