HUD SECRETARY DONOVAN ANNOUNCES MORE THAN $2.6 MILLION IN NEW GRANTS FOR 22 HOMELESS PROGRAMS IN MINNESOTA

CHICAGO - U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan today awarded more than $2.6 million to 22 new homeless programs in Minnesota. The grants announced today are an investment in local projects which have never received HUD homeless funds in the past, providing critically needed housing and support services to homeless individuals and families. The grants announced today are in addition to more than $20 million HUD awarded in January to renew funding to 148 existing Minnesota homeless housing and service programs.

"Today, we build on this Administration's goal to prevent and end homelessness in America," said Donovan. "This funding will make a significant impact in the lives of thousands of people and provide resources to put them on the road of independence."

"These new grants will help 22 housing and service programs provide essential support to meet the basic, but critical, needs of those who experience the crisis of homelessness in Minnesota," said Antonio R. Riley, HUD's Midwest Regional Administrator.

HUD is awarding new grants to the following Minnesota local homeless programs:

*SHP = Supportive Housing Program
  S+C = Shelter Plus Care
  SRO = Single Room Occupancy

HUD's Continuum of Care grants fund a wide range of transitional and permanent housing programs as well as supportive services such as job training, case management, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment & child care. Street outreach and assessment programs to transitional and permanent housing for homeless persons and families are also funded through these grants. Continuum of Care programs include:

• Supportive Housing Program (SHP) offers housing and supportive services to allow homeless persons to live as independently as possible.
  
  
• Shelter Plus Care (S+C) provides housing and supportive services on a long-term basis for homeless persons with disabilities, (primarily those with serious mental illness, chronic problems with alcohol and/or drugs, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or related diseases) and their families who were living in places not intended for human habitation (e.g. streets) or in emergency shelters.
  
  
• Single-Room Occupancy Program (SRO) provides rental assistance for homeless persons in one-person housing units that contain small kitchens, bathrooms, or both.

Last year, 19 federal agencies in the Obama Administration announced a plan to end all homelessness through, Opening Doors, an unprecedented federal strategy to end veteran and chronic homelessness by 2015, and to end homelessness among children, families, and youth by 2020.  In addition to the Continuum of Care grant program, HUD's new Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing (HPRP) Program made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is making a major contribution to the Opening Doors strategy. To date, HPRP has allocated $1.5 billion to prevent more than 875,000 people from falling into homelessness or to rapidly re-house them if they do.

HUD's homelessness grants are reducing long-term or chronic homelessness in America. Based on the Department's latest Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), chronic homelessness has declined by 30 percent since 2006. This decline is directly attributed to HUD's homeless grants helping to create significantly more permanent housing for those who might otherwise be living on the streets.

It was also reported in the AHAR that the number of homeless families increased for the second consecutive year, almost certainly due to the ongoing effects of the recession.

For a map listing all grants organized by state, visit HUD's website.

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