HUD Awards $1.4 Billion in Homeless Aid to Local Providers
U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced $1.41 billion in funding for 7,000 homeless programs across the country. The grants represent a main piece of the Obama Administration’s Opening Doors strategy, a comprehensive plan to prevent and end homelessness.
These projects represent renewals since HUD announced last September that it would renew funding through HUD’s Continuum of Care programs to existing local programs as quickly as possible to prevent any interruption in federal assistance. HUD will award funds to new projects later this year.
The Continuum of Care grants that were announced provide permanent and transitional housing to homeless persons as well as services including job training, health care, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment and child care. They are awarded competitively to local programs to meet the needs of their homeless clients. These grants fund a wide variety of programs from street outreach and assessment programs to transitional and permanent housing for homeless persons and families.
HUD’s homeless assistance grants that were announced as well, are aimed at reducing long-term or chronic homelessness in America. Based on the Department’s latest homeless assessment, chronic homelessness has declined since 2005, mostly due to significant investments to produce thousands of units of permanent supportive housing. While the total number of homeless persons in America dropped slightly between 2008 and 2009, the number of homeless families increased for the second consecutive year.
In addition to these annual grant awards, HUD allocated $1.5 billion through its new Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP). Funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, HPRP is intended to prevent persons from falling into homelessness or to rapidly re-house them if they do.
In Indiana, $13, 851, 121 was awarded to 110 agencies.
For a complete list of recipients in Indiana, click here.
To read HUD’s press release regarding this announcement, click here.
To read the Obama Adminsitration’s Opening Doors report detailing their strategy to end veterans and chronic homelessness by 2015; and to ending homelessness among children, family, and youth by 2020, click here.
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