The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2009 (HEARTH Act) amended the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, revising the Emergency Shelter Grants Program in significant ways and renaming it the Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) program.

Johnson County Community Development has been successfully partnering with local homeless assistance agencies and applying for and administering the ESG grant since 1996. The funds are passed through Kansas Housing Resource Corporation (KHRC) to City and County applicants for program activities including street outreach, emergency shelter, homelessness prevention, rapid re-housing and HMIS, as well as administrative activities.

Once Kansas Housing Resource Corporation publishes the "Notice of Funding Availability", Johnson County sends out a request for "Letters of Intent" to local KS-505 Continuum of Care members. Once all letters of intent have been received by the deadline, a meeting between CoC on Homelessness stakeholders, eligible applicants, and Johnson County staff will be held to discuss the current needs not being met in the community. Once the needs of the community have been prioritized, Johnson County then determines the funding amounts based on those needs and notifies all of the applicants of this determination. Johnson County then collects application materials from interested applicants and compiles all required documents to submit to KHRC by the deadline.

The ESG Interim Rule took effect on Jan. 4, 2012. The second allocation of FY 2011 ESG funding and future years are all subject to the ESG regulations. See the HUD ESG quick reference Guide for more details.