HUD Announces Grant To Create New Homeless Assistance Programs

By Kaeun Yu

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced today that the agency will distribute $216 million in grant money to create roughly 700 new local programs to end homelessness.

Donovan made the announcement during a conference call with reporters.

The grant is part of HUD’s Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housng Program, or HPRP, which acording to Donovan has ended or prevented homelessness for nearly 900,000 Americans so far. 

“These grants support a broad range of housing and services what we call the “Continuum of Care”; from street outreach and safe havens for those with serious health conditions and mental illness, to transitional and permanent homes that families need to start rebuilding their lives, ” Donovan explained.  

Donovan said that the grant comes at a time when poverty is on the rise domestically. A recent HUD survey revealed that between 2007 and 2009, the number of households who spent more than half of their income on rent or lived in “severely substandard housing” grew by 1.2 million people, due largely to the economic recession. Many who fell into this category lived in rural areas.  

“That’s the biggest jump in the history of the survey,” Donovan said.

According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, approximately 3.5 million Americans, including 1.35 million children, are currently homeless. In January, HUD announced that it would invest $1.4 billion this year in homeless assistance programs nationwide. Donovan called it the most his department has ever spent on combatting homelessness.

Quoting President Obama, Donovan told reporters that “homelessness isn’t just a noble fight, it is a problem that we can solve.”