HUD AWARDS OVER $1.2 MILLION TO SHELTER HOUSE IN IOWA CITY
Over $9.3 million awarded to support 41 local homeless housing and service programs across Iowa

Kansas City, KS - U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Regional Administrator Jason Mohr today announced over $1.2 million in grants to support Shelter House homeless assistance programs in Iowa City. HUD's Continuum of Care grants provide critically needed support to local programs on the front lines, serving individuals and families experiencing homelessness. This is the first of two announcements of Continuum of Care awards. View a complete list of all Iowa projects awarded funding (https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2019-iowa-coc-grants.pdf).

"Iowa's overall grant funding increased by $608,000 from 2018," said Regional Administrator Jason Mohr. "The funding announced today is critical to providing more resources to individuals and families to avoid homelessness."

"HUD Continuum of Care funding is vital to our ability to ensure homelessness in our community and across the Iowa Balance of State Continuum is rare, brief, and a one-time experience," said Crissy Canganelli, Executive Director of Shelter House. "Our focus is no longer on managing homelessness but on ending it."

Shelter House will use their 2019 Continuum of Care Homeless Program Grant funding for their FUSE-Housing First project that targets chronically homeless individuals, Shelter House Rapid Rehousing Services at Cross Place Park, a housing-first demonstration project for the state of Iowa, and Shelter House Scattered Site Permanent Supportive Housing.

HUD Continuum of Care grant funding supports a broad array of interventions designed to assist individuals and families experiencing homelessness, particularly those living in places not meant for habitation, located in sheltering programs, or at imminent risk of becoming homeless. Each year, HUD serves more than a million people through emergency shelter, transitional, and permanent housing programs.

HUD continues to challenge state and local planning organizations called "Continuums of Care" to support their highest performing local programs that have proven most effective in meeting the needs of persons experiencing homelessness in their communities.

In 2019, most of the country experienced a combined decrease in homelessness but significant increases in unsheltered and chronic homelessness on the West Coast, particularly California and Oregon, offset those nationwide decreases, causing an overall increase in homelessness of 2.7 percent. HUD's 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness-in-the-us/) found that 567,715 persons experienced homelessness on a single night in 2019, an increase of 2.7 percent since 2018 but nearly 11 percent decline since 2010. The number of families with children experiencing homelessness declined 5 percent from 2018 and more than 32 percent since 2010. Local communities also reported a continuing trend in reducing veteran homelessness across the country—the number of veterans experiencing homelessness fell 2.1 percent since January 2018 and by 50 percent since 2010.

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