The Regional Task Force on Homelessness has received a $5 million grant from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund, the largest private gift in the organization's history, it was announced Tuesday.
The RTFH is San Diego's lead agency in addressing the homelessness crisis and recently released the Regional Community Action Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in San Diego which identifies ending family homelessness as one of its five actionable goals.
The Day 1 Families Fund -- created in 2018 by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos -- issues annual awards to organizations "employing compassionate, needle-moving work to help families move from unsheltered homelessness and shelters to permanent housing with the services they require to achieve stability," a statement from the fund reads.
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"We are excited to receive this grant from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund," RTFH CEO Tamera Kohler said. "Families in San Diego are experiencing homelessness at a higher rate than we have seen before. Targeting these resources, we will strive to reduce these numbers and shorten the time any family is without a place to call home," she said. "This targeted, coordinated effort will leverage all available resources to make homelessness in our region rare, brief and one-time. We also recognize families of color experience homelessness at higher rates and are homeless longer. These funds will also be targeted to address this and improve lives of families struggling with homelessness across our region."
The RTFH was selected as a fund grant recipient by a group of national advisors who are leading advocates and experts on homelessness and service provision. The fund has provided 170 grants totaling more than $520 million to organizations around the country working to combat homelessness and help families gain housing support and stability, it was stated in a release.
RTFH said it will utilize the grant funds to establish and expand efforts to address and end family homelessness and focus on expanding and securing units for those in need.
