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Changing Lives |
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Compassion Spotlight
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The Need
There are about 750,000 homeless persons in this country on any given night.
Homeless persons have a variety of issues, including mental illness, low educational attainment, poor employment history, substance abuse, poor health, and a lack of connection to relatives.
Homeless persons cycle through public systems, bouncing from the streets to jails to hospital emergency rooms to psychiatric hospitals and to emergency shelters. This is a very expensive and ineffective way to provide housing. The best research estimates the cost to society of having someone live on the streets is about $40,000 per year.
Even after receiving services, a typical homeless person is soon back on the streets because few public systems are designed to address chronic homelessness.
The Response
President’s Bush FY 2009 budget contains a record level of resources for homelessness, bringing the total Federal investment in homeless programs to $10.5 billion since 2001. This massive investment counts on faith-based and other community organizations (FBCOs) as essential partners in helping homeless individuals transition into stable housing and achieving the President’s commitment to end chronic homelessness.
These efforts are achieving remarkable results.
From 2005 to 2006 (the latest available data), communities across our country report a nearly 12% decrease in the number of chronically homeless individuals. That means that more than 20,000 individuals that consistently lived on the streets and in emergency shelters in 2005 slept with a roof over their heads in 2006.
Estimates in 2002 placed the number of homeless veterans on a given night at nearly 295,000. Last year, VA estimates placed that number at approximately 154,000—indicating the estimated number of homeless veterans has nearly been cut in half in five years.1
The Interagency Council on Homelessness works across the Federal Government to coordinate national efforts to reduce homelessness. Through the efforts of the Council and advocacy groups, several hundred jurisdictions nationwide committed to form local plans to end chronic homelessness.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has played a central role in creating a major expansion in the participation of FBCOs in Federally-funded homeless programs. It has trained more than 40,000 nonprofit leaders in grant writing and other skills that enable effective collaboration with government at more than 290 two-day training seminars held across the country. HUD has also required that virtually all HUD-funded Federal, State, and local efforts addressing homelessness include robust partnerships with FBCOs.
The number of direct nonprofit grantees of HUD’s signature homeless program, Continuum of Care, grew by nearly 500 organizations from 2003 to 2006, a 30% increase.
Since 2003, HUD has provided funding for more than 42,000 new, permanent, supportive housing beds, most of which have been created through faith-based and community organizations.
The Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program (GPD) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) partners with FBCOs to develop and provide supportive housing and services to help homeless veterans transition from the streets to stable housing and employment.
GPD has aggressively worked to expand partnerships with effective nonprofits to meet the needs of veterans. From FY 2002 to FY 2007, the number of faith-based and community nonprofits in partnerships funded through the GPD Program rose from 176 to 506—a 287% increase.
The GPD program has created more than 8,000 transitional housing beds and serves more than 15,000 veterans annually; 2,500 more beds are on the way.
HUD-VASH, an innovative new partnership between HUD and VA, provides homeless veterans with vouchers that enable them to access medical care through the VA, as well as housing and other supportive services through FBCOs partnered with HUD. The 2008 enacted budget provided $75 million for roughly 10,000 HUD-VASH vouchers for homeless veterans, and the President proposed an additional 10,000 vouchers in the FY2009 Budget.
Over 80% of homeless veterans in residential programs with VA services were appropriately housed one year after their discharge from that program.
The Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP) at the U.S. Department of Labor makes grants to FBCOs and other partners to provide employment opportunities to homeless veterans. The program reintegrates homeless veterans into meaningful employment and stimulates effective service delivery systems that address the complex challenges facing homeless veterans.
Each HVRP grant site provides an array of employment-focused services and refers program participants to additional supportive services for housing, substance abuse treatment, transportation assistance, clothing, and more.
Since 2002, HVRP grant sites operated by FBCOs have served more than 80,850 homeless veterans, placing 48,400 in transitional or permanent housing, and helping 52,460 find jobs.
1 A variety of factors contributed to this success, including significantly expanded Federal partnership with FBCOs, more effective coordination of Federal, State and local efforts, substantial reduction in the number of poor veterans (from 3 million in 1990 to 1.8 million in 2000), and enhanced efforts to understand the number and needs of homeless people.
