United Community Action Partnership Inc

Community and family services department: in fy2024 ucap assisted individuals and families in crisis with emergency food services at our marshall, tracy, westbrook, worthington and heron lake food shelves. 4,312 unique visits occurred, and 381,117 pounds of food were distributed. Food shelves are open each week and services are available other times by appointment. Food shelves are open to the public for in-person client choice shopping, curbside, phone orders and by appointments. We extended hours on wednesdays to reach the college age demographics in a new partnership with the local college. We also extended services at our worthington location to include saturday shopping hours. Usage is up 63% at all food shelf locations in 2024. We also help people meet their nutrition needs by providing application assistance through the supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap). During fy2024, a total of 2,731 households received new benefits, and 8,165 households received help with getting recertified. Child care programs expanded to now include early learning scholarships, friend/family and neighbor services as well as wayfinder. We continue to see a high need in child care, but 12 new providers were added as well as our first spanish speaking licensed in-home provider!our emergency housing programs assisted households with homeless prevention and other services that include emergency shelter, first month's rent or deposit, utility deposit, and transportation assistance. Households also received support services from trained case managers in developing goals toward self-sufficiency. In fy2024, 286 households were served with emergency shelter, 55 households were served by transitional housing, 50 youth households were served with our youth transitional living program, 962 households were served with the family homelessness prevention & assistance program (fhpap) and 258 youth were served by our youth development program. 2,641 federal returns were filed for low-income households and were served by our volunteer income tax assistance program. Our customers had their taxes prepared and electronically filed. Those households received tax refunds totaling $6,060,941.ucap is the lead grantee with five other community action agencies to provide health care application assistance by trained navigators to a 31-county area. The helping people get there vehicle donation program and our getting to work program supports individuals in their efforts to obtain or retain employment. We receive donated vehicles from community members and match them with individuals referred to us from county workforce centers. In fy2024, 3 families were matched with a donated vehicle.

Transportation program:transportation is a united community action partnership program that provides transportation resources throughout the southwest region of minnesota. Community transit (public transit) and community connection (senior transportation and medical transportation) are services within the transportation program. Community transit is for residents of lincoln, lyon, redwood, murray, cottonwood, jackson, pipestone and rock counties. For 2025, a mndot grant under section 5311 is awarded to cover 95% of the cost for this program, the other 5% will come from farebox revenues. From october of 2023 through september of 2024, approximately 190,000 rides were provided covering over 818,000 miles. Rides were provided with hired drivers in lift accessible buses and volunteer drivers. Three dispatch centers accept and schedule approximately 800 ride requests daily using automated scheduling software. In the same timeframe, just over 12,000 rides were provided under community connection. These rides were provided using lift accessible buses funded under mndot's 5,310 elderly and people with disabilities program. Volunteers drive their own personal vehicle or an accessible community connection van, which allows ucap the ability to offer wheelchair accessible service to locations outside the community transit service area. Vans are operated by volunteer drivers which allows ucap the ability to offer wheelchair accessible service to locations outside community transit's service area. Approximately 9,000 hours were donated by volunteer drivers. A grant was received in 2020 from the minnesota river area agency on aging to provide seniors over the age of 60 to qualify for rides on a sliding fee scale and to ensure rides are not denied due to inability to pay. This will continue into 2025.the transportation program also administers the southwest mobility management initiative. This initiative assists with coordination efforts among public and private transportation providers throughout the nine counties of southwest minnesota. A grant funded by mndot was received to continue this through the regional transportation coordinating council within ucap's service area.

The weatherization program is a grant program that provides services to assist income eligible households with energy repairs to make them more efficient. Services include diagnostic testing, furnace repair and replacement, water heater repairs and insulation. In 2024 we were able to serve 167 household units with weatherization and 84 households with standalone repairs. The energy assistance program provides home heating assistance, emergency assistance and repair of old and unsafe heating systems to income qualifying households. In 2024 we provided energy grants to 4,952 households. Ucap also provided 186 households with the energy and emergency repair program and assisted 1,370 households with the crisis program. We also completed 49 in-home outreach projects. The small cities development program provides financial assistance for low to moderate income individuals who are residing in substandard housing. This program encourages the improvement of the general appearance and value of the housing stock while making a visible and substantial improvement upon the quality of life and appearance of the community. This program offers grant funds owner-occupied, commercial, and rental property owners. This program can provide upgrades to properties, helping them to meet code requirements. During the 2024 program year we had 7 open small cities grants in different communities across our service area. We completed 23 owner-occupied, 0 rental and 11 commercial projects within the program. The murl program offers homeownership to "at risk" households at a 0% interest, no down payment, and contract for deed. This program is aimed at first-time homebuyers with certain exemptions. With funding provided by the mn housing finance agency, homes were purchased to be rehabilitated and sold to qualifying buyers. We currently have 17 murl homes, 15 are currently occupied, with 2 vacant. Mn housing finance agency also offers loan programs for low-income single-family homeowners in need of improvements that directly affect the safety, livability, or energy efficiency of the home. The rehabilitation loan program is a residential, deferred, 0% interest loan up to $37,500. Minnesota housing also created the emergency and accessibility loan program to finance repairs resulting from situations or conditions that could cause or have caused a home to become uninhabitable that offers a deferred, 0% interest loan for low-income households in an emergency situation up to $27,000. In 2024 we completed 17 rlp loans and 2 elp loans. United community action's housing development program has built 2 single family homes and sold 4 single family homes. We have 1 home for sale and are building 5 additional homes in our service area. Construction should finish by spring of 2025.