With a HUD voucher for a two-bedroom apartment, Sterling resident Bob Burrell needed a roommate, and after two hip replacements, he needed help with his errands.
Burrell found that help through Operation Match, a county Housing Services program aimed to match residents in search of affordable housing with those who want to share their homes for economic, service or companionship reasons.
"It puts a positive spin on a situation that could be negative," said Burrell, who wanted to find a roommate who could drive him to appointments and to the grocery store and help him around the house in exchange for rent. He needed the assistance, having to use a walker after two hip surgeries and not being able to work or drive since last year. After his second hip heals, he plans to have back surgery to fuse two damaged disks, an injury that caused him to limp and wear away the cartilage in his hips.
Burrell would have been homeless without a housing voucher from the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program, he said. He had to move out of his rental unit by the end of April 2002 when the new residents who bought the townhouse moved in. At the time, the only unit he could find was a two-bedroom apartment, requiring him to find a roommate under HUD's requirements.
"The positive aspects of Operation Match are tremendous," said Burrell, who is 50. "They find someone who wants to help someone else. They find people with the best positive attributes to help someone in need like myself. ... It's amazing how much improvement it's done in my life."
OPERATION MATCH offers an alternative to traditional housing assistance programs for applicants already living or desiring to live in Loudoun.
"It's a wonderful program because it provides a lot of opportunities to pull resources, be creative and find alternatives," said Cindy Mester, director of Housing Services. "It's one way we are trying to solve the gap between demand and supply for affordable housing."
Through home sharing, the program helps reduce the cost of housing and the need for support provided by nursing homes and other institutions, and it prevents the loss of homes from unemployment or a change in living situations.
"We have extreme housing costs, and not everybody can afford housing here," said Kara Brown, housing counselor with Housing Services. "Sometimes it's hard to get started, and we're an easy starting point. We may refer [the clients] to other services they may need to get or keep housing."
Brown and Lynn Barrett, also a housing counselor, match providers, those offering a place to live, with seekers, those searching for a new residence, by conducting interviews and reference and criminal background checks. The matching process they use includes get-acquainted meetings, match mediations and written agreements for living arrangements. They use a counseling model to offer clients in-depth assessments and intensive case support.
"We're looking out for their interests and what they're looking for in a home-sharing experience," Barrett said. "It meets the need of a certain niche of people who are hard-working and who are not able to get out there and rent on their own or buy."
DURING THE FIRST quarter of 2003, Operation Match helped six homeless residents find housing, saving the county $330,900 in tax dollars. Since the program began in August 2000, it has saved the county $1.2 million in tax dollars and helped 279 people secure affordable housing, including 120 people involved in 46 matches and 159 people who found affordable housing through other avenues.
"Our goal is to help people find affordable housing. It doesn't necessarily have to be a match," Barrett said. "We educate them about different programs in housing. Sometimes Operation Match may not be their best option."
"We're a holistic housing program, and we're flexible. ... That way we can meet people's needs," Brown said.
The Operation Match program was developed by Housing Services, the local chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons and the Area Agency on Aging. The program originally was funded with a state matching grant that helped cover $166,000 in set-up costs. The county now funds the program, which costs about $160,000 a year for operating costs, or $59 per month per client.