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Jennifer HoSenior Adviser on Housing and ServicesOffice of the Secretary
FY 16-17: Agency Priority Goal
End homelessness
Priority Goal
Goal Overview
The annual “Point-in-Time” (PIT) count estimates the scope of homelessness on a single night in January. Based on data reported by more than 3,000 cities and counties, the January 2016 one-night estimate reveals a 47 percent drop in homelessness among veterans and a 27 percent reduction among individuals experiencing long-term or chronic homelessness since the 2010 release of Opening Doors. HUD's estimate also found a decline of 23 percent in the number of families experiencing homelessness since 2010. Overall, a total of 549,928 people experienced homelessness in the United States on a single night in January 2016.
In 2010, the Obama administration released Opening Doors, the first-ever comprehensive federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness. The plan set the stage for HUD’s goals of preventing and ending homelessness for veterans by 2015; preventing and ending homelessness for individuals experiencing chronic homelessness by 2017; preventing and ending homelessness for families, youth, and children by 2020; and ultimately setting a path to ending all types of homelessness.
HUD continues its longstanding work with the US Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) and all its other federal, state, and local partners to deploy effective solutions, such as rapid re-housing, permanent supportive housing, and housing vouchers for the populations for which they are proven effective. These tools should be informed by a Housing First approach, in which preconditions and barriers to housing entry are removed and people move into housing as quickly as possible. HUD and its partners are taking concerted steps to understand the best strategies to prevent and end homelessness among unaccompanied youth, especially for high-risk groups, including youth aging out of foster care and LGBTQ youth. HUD’s success in reducing homelessness depends on effectively using and targeting resources. However, continued investments in programs that work, such as HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants, are crucial to reaching the goals laid out in Opening Doors.
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Strategies
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Implement the Homeless Emergency and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act amendments to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and encourage Continuums of Care (CoC) to use their existing resources more effectively. In particular, CoCs are urged to reallocate existing projects to create new permanent supportive housing for individuals experiencing chronic homelessness or rapid re-housing for households with children that are coming from the streets or shelters. HUD will urge and support CoC efforts to prioritize the chronically homeless and those whose needs are most severe in all existing permanent supportive housing.
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Fully engage and leverage mainstream housing assistance, including Housing Choice Vouchers, Public Housing, HOME Investment Partnerships and Community Development Block Grants, and Multifamily Housing. We will build capacity among public housing authorities and multifamily property owners to serve more households experiencing homelessness in their programs.
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Improve data and performance management through the adoption of a common data standard for housing stability and sharing data across systems, such as Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) and systems used by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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Continue to strengthen collaborations at all levels of government and with the private sector, including within HUD and with the US Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), the VA, HHS, the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and others.
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Implement USICH Framework to End Youth Homelessness, integrate HMIS and Runaway and Homeless Youth Management Information Systems (RHYMIS), and leverage HUD’s Point-in-Time count to improve strategies for identifying and serving youth experiencing homelessness.
- Promote implementation of coordinated assessment systems for CoCs through training, technical assistance, and guidance by the Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs to better target resources.
Progress Update
On November 17, 2016, HUD released the 2016 Point-in-Time (PIT) count, which found that 549,928 persons experienced homelessness on a single night in 2016, a decline of 14 percent overall since the 2010 launch of Opening Doors. Homelessness has continued to fall across all groups, including one-year reductions of 17% among veterans, 7% among individuals experiencing chronic homelessness, and 5% among families since the 2015 PIT. This progress has been realized locally through the implementation of proven Housing First strategies and the increased coordination of partners, including groups from housing, healthcare, criminal justice, elected office, and the business community.
Nationally, HUD has committed to lifting up what works. The competition to award FY 2015 Continuum of Care (CoC) grants was the most competitive ever, eliminating $124 million from low-performing projects to provide permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing solutions for those experiencing homelessness. The program awarded $1.9 billion to almost 8,000 local homeless housing and service programs across the country.
HUD achieved notable milestones across all subpopulations in 2015 and 2016[1], as described below:
Veterans: Since 2010, homelessness among veterans has been reduced by 47%. HUD has not yet met its goal to end veteran homelessness, with 39,471 veterans experiencing homelessness in the 2016 PIT count (compared to a goal of 12,500), but more than 30 communities have effectively ended homelessness among veterans, including the entire states of Virginia, Connecticut, and Delaware. In 2016, HUD and VA focused on getting resources to reach and work in all communities. On January 6, 2016, HUD and VA awarded $5.9 million for 500 vouchers across 26 tribes for a HUD-VASH demonstration on tribal reservations. On June 2, 2016, HUD and VA awarded $38 million to help more than 5,200 chronic and highly vulnerable veterans. On November 14, 2016, the two agencies announced the largest project-based award to date, $18.5 million for over 2,100 units across 39 PHAs, to increase the stock of available affordable housing in the wake of increasingly tight rental markets, especially in the west. In December, 600 vouchers were awarded to serve veterans experiencing homelessness in rural areas. In addition to these special set-asides, communities have continued to make use of existing resources dedicated to supporting homeless veterans, and to leverage CoC and other affordable housing resources for veterans who are not eligible for VA healthcare services. HUD is committed to making homelessness rare, brief, and one-time for all men and women who have worn a uniform, no matter where they are.
Individuals experiencing chronic homelessness: Since 2010, chronic homelessness has been reduced by 27%, with a single-year decline of 7% (or 5,684 individuals) from 2015 to 2016, according to the 2016 PIT count. While no new resources have been provided, HUD has redirected existing resources to make progress on this goal, although it has not yet reached its target. On December 4, 2015, HUD published the Final Rule on Defining “Chronically Homeless,” providing a final Federal definition of the population of people experiencing chronic homelessness. This final definition fixes a long-standing ambiguity in the original definition and gets us closer to the originally intended target population—the subset of people with high service needs and disabilities who, if not provided with long-term housing assistance and supportive services (e.g., permanent supportive housing), would likely remain homeless. HUD continues to hold communities accountable for targeting permanent supportive housing (PSH) to individuals experiencing chronic homelessness; 49% of FY 2015 CoC-funded PSH units (awarded in FY 2016) were targeted to chronically homeless individuals compared to 23% in FY13.
Families: Since 2010, family homelessness has been reduced by 23%, with a single-year decline among family households of 5% (2,932) from 2015 to 2016, according to the 2016 PIT count. On October 25, 2016 HUD released the Family Options Study: Three-year Impacts of Housing and Services Interventions for Homeless Families, which showed that 37 months after enrolling into the study and being randomly assigned to one of four interventions, the families offered a long-term subsidy experienced significant reductions in subsequent homelessness and in housing and school mobility. Families offered rapid rehousing or transitional housing had similar outcomes to families offered usual care (i.e., not given preferential access to a particular intervention), but rapid rehousing programs proved to be significantly less expensive. As such, HUD continues to use the Continuum of Care (CoC) NOFA to incentivize providing long-term subsidies through permanent supportive housing and shorter term assistance through rapid rehousing, awarding the most competitive CoC grant ever in 2016. HUD also continues to encourage the use of Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) for rapid rehousing; 27% of the FY 2015 funds were used for this purpose, up from 23.5% in 2013. Finally, HUD is working with PHAs and Multifamily property owners to develop preferences for and serve a greater number of households experiencing homelessness through mainstream affordable rental housing programs; as of the third quarter of FY 2016, 20,797 households exited homelessness through HUD-assisted housing.
Youth: HUD is working in partnership with the Department of Education (ED), Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), and USICH to develop a shared understanding of where children and youth are experiencing homelessness and the interventions needed to serve them. The 2017 PIT count will serve as the baseline measure of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. In FY 2016, $33 million was appropriated to HUD to provide funding to up to 10 communities for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program to develop and execute a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness; four of the selected communities will be rural communities. This NOFA went out on August 22, 2016 and applications were due on November 30, 2016.
[1] Reporting on homelessness reductions uses data recorded in the January 2016 PIT count, and therefore refers to progress made over the course of 2015. However, the below Q4 progress updates also include HUD actions taken during 2016 that are intended to reduce homelessness in the future.
Next Steps
Supporting All Goals of Opening Doors
12/31/2015: Publish the HMIS Final Rule. Delayed as of this publication. Comments and final edits are still under review.
2/15/2016: Announce FY 2015 CoC Program Competition awards per the FY 2015 Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA). The FY 2015 NOFA selection criterion is HUD’s primary policy tool to fulfill the Opening Doors goals. Achieved March 2016. HUD announced Tier 1 funding on March 9, which represent 85% of the total CoC award. Tier 2 announcement was made May 2.
7/31/2016: Publish the Notice for public comment for the CoC Program Interim Rule. Delayed as of this publication. HUD is working with other agencies in the Department to prepare the document for release.
Population-Specific Goals
End of 2015: End veteran homelessness.
- 1/31/2016: With VA, encourage maximum participation among communities in the 2016 PIT count. Achieved January 2016. HUD set a target of 80 percent coverage of the unsheltered homeless count in the 2016 PIT count. Unsheltered counts are required every other year; HUD is targeting communities with historically high unsheltered PIT counts to ensure the most accurate measure through the end of 2015. Community participation was greatly improved in the 2016 PIT count, resulting in 75 percent coverage of the unsheltered homeless count and 85 percent of communities conducting an unsheltered count.
End of 2017: End chronic homelessness.
- 12/1/2015: Start operation of all new projects awarded bonus funds in FY 2014 for PSH dedicated units to serve the chronically homeless. Achieved October 2015. HUD announced its project awards, including the Permanent Housing Bonus projects, in January 2015. All projects were in operation by October 2015.
- 12/31/15: Publish the Chronic Homelessness definition Final Rule. Achieved December 2015. The Final Rule was published on December 4, 2015 and may be found at: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-12-04/pdf/2015-30473.pdf
End of 2020: End youth homelessness.
- 11/1/2015: Integrate HMIS and HHS’s RHYMIS to better track and engage youth in services. Achieved November 2015. As of November 16, all Runaway and Homeless Youth grant recipients were required to report client data into HMIS, for more unified homeless assistance system tracking and services.
- 1/1/2017: Complete the LGBTQ Youth Homelessness Prevention Initiative in two pilot communities. Making Progress. While the initiative will be completed in January 2017, the communities will continue to implement homelessness prevention efforts for LBGTQ youth experiencing homelessness.
End of 2020: End family homelessness.
- 7/31/2015: Provide PHAs and multifamily property owners with resources and assistance for serving families and households experiencing homelessness. Achieved June and November 2015. The Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) worked with USICH to provide guidance and best practices PHAs can use to strengthen collaborations with their community’s homeless assistance network, which can be found online. On November 19, Multifamily Housing released a toolkit covering lessons and best practices of 10 communities that HUD funded to pilot the Dedicating Opportunities to End Homelessness (DOEH) Initiative in 2012.
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Performance Indicators
Total homeless Veterans temporarily living in shelters or transitional housing
Total Veterans living on the streets, experiencing homelessness
Individuals experiencing chronic homelessness
Number of new permanent supportive housing beds dedicated to individuals and families experiencing chronic homelessness
Percent of new permanent supportive housing beds dedicated to individuals and families experiencing chronic homelessness
Contributing Programs & Other Factors
The HUD programs contributing to the achievement of this goal include:
- HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) Program
- Continuum of Care Permanent Supportive Housing
- Continuum of Care Transitional Housing
- Emergency Solutions Grant Program
- Housing Choice Vouchers
- Public Housing
- Multifamily Housing Programs
Contributing programs or partners outside the agency: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH); Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Department of Labor (DOL); Department of Education (ED) and a host of other federal agency partners.
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Strategic Goals
Strategic Goal:
Use Housing as a Platform to Improve Quality of Life
Statement:
Use Housing as a Platform to Improve Quality of Life
Strategic Objectives
Statement:
End homelessness for veterans, people experiencing chronic homelessness, families, youth, and children.
Description:
HUD’s annual “Point-in-Time” estimates measure the scope of homelessness on a single night in January of each year. Based on data reported by more than 3,000 cities and counties, the January 2013 one-night estimate reveals a 24-percent drop in homelessness among veterans and a 16-percent reduction among individuals experiencing long-term or chronic homelessness since 2010. HUD’s estimate also found the largest decline in the number of persons in families experiencing homelessness since the Department began measuring homelessness in a standard manner in 2005. Overall, a total of 610,042 people experienced homelessness in the United States on a single night in January 2013.
Homelessness among unaccompanied youth is a hidden problem, which HUD and its partners are taking steps to solve. Some subpopulations of youth are at particularly high risk for homelessness, including youth aging out of foster care and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth.
In 2010, the Obama Administration released Opening Doors*, the first ever comprehensive federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness. The goals of the plan are to prevent and end veterans’ and chronic homelessness by 2015, to prevent and end homelessness for families, youth, and children by 2020, and to set a path to ending all types of homelessness. HUD remains committed to the goals of Opening Doors, but to reach them the pace of current efforts must accelerate. Over the next 5 years, HUD will work with its partners to deploy the solutions that we know are effective for the right persons, such as rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing. These tools must be informed by a Housing First approach, whereby preconditions and barriers to housing entry are removed and people move into housing as quickly as possible.
*United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness (June 2010).
Statement:
Promote advancements in economic prosperity for residents of HUD-assisted housing.
Description:
Residents of HUD-assisted housing often face challenges such as lack of employable skills and low educational attainment levels that limit their ability to become economically self-sufficient and rise out of poverty. The Department recognizes that, while some families and individuals will need assistance for longer periods, others are capable, with assistance, of rising out of poverty. A majority of adults receiving rental assistance who are able to work have some income from wages; however, they are most often in the lowest paying jobs. Further, increasing workplace demands for technical expertise require attention to education and training for both adults and youth, including digital literacy. HUD will utilize its housing platform to expand access to employment and educational services. HUD seeks to significantly increase the economic opportunities available to low-income residents in neighborhoods where it invests, particularly through the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program and Section 3.
Statement:
Promote the health and housing stability of vulnerable populations.
Description:
Many residents of HUD-assisted housing face health-related challenges, especially elderly people, people with disabilities, homeless people, and those individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless. New studies of the health status of HUD residents show that they have higher rates of chronic health conditions and higher utilization of hospitals and emergency rooms than peer comparison groups. Some may have a criminal record, a history of homelessness, be making the transition out of military service back into civilian life, or be transitioning out of healthcare treatment settings.
In 2013, one out of every six Americans did not have health insurance. Hardworking families in HUD housing may not get insurance from their employers, and they may not make enough money to afford a plan for their family. Without health insurance, families risk forgoing necessary preventive care or facing economic catastrophe from a major illness.
In January 2014, many more affordable insurance options became available through the new health insurance marketplaces, including, in those states that have opted in, an expansion of Medicaid. When residents of HUD-assisted housing also have health insurance, they gain an additional stepping stone to better health and financial security. This makes for healthier, stronger households and communities.
The Affordable Care Act can help as many as 40 million currently uninsured Americans find greater peace of mind and financial stability that will help them work toward their own goals and dreams. Access to health insurance is important, but so too is access to health care. As the healthcare system develops new tools to provide better care at a lower cost, new partnerships are needed between housing and the healthcare system.
Additionally, work led by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and HHS related to enforcement of and compliance with the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision reinforces the rights of individuals with disabilities to live, work, and receive services in the greater community in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. As a result of Olmstead, there is a significant need for affordable, integrated housing opportunities where individuals with disabilities are able to live and interact with individuals without disabilities. Achieving this goal requires an increase in the supply of integrated housing options so that individuals have meaningful choice in where they live, including housing without services and supportive housing with access to voluntary services.
HUD also helps protect the health of residents of assisted multifamily and public housing from both direct and environmental (that is, second- and third-hand) tobacco smoke exposure by encouraging owners of assisted housing and PHAs to issue and implement smoke-free policies and by providing outreach and technical support. The Department will enhance those efforts to help reduce the extent of this public health problem among residents of its housing portfolio.
Agency Priority Goals
Statement:
In partnership, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) aim to reduce the number of Veterans living on the streets, experiencing homelessness to zero (as measured by the 2016 Point-in-Time count).
Description:
This goal represents HUD’s effort to reduce homelessness among Veterans. Veterans are overrepresented in the homeless population; while only 9.3 percent of the U.S. adult population has Veteran status, Veterans represented approximately 11.3 percent of homeless adults at a given point in time in 2014. On a single night in January 2014, there were 49,933 Veterans reported as experiencing homelessness. Veterans experiencing homelessness often face the same issues that lead others into homelessness, including a lack of affordable housing and inadequate income and savings. Service men and women returning from active duty may also have specific challenges, such as lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse, which can make it more difficult for them to find and maintain adequate employment and, consequently, to pay for housing.
Effectively transitioning Veterans experiencing homelessness to permanent housing requires access to healthcare, employment, and benefits. Because Veterans have greater medical and mental health needs than non-Veterans, healthcare and its associated benefits play a significant role in achieving and maintaining stability in permanent housing for Veterans experiencing homelessness. Employment and VA benefits are critical in providing Veterans the income required to support housing and other daily living expenses.
HUD and VA continue to implement proven systems of service delivery to end Veteran homelessness, especially among those experiencing chronic homelessness, such as the Housing First approach. Housing First offers individuals and families experiencing homelessness immediate access to permanent affordable or supportive housing. Reducing clinical and economic barriers, Housing First yields higher housing retention rates, lower returns to homelessness, and significant reductions in the use of crisis service and institutions.
Strategic Objectives
Strategic Objective:
Statement:
End homelessness for veterans, people experiencing chronic homelessness, families, youth, and children.
Description:
HUD’s annual “Point-in-Time” estimates measure the scope of homelessness on a single night in January of each year. Based on data reported by more than 3,000 cities and counties, the January 2013 one-night estimate reveals a 24-percent drop in homelessness among veterans and a 16-percent reduction among individuals experiencing long-term or chronic homelessness since 2010. HUD’s estimate also found the largest decline in the number of persons in families experiencing homelessness since the Department began measuring homelessness in a standard manner in 2005. Overall, a total of 610,042 people experienced homelessness in the United States on a single night in January 2013.
Homelessness among unaccompanied youth is a hidden problem, which HUD and its partners are taking steps to solve. Some subpopulations of youth are at particularly high risk for homelessness, including youth aging out of foster care and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth.
In 2010, the Obama Administration released Opening Doors*, the first ever comprehensive federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness. The goals of the plan are to prevent and end veterans’ and chronic homelessness by 2015, to prevent and end homelessness for families, youth, and children by 2020, and to set a path to ending all types of homelessness. HUD remains committed to the goals of Opening Doors, but to reach them the pace of current efforts must accelerate. Over the next 5 years, HUD will work with its partners to deploy the solutions that we know are effective for the right persons, such as rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing. These tools must be informed by a Housing First approach, whereby preconditions and barriers to housing entry are removed and people move into housing as quickly as possible.
*United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness (June 2010).
Agency Priority Goals
Statement: In partnership, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) aim to reduce the number of Veterans living on the streets, experiencing homelessness to zero (as measured by the 2016 Point-in-Time count).
Description: This goal represents HUD’s effort to reduce homelessness among Veterans. Veterans are overrepresented in the homeless population; while only 9.3 percent of the U.S. adult population has Veteran status, Veterans represented approximately 11.3 percent of homeless adults at a given point in time in 2014. On a single night in January 2014, there were 49,933 Veterans reported as experiencing homelessness. Veterans experiencing homelessness often face the same issues that lead others into homelessness, including a lack of affordable housing and inadequate income and savings. Service men and women returning from active duty may also have specific challenges, such as lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse, which can make it more difficult for them to find and maintain adequate employment and, consequently, to pay for housing. Effectively transitioning Veterans experiencing homelessness to permanent housing requires access to healthcare, employment, and benefits. Because Veterans have greater medical and mental health needs than non-Veterans, healthcare and its associated benefits play a significant role in achieving and maintaining stability in permanent housing for Veterans experiencing homelessness. Employment and VA benefits are critical in providing Veterans the income required to support housing and other daily living expenses. HUD and VA continue to implement proven systems of service delivery to end Veteran homelessness, especially among those experiencing chronic homelessness, such as the Housing First approach. Housing First offers individuals and families experiencing homelessness immediate access to permanent affordable or supportive housing. Reducing clinical and economic barriers, Housing First yields higher housing retention rates, lower returns to homelessness, and significant reductions in the use of crisis service and institutions.
