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Help With Housing

Whether you lack housing, need better housing, or need help staying in your home, UCAN may be able to help you. We make sure you feel welcomed when you seek help, and make sure we understand what you most need.

What We Offer

Services we offer for housing depend on your housing situation, and can change if your housing changes. Help can range from short-term to long-term.

We do have limits on how many people we can help, and the range of services we can offer you. If we can’t provide you direct help, we’ll do our best to connect you with someone else who might be able to.

Help With Urgent Housing Needs

If you lack housing, we first focus on your urgent needs. We start by helping you decide what you want to work on first. Maybe you want to address a health concern? Maybe you want to get a job?

While we work alongside you to address short-term goals, we may be able to:

  • Provide supplies to help you sleep, stay warm and secure
  • Help you get food
  • Help you get health, dental and mental health care
  • help you get substance use treatment
  • Get you signed up for Oregon Health Plan, so you can pay any health care bills

We can also refer you to other agencies so you can have other needs met.

Help Getting Housed

If you are ready to look for new housing, we may be able to:

  • Help you search for housing,
  • Help you understand a lease,
  • Help you work with a possible landlord,
  • Help you improve your chance of having a landlord accept you as a tenant.

UCAN also has a small number of low-cost housing units we rent in Douglas County. Our apartments offer many features, such as common rooms and playgrounds. With few units, we are only able to help a small numbers of households, most of whom have special reasons for needing the housing.

Learning to Be a Better Tenant

If you have a lot of things making it hard for you to get a place you want to live in, we have just the thing for you. We offer Rent Well classes to help you be a better tenant and improve your chances of getting a landlord to rent to you.

Classes will help you:

  • Know what a landlord looks at when deciding whether to rent to you,
  • Identify issues that might keep a landlord from renting to you,
  • Create your own housing plan,
  • Create a budget so you’ll be able to pay for rent,
  • Be a good neighbor,
  • Avoid eviction, and
  • Much more!

By passing the class, you make it more likely a landlord will rent to you. We provide landlords with a record that you have passed the class.

Help Paying for Housing

Whether you have been living without stable housing, or simply want to have an easier time paying for your housing, we may be able to provide you help to pay your:

  • Rent bill,
  • Mortgage bill,
  • Move-in costs,
  • Deposit

Help Moving Forward

Most people spend more of their money on housing than anything else. When we can, we want to help you prepare for other parts of your life so you can keep meeting your housing needs.

To do this, we help you take a look at your own needs. We check in with you on many different things. Do you need a car? Do you want more education? Do you need childcare? As you figure out what your needs are, we help you set goals so you can better support yourself.

While we do this, we may also able to do things so you can begin working on your goals. For example, we might be able to help you pay for simple car repairs or get your car title if that’s what you need to move forward. We also connect you with services or supports that help you meet your needs.

As we’re able to, we can check in with you from time-to-time to see how things are going. We try our best to keep you moving forward.

How to Qualify

For all housing services, you need to live in Douglas or Josephine County. To obtain help paying for housing, or to obtain UCAN housing, you also need to have an income less than a certain amount.

If you want to take a Rent Well class

You may be able to get help paying for housing if

You may be able to live in UCAN housing if

Our Process

For most housing services, including help with housing costs:

1. Start by letting us know you need help. In Douglas County, please call (541) 672-5392 or e-mail us at dccm@ucancap.org. In Josephine County, please call (541) 956-4050 or contact us by email at jccm@ucancap.org.

2. We will schedule a time to chat about your initial needs.

3. If we are able, we will connect you with one of our case workers.

4. They will help you figure out what all of your needs are, what you want to do to address those needs, and how to move forward to best meet them.

5. They’ll help you connect with services you need, and work with you to get resources so you can move forward.

6. If you need help paying for housing, they will see if we have a program to help you make your payments.

If you want UCAN Housing:

1. Start by letting us know that you are interested in our housing. Please call us at (541) 492-3510. Remember we only have units in Douglas County.

2. We’ll get some basic info from you and place you on our waitlist.

3. When you reach the top of the waitlist, we will contact you to see if you still want a unit.

4. If so, we will have you complete an application for that unit.

5. If we see that you qualify for the unit, we will go over our lease with you.

6. Once you sign the lease, we will provide you keys and prepare you for move-in.

If you want to enroll in a Rent Well class:

1. Please contact us in Douglas County (541) 492-3592 or email seth.kirby@ucancap.org In Josephine County, you can call (541) 956-4065 or email holly.fifield@ucancap.org

2. We will make sure that the class is a good fit for your needs.

3. If it is, we will let you know when our next class is, and get you enrolled.