Community Services
Neighborhood Service Centers
UETHDA has 9 Neighborhood Service Centers located in its 8 county region. These centers provide friendly assistance, a hand-up so to speak, to our Neighbors by offering them services to help them fight poverty.
Housing
When you experience economic changes in your life it can sometimes be difficult to meet your rent or mortgage obligations. Our housing program is designed to provide you relief as you work toward a better economic situation. For example, this program can be helpful for those who are transitioning between jobs and will be without a check for a short period of time. This program does not help in finding affordable housing.
Self-Sufficiency
The Self-Sufficiency Program assists families and individuals in developing and implementing goals, resulting in greater self-sufficiency and eliminating some of the causes of their poverty-level conditions.
This service is designed to promote the development and implementation of personal goals related to the realization of self-empowerment. Incremental goals will be developed based upon the comprehensive assessment which will assist the household in overcoming barriers.
The areas that will be addressed in the assessment are:
- Education
- Substance Abuse
- Employment
- Transportation
- Parenting/Social Skills
- Child Care
- Mental Health
- Housing
- Nutrition
- Community Integration
- Budgeting/Skills/Money Management
Career Resources
The purpose of this program is to assist individuals struggling to gain employment due to a barrier, or to assist an individual that is employed and is experiencing a situation that may result in termination if the situation is not resolved.
Some of the Services Include:
- Clothing-Uniforms, safety boots, etc.
- Equipment and Tools
- Payment assistance for training and certification, such as CPR,
endorsement on driver’s license, state licensure, etc. - Gas Stipends-to assist during the first month of employment
- Employment/Pre-Employment Physical- if being paid by the neighbor
- Dental/Vision-if client is employed and treatment is necessary to maintain employment
Food Assistance
The Emergency Food Assistance Program, TEFAP, also known as Commodities, is a Federal program that helps supplement the diets of low-income Americans, including elderly, emergency food and nutrition assistance at no cost. The food boxes are distributed by Neighborhood Service Center staff.
The Commodities provide a variety of nutritious free foods that enable low-income families to stretch their grocery dollars. UETHDA distributes the USDA foods in nine different locations throughout the eight-county service area. This generally happens once a quarter, however, if you are struggling with food insecurity contact your closest Neighborhood Service Center.
Items are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to income-eligible households until all commodities are gone.
Income Management
Having a budget is important for everyone so you know where your money is going, and from there prioritizing your needs. We can assist with income management through self-paced classes that will help with this process. Additionally, through this process we can better determine what programs we offer that may help stretch your income further.
We have partnered with Eastman Credit Union and Banzai to bring you an easy to use interactive website to help you with the financial topics in your life. Click here to try it out.
Weatherization
The Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) helps low-income households in reducing their high energy costs while contributing to national energy savings. Weatherization measures provided will reduce heat loss and conserve energy costs by improving the warmth and cooling of a dwelling. It does not matter if the neighbor owns or rents. This service is delivered based on need and due to high demand the wait time can be more than a year.