HUD Region VI: No. 11-03 Patricia Campbell (817) 978-5974 |
For Release Wednesday January 19, 2011 |
HUD AWARDS $26 MILLION TO ASSIST HOMELESS PROGRAMS IN LOUISIANA PART OF ADMINISTRATION PLAN TO PREVENT & END HOMELESSNESS
Funding comes one week before national one-night count of homeless persons and families
NEW ORLEANS - U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan today awarded nearly $26,272,896 in funding to keep 153 homeless assistance programs in Louisiana operating in the coming year. The grants announced today form a critical foundation for the Obama Administration's Opening Doors strategy, the nation's first comprehensive plan to prevent and end homelessness. For a complete list of funding for individual cities in Louisiana, visit HUD's website.
Today's announcement also comes just a week before thousands of volunteers in nearly every city and county conduct a national one-night count of homeless persons and families. HUD's Let's Make Everybody Count! campaign is intended to document trends in homelessness that are crucial to local planners' efforts to prevent and end homelessness in their areas.
"There is a tremendous need on our streets and in our shelters among those experiencing both long-term homelessness as well as families confronting a sudden economic crisis," said Donovan. "These grants are the life blood for thousands of local housing and service programs that are doing the heavy lifting to meet President Obama's goal
of ending homelessness."
HUD's Continuum of Care grants 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. Continuum of Care grants 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.
Last September, HUD announced 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 in the year.
Barbara Poppe, Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director, added, "Across federal agencies, we are aligning mainstream programs towards a goal to prevent and end homelessness. While we continue to strengthen public-private partnerships in Washington and across the country to meet this goal, today's grants provide essential support to continue the progress and meet critical needs of those who experience
the crisis of homelessness."
In June 2009, the 19 federal agencies and offices that form the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) submitted to the President and Congress the nation's first comprehensive strategy to prevent and end homelessness. The full report is titled Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness (http://www.usich.gov/OpeningDoors.html). The plan 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.
HUD's homeless assistance grants are reducing long-term or chronic homelessness in America. Based on the Department's latest homeless assessment, chronic homelessness has declined since 2005 due to significant investments to produce thousands of units of permanent supportive housing for those who had been living on the streets. 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, almost certainly due to the ongoing effects of the recession. In the last 10 days of January, volunteers from across the country will attempt to count the number of homeless persons living in shelters and on the streets as part of a national point-in-time count. For more information about HUD's "Let's Make Everybody Count!" campaign, visit www.hud.gov/homelesscount.
Based on HUD's 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), volunteers throughout the nation counted 643,000 homeless people during a given night in January 2009. In addition, HUD found that during 2009, 1.54 million people used emergency or transitional housing programs in 2009. A typical sheltered homeless person is a single, middle-aged man and a member of a minority group. Of all those who sought emergency shelter or transitional housing during
2009, the following characteristics were observed:
- 78 percent of all sheltered homeless persons are adults;
- 61 percent are male;
- 62 percent are members of a minority group;
- 38 percent are 31-to-50 years old;
- 64 percent are in one-person households, and
- 38 percent have a disability.
In addition to HUD's annual grant awards, HUD allocated $1.5 billion through its new Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing (HPRP) Program. Made possible 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. To date, more
than 750,000 persons have been assisted through HPRP.
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HUD is the nation's housing agency committed to sustaining homeownership; creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans; and supporting the homeless, elderly, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS. The Department also promotes economic and community development ad enforces the nation's
fair housing laws. More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet and espanol.hud.gov.