After going dark for almost a full year, Brown County Home Solutions returned on Jan. 1 with a new mission in terms of assisting the less fortunate in Brownwood and the surrounding area.

While Brown County Home Solutions no longer offers a homeless shelter or tiny homes as part of a transitional housing program, a change in how the organization is funded has resulted in new options.

Brown County Home Solutions’ Ashley Pruitt shared with BrownwoodNews.com the organization’s journey from its start to its current status:

In 2020 we opened the shelter. I began volunteering with the organization early in 2020. I got hired on shortly after beginning to volunteer but there was only two of us, the executive director and me, a case manager.

There was an incident where we lost a gentleman in the cold and prematurely opened the homeless, albeit prematurely, which put a lot of strain on the organization.

While we were federally funded, we were not at all prepared for federal grant administration. The reporting and the funding for our grants typically operated on a reimbursement system, so you had to have the money to spend the money. Because of that, and with COVID happening, we lost a lot of funding. We could no longer spend the money to get reimbursed for the money so that put us in a bind.

We also realized very quickly we didn’t have the manpower to operate all these programs as well as administer federal grants.

We ended up losing our federal grants because we didn’t have the funding to be eligible for the grants anymore, nor did we have the people on staff, nor could we pay them to administer these programs through the federal funding. That hit us really hard, but we operated as long as we could with what we had.

We made several attempts and partnered with local organizations, but with federal funding there are strict guidelines and parameters in place on how you can spend the money, and how much can be spent in different directions. That put us in a bind to where we couldn’t make it work anymore, what we were offering was not meeting the needs of the community, so at that point we closed down the shelter in February 2023.

We decided to liquidate the assets and with that funding we would operate with full autonomy to be able to bridge the gap of the need in the community because so many organizations do have funding but still can’t help with things. They’re held to certain standards and guidelines in terms of eligibility, and we wanted to be able to help a broader scope of people, and that was the direction we decided to go.

We weren’t taking new clients and offering services in full capacity from February of ‘24 to Jan. 1 of this year. We spent that time restructuring and figured out how we want to achieve our mission of addressing homelessness in Brown County.

We’ve change our mission statement and it’s not by much, but our transitional housing program was no longer self sufficient and it couldn’t be. The federal government, after COVID, got away from funding transitional housing programs as well as homeless shelters. They’re willing to give money to operate programs and services, but they do not leave room for wages to pay someone to do those jobs. We’re such a small organization that it made it impossible on us.

Now that we have successfully liquidated our assets and have full autonomy over the money, it has allowed us to fill the gaps where other organizations can’t help. We have a lot more money to offer as far community assistance goes.

We’ve seen a massive influx in rent over the last couple of years, so we can’t help with rent right now, but that is a goal within the next two years. We would like to be able to assist with that.

We are offering utilities assistance and on a case by case basis and there are other things that we can offer, but not everyone would be eligible for them. We serve the very low income community.

Brown County Home Solutions is currently able to assist financially with utility bills, security deposits , CARR vouchers, identification services and more.

BCHS is also holding a winter gloves drive and requests donations of coats, socks, blankets, scarves or gloves. Drop off locations include Auto Express Oil & Lube Center, Brownwood Fitness Center, and First Central Credit Union.

“We’re happy to answer questions,” Pruitt said. “We just hit a bump and an obstacle in the road as far as funding. Funding doesn’t always come in the form of monetary donations, but they are very helpful. We’re such a small organization that we won’t be able to operate for more than two years without community support with fundraising and monetary donations, and helping with coat drives and things like that. And we’re still too small to even attempt to administer state or federal grants at this time, so that’s not possible for us until we can get established. But since we have full autonomy of how we spend the money and work on a case by case basis, everyone should reach out because there may be other things we can to do help in other places.”

Brown County Home Solutions operates remotely and can be reached via email at bchstx.info, on Facebook, or by calling Ashley Pruitt at 325-998-1713.