Guilford County Leaders Consider Pooled Fund to Address Homelessness

Guilford County leaders and officials from Greensboro and High Point have been discussing a "mutual aid fund" that would pool public and private dollars from the county and both cities into a single account to address homelessness across the region, but the proposal met resistance from several Greensboro City Council members who argued the cities would not be contributing equitably.

The fund, as described at a recent Greensboro City Council work session, would support shelter capacity, permanent supportive housing and street outreach. It would also be used to strengthen the Guilford County Continuum of Care, the federally recognized coordinating body known locally as the COC, which organizes homeless services and funding across the county.

Several council members pushed back on the concept at the work session, raising concerns about whether each municipality would carry a fair share of the financial burden. Councilmember Tammi Thurm went further, questioning whether Greensboro should commit to any shared agreement given the COC's track record.

"Until we can build some confidence in our COC that has been dysfunctional for so long, some of these questions and some of these agreements are just hard to commit to," Thurm said.

Thurm also noted that Greensboro has absorbed a disproportionate burden in recent years, saying the city has already had to step up to fill in the gaps by itself.

Key specifics about the proposal remain unresolved in public discussions. No total dollar figure for the fund has been announced, nor has any formula been offered for how contributions would be divided among Guilford County, Greensboro and High Point. A governance structure for how pooled dollars would be disbursed has also not been made public, and no municipality has formally committed to the fund.

The absence of those details is central to the friction at the council level. Without a clear allocation model, Greensboro officials have little basis for evaluating whether the arrangement would require the city to continue subsidizing gaps that other partners have not filled.

The proposal's fate now appears to hinge partly on whether county and municipal leaders can establish both a credible funding formula and renewed confidence in the COC as the coordinating vehicle for the region's homelessness response.