August 2022

Summer/Fall 2022 Funding Opportunity: Housing

CSHF has recently opened a new funding opportunity aimed at transitional and/or permanent affordable housing.  Health outcomes are affected by many different factors, including living conditions such as housing.  Access to safe, affordable housing is a current problem, and it is worsening. With home rental and purchase prices continuing to rise, safe, affordable housing is increasingly identified as one of the Pikes Peak region’s key community challenges.  For an excellent overview of the connection between housing and health, see “Housing & Health: An Overview of the Literature” in Health Affairs, June 2018.

CSHF seeks applications that focus on maintaining and/or expanding transitional or permanent affordable housing in El Paso and/or Teller Counties. Specifically:

• Funding may be used to increase transitional or affordable housing units or maintain/retain existing transitional or affordable housing.
• Funding may be used for transitional or affordable housing-related needs such as home improvement, weatherization, energy efficiency.
• Funding may be used to facilitate the process of connecting people in need with transitional or permanent affordable housing, e.g. case management, resource coordination, navigation, and support.

NOTE: Emergency shelter and emergency rent/mortgage requests will not be considered.

For more details on this funding opportunity, see our website, and scroll down to Grant Opportunities. The application deadline is Thursday, Sept. 1, noon Mountain Time and a pre-application phone call is required.

Upcoming Funding Cycle Timing Changes

There is an upcoming change to our grant opportunity timing that will affect organizations applying within the Healthy Environments funding focus area.  If  have historically applied within this area, please read on…

Starting in 2023, CSHF will split its funding focus areas across two separate opportunities through which eligible organizations may request general operating, program/project or capital funds:

• Winter/Spring (late November – late April): Access to Healthcare, Suicide Prevention and Preventing/Healing Trauma requests for general operating, program/project, or capital funding.
• Summer/Fall (Mid July – late October): Healthy Environment requests general operating, program/project, or capital funding.

As a friendly reminder, we limit Healthy Environments to requests that:

• Encourage greater physical activity;
• Increase access to healthy, affordable food; or
• Increase or retain transitional or permanent affordable housing

This means that if you have a current open grant award for Healthy Environments-related general operating, program/project or capital, the next likely opportunity for you to apply and be awarded a grant will be Summer/Fall 2023.  This may affect your cash flow projections and budget for the upcoming year. We encourage all Healthy Environments-related funded partners to check in with us to clarify the likely timing of their individual eligibility.

Why the Change?

Our grantmaking has continued to increase year-over-year, and we recently expanded our Healthy Environments funding focus area to include transitional and permanent affordable housing. It no longer makes sense (or is practical) to consider all general operating, program/project, and capital grant requests in one funding cycle.

Here are more details on upcoming funding opportunity, request timing, decision timing to assist you with your revenue planning:

Note: Capacity-building funding and Fostering Collaboration funding will continue to be available year-round (no deadline) for organizations and efforts that align tightly with one of our funding focus areas.

Questions? Please contact staff directly:  Cari Davis ([email protected]) and/or Jamie Brown ([email protected])

What We’re Reading, Watching or Listening to Now:

• Virginia Eubanks New York Times Magazine, “His PTSD and My Struggle to Live With It”
• Healing by Thomas Insel, MD
• The Least of Us by Sam Quinones
• A New York Times article by Jan Hoffman on disparities in overdose deaths.
• Ed Yong’s article, “America Was in an Early-Death Crisis Long Before COVID” in The Atlantic, July 22, 2022.
• Opportunity Insights strikes again with more fascinating research, this time on the role of economic connectedness (the degree of interaction between low- and high-income people) and upward mobility. Check out the New York Times coverage of these fascinating findings or go straight to the source with this research summary .

And, for a personal reflection on his journey with depression and suicidal ideation, read Jeffrey Ruoff’s “Between Not Wanting to Live and Not Wanting to Die ,” Aug. 5, 2022.