The Biden administration announced new funding this week in the continued fight to end homelessness.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced $2.8 billion in funds for local services and housing programs across the country, which will be distributed through HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) Program Competition.
The annual program is a competitive process, Deputy Secretary Adrienne Todman explained to Spectrum News.
“We provide these funds to our grantees, and those are either state government, local governments or nonprofits,” Todman said. “And then they in turn, work with really grassroots local support systems.”
“These are individuals who are probably on the streets in the evening talking to homeless individuals trying to have them come in doors for a meal,” Todman added. “These are folks who are … when someone is, sadly, perhaps a survivor of domestic abuse, these are the folks who are helping them to actually be housed in a way that they feel safe and secure.”
HUD’s Annual Homeless Assessment Report found that 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022. The department credited programs like CoC for helping to prevent a spike in homelessness overall, though homelessness rose for individuals, people with disabilities who experience long-term homelessness, and people in unsheltered setting.
“HUD’s Continuum of Care Awards are really an integral part of our ability to help states and local governments and their partner nonprofits to end homelessness across America,” Todman said.
“These are funds that can be used for a range of uses from providing transitional housing, to our homeless neighbors to helping to prevent homelessness, to begin with, to help with operational costs associated with both of those and, and critically, to also support services for families who need it,” she added.
The administration’s goal is to reduce homelessness by 25% by the end of 2024; Todman says veteran homelessness is already down 11% in the last couple of years.
Earlier this month, the White House announced its 2023 goals to prevent and end veterans homelessness, including placing at least 38,000 veterans experiencing homelessness into permanent housing, and a proposed $3.1 billion investment in providing homeless veterans and veterans at risk of homelessness with permanent housing, access to health care and other supportive services.
For more information about Continuum of Care Competition Award grants, click here.
