This Year, the Obama Administration’s “Continuum of Care” Initiative Funded 7,500 Local Programs to Combat Homelessness

On July 321, 2013, U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a third round of grants for more than 250 homeless housing and service programs in all 50 states, as well as nearly 200 grants to assist with local strategic planning activities provided through HUD’s Continuum of Care Program. Earlier this year, HUD awarded more than $1.5 billion in the first two rounds of grant funding to renew support for more than 7,500 local programs.

This year, HUD challenged local communities to reexamine their response to homelessness and give greater weight to proven strategies, from providing ‘rapid re-housing’ for homeless families to permanent supportive housing for those experiencing chronic homelessness.

The latest $57 million in grants support a wide range of new programs, including creating and implementing systems to make the use of homeless services more efficient and more than 1,900 new permanent supportive housing beds for chronically homeless persons.

The new projects were largely the result of local strategic decisions that resulted in the reallocation of funds from existing renewal projects that were no longer critically needed in favor of creating new programs to help the community achieve the goal of ending homelessness. In addition to offering new permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing to homeless persons, Continuum of Care also links the homeless to services including job training, health care, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment and child care.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said:

Today’s grantee programs will join the thousands of local programs that are on the front lines ending homelessness across the nation. As we continue to see a decline in homelessness, investing in programs that are moving homeless families and individuals to permanent housing is as critical as ever, because it’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s smart government and fiscally prudent.

Continuum of Care grants are awarded competitively to local projects to meet the needs of their homeless clients. They fund a wide variety of programs, from street outreach and assessment to transitional and permanent housing for homeless people and families. HUD funds are a critical part of the Obama Administration’s strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness.

In 2010, President Obama and 19 federal agencies and offices that form the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness launched the nation’s first comprehensive strategy to prevent and end homelessness. Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness puts the country on a path to end veterans’ and chronic homelessness by 2015 and to ending homelessness among children, family and youth by 2020.

According to a 2012 “point in time” estimate, there were 633,782 homeless persons in America on a single night in January of 2012, largely unchanged from the year before. While HUD found significant declines among the long-term homeless and veterans, local communities reported an increase in the number of sheltered and unsheltered families with children.

The Continuum of Care is a set of three competitively-awarded programs, created to address the problems of homelessness in a comprehensive manner with other federal agencies. When HUD publishes a Notice of Funding Availability for Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance in the Federal Register, applicants must submit specific information about a proposed project, along with their Continuum of Care application. Each application must include a certification that the project is consistent with the Consolidated Plan of the jurisdiction where each proposed project is found.

First of the three is the Supportive Housing Program, which helps develop housing and related supportive services for people moving from homelessness to independent living. Program funds help homeless people live in a stable place, increase their skills or income and gain more control over the decisions that affect their lives.

The second, Shelter Plus Care, provides rental assistance that, when combined with social services, provides supportive housing for homeless people with disabilities and their families. The program allows for a variety of housing choices, such as group homes or individual units, coupled with a range of supportive services (funded by other sources). Grantee programs must match the rental assistance with supportive services that are at least equal in value to the amount of HUD’s rental assistance.

The third program is Single Room Occupancy (SRO), which provides Section 8 rental assistance for moderate rehabilitation of buildings with SRO units: single-room dwellings that often do not contain food preparation or sanitary facilities, but which are designed for the use of an individual, A public housing authority makes Section 8 rental assistance payments to the landlords for the homeless people who rent their rehabilitated units.

The state of Virginia has received nearly $1 million in federal grants for new permanent housing and service programs to curb homelessness, through Continuum of Care. Hilliard House, a Richmond shelter for homeless women with children received a $108,864 grant to continue rapidly re-housing residents who remain on the street. The organization will use funds for rental subsidies, financial assistance, supportive services and case management.

Its Executive Director, Ross S. Altenbaugh said:

Across the Greater Richmond area we have definitely gotten aggressive about getting people housed quickly, so I know it’s been a really exciting couple of years in making sure that happens in a more consistent and quicker way.

Over the past three years, Virginia homelessness has dropped by 16%, the number of people in homeless households with children declined by17.3% percent and homeless persons with chronic substance abuse went down by 30%

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