For the second time in two weeks, Chautauqua County officials have announced a program that will help deal with the county’s homelessness problems.

The county Social Services Department last week announced the Public Assistance Shelter Supplement initiative in an attempt to bridge the gap between public assistance shelter allowances and real-world rental rates. The supplement temporarily solves one of the issues that has helped drive the number of families struggling to stay in their apartment to all-time highs.

By reducing reliance on emergency hotel placements and supporting up to 175 households per month across the county, at full capacity, the program has the ability to have up to $2 million local share savings for single/childless couples and up to $600,000 local share savings for families. Eligibility is determined based on public assistance status and current housing need, and supplements are tailored to household size and fair market rent rates.

The county’s recently announced Family-Centered Case Management Initiative brings a team of case managers and senior caseworkers to work directly with families placed in temporary housing. They assess each family’s needs in an effort to help the families become more stable financially and connect them with community resources that include mental health and substance use services, employment and financial stability programs, long-term housing assistance, child care and transportation support. The program works to resolve the issues that placed the family on the brink of homelessness.

In our opinion, the Public Assistance Shelter Supplement, while worthwhile, doesn’t work the same way. It will keep people from ending up in temporary housing, which is a good thing. But it doesn’t solve the root cause of why that family needs the county’s help – low wages, high inflation, high housing costs and lagging public housing support from the state. The county is stepping in, and will save money in the short-term, but the PASS program is a spoonful of sugar, not the medicine that cures what ails our housing market.

It took some time, but the county is taking some concrete steps to help address the homelessness issue. While the Family-Centered Case Management Initiative should change the way the county uses its safety net funding, the PASS initiative needs to be a short-term program while the bigger issues that plague the low-income housing supply in Chautauqua County are solved.