Homeless Services Network and the Continuum of Care received over $1.6 million in new project funding as follows:

Grantee	Project Sponsor	Amount	Beds	Homeless sub-population served
Homeless Services Network	Catholic Charities	$161,221	24 transitional housing	Female-headed households with children under age 8
Homeless Services Network	Center for Drug Free Living	$371,200	26 transitional housing	Veterans
Homeless Services Network	Lakeside Behavioral Healthcare	$207,110	10 permanent supportive housing	Severely mentally ill individuals
Homeless Services Network	Sanford Housing Authority	$253,470	18 permanent supportive housing	Households with or without children
Seminole County Government	Homeless Services Network Shelter Plus Care	$607,860	11 permanent supportive housing	Chronically homeless individuals

You may download the complete list of new projects that have been awarded across U.S. in the FY 2009 CoC homeless competition from HUD’s Homelessness Resource Exchange (HRE). To view the press release, please visit the HUD web site.

USICH is excited to announce the release of the nation’s first comprehensive strategy to prevent and end homelessness titled Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness on Tuesday, June 22. Opening Doors will serve as a roadmap for joint action by Council agencies to guide the development of programs and budget proposals towards a set of measurable targets.

Each night, 640,000 men, women, and children in the United States are without housing. The HEARTH Act, signed into law by President Obama in May 2009, mandated that USICH produce a “national strategic plan” to end homelessness to Congress. Beginning in January 2010, USICH held regional stakeholder meetings, organized federal working groups focused on specific populations, solicited public comment through an interactive website, and engaged experts from across the country to develop an action plan to solve homelessness for veterans, adults, families, youth, and children.

USICH will announce the historic plan at the White House on June 22 at 9:00 AM EDT with three Cabinet Secretaries: HUD Secretary and USICH Chair Shaun Donovan, Labor Secretary and USICH Vice Chair Hilda Solis, and VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki.

We invite you to join us for the announcement by watching it live on www.whitehouse.gov/live. Opening Doors will be available at www.usich.gov and www.hud.gov. We will also be hosting a live webinar to have a more in-depth discussion with Assistant Secretaries from HUD, Labor, HHS, and VA about the specifics of the Plan. We will release information about the webinar on the USICH website in the coming days.

The proposed rule and the McKinney-Vento Act as amended by HEARTH are available on the HRE at www.hudhre.info/hearth. Interested persons are invited to submit comments on the proposed rule by June 21, 2010 at www.regulations.gov.

WASHINGTON – When an individual or a family becomes homeless for the first time, the cost of providing them housing and services can vary widely, from $581 a month for an individual’s stay in an emergency shelter in Des Moines, Iowa to as much as $3,530 for a family’s monthly stay in emergency shelter in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today released three studies on the cost of ‘first-time’ homelessness; life after transitional housing for homeless families; and strategies for improving access to mainstream benefits programs.

HUD’s cost study is the most comprehensive research on the price tag associated with first-time homelessness and creates a foundation to compare the costs of various homeless interventions. Taken together, HUD’s three studies released today will inform policy discussions on what are the most effective strategies for assisting homeless persons and families in the future.

“These studies expand our knowledge of the true costs of homelessness and raises other questions that go far beyond dollars and cents,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “Now we need to have a serious discussion over what strategies are not only most cost effective, but how we can help individuals and families from falling into homelessness in the first place.”

HUD’s study, Costs Associated with First-Time Homelessness for Families and Individuals, examines how much it costs to house and serve nearly 9,000 individuals and families in six areas of the country. The report studies the cost of first-time homelessness among individuals in Des Moines, Iowa; Houston, Texas; and Jacksonville, Florida. In addition, the Department looked at the cost of first-time family homelessness in Washington, DC; Houston, Texas; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and a large area of upstate South Carolina.

HUD is currently investing $1.5 billion in funding through the Recovery Act’s Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP), to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless and help those who are experiencing homelessness to be quickly re-housed and stabilized.

This report reveals that most of those individuals and families studied experience homelessness only once or twice and use emergency shelter for a limited period of time at fairly low cost. However, HUD also found that some of these households experience longer periods of homelessness and use more expensive programs. While overnight emergency shelter for individuals have the lowest costs, these shelters offer the fewest services in the least private settings and are often open only during evening hours. By contrast, transitional housing is the most expensive model for individuals, frequently offering more privacy and a comprehensive range of on-site services.

HUD’s cost study found:

• Average costs for individuals are much lower than for families, with overnight stays at an emergency shelter for individuals having the lowest daily costs;
• For individuals, transitional housing proves more expensive than permanent supportive housing largely because services for transitional housing were usually offered directly by on-site staff than by mainstream service providers;
• For families, emergency shelters are usually equally or more expensive than transitional and permanent supportive housing because family shelters often offer 24-hour access and private units;
• In the three sample areas studied, first-time homeless individuals were predominantly male averaging between 39-41 years old; and
• Female individuals had fewer stays, but used homeless programs 74 percent longer than their male counterparts.

Average Monthly Cost by Homeless Program Type

HUD also released two additional homeless studies today:

Life after Transitional Housing for Homeless Families

This study follows 195 families in 36 transitional housing programs in five communities for three, six and 12 months after leaving the program. Given the significant investment HUD makes in transitional housing programs, and in light of the program’s costs mentioned above, it is important to understand the effectiveness of these programs. The five study communities were Cleveland/Cuyahoga County, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Houston and Harris and Benton Counties, Texas; San Diego City and County, California; and Seattle/King County, Washington. Among the study’s findings:

• Participants in smaller transitional housing programs were more likely to have their own place to live after moveout and more likely to live with the same household members at the beginning and end of the follow-up year. Participants in larger programs experience higher levels of educational attainment at moveout.

• In some respects, longer stays in transitional housing produced important benefits including higher levels of educational attainment and employment and a greater likelihood of continued employment during the follow-up year. Families spending more months in transitional housing were significantly more likely to have a place of their own for an entire year after leaving the program.

• While transitional housing programs produced increasingly positive outcomes for families with longer stays, HUD found the number of barriers facing families did not impact outcomes. Given the significant costs associated with service-intensive transitional housing programs, HUD’s report brings into question whether this housing model is the most appropriate intervention for those families who do not have significant barriers to housing.

Strategies for Improving Homeless People’s Access to Mainstream Benefits and Services

HUD studied seven communities (Albany/Albany Co., NY; Albuquerque, NM; Metropolitan Denver; Miami-Dade Co., FL; Norfolk, VA; Portland, ME; and Pittsburgh/Allegheny Co., PA) to document how communities mobilized to improve homeless people’s access to mainstream benefits and services in light of HUD’s goal of dedicating a larger portion of HUD homeless assistance funding to housing.

Communities that experienced the greatest success had a strong central organization intent upon improving access of homeless individuals and families to mainstream service. Typically, communities were successful at reducing structural barriers to benefits, such as physical access, complexity and length of application processes, and rules for documenting eligibility. In addition, the study finds evidence that people exiting HUD-funded programs were likely to be connected to mainstream benefits at rates that exceeded national rates for 2007. These communities had the most success enrolling persons and families for food stamps and General Assistance. However, communities struggled with overcoming barriers that were beyond their control, such as eligibility requirements of programs, such as TANF and Medicaid, and capacity barriers, such as an insufficient number of slots available in mainstream treatment programs for substance abuse or mental health services.

###

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 and enforces the nation’s fair housing laws. More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and espanol.hud.gov.

Here is a summary of the award amounts:

Project Name	Program	Component	Grant Term	Award Amount
Total				$3,612,220
Catholic Charities-Shepherd's House 1	SHP	TH	1 Year	$37,203
Center for Affordable Housing-TH1	SHP	TH	1 Year	$84,630
Center for Drug Free Living-ANEW	SHP	TH	1 Year	$175,988
Coalition for the Homeless WRCC	SHP	TH	1 Year	$61,950
Covenant House-Case Managed Outreach	SHP	SSO	1 Year	$92,302
Covenant House-ROPAL	SHP	TH	1 Year	$156,661
Grand Avenue-Homes for New Beginnings	SHP	PH	1 Year	$48,999
Grand Avenue-Safe Haven at Maxwell Garden	SHP	TH	1 Year	$269,745
Harbor House-Community TH-A	SHP	TH	1 Year	$81,885
Harbor House-Community TH-B	SHP	TH	1 Year	$123,553
Healthcare Center for the Homeless-Orlando HOPE Team	SHP	SSO	1 Year	$168,345
HSN Employment Program	SHP	SSO	1 Year	$181,989
HSN HMIS 1	SHP	HMIS	1 Year	$124,388
HSN Scattered Site TH	SHP	TH	1 Year	$94,852
Intervention Services-The Villiages	SHP	TH	1 Year	$136,832
Orange County S+C 1	S+C	TRA	1 Year	$143,676
Orange County S+C 2	S+C	TRA	1 Year	$276,300
Osceola HOMEBase	SHP	TH	1 Year	$123,134
Osceola HOME Residential TH	SHP	TH	1 Year	$118,542
Safehouse of Seminole TH	SHP	TH	1 Year	$51,747
Salvation Army Orlando TH	SHP	TH	1 Year	$127,839
Seminole Behavioral Healthcare-Sanford HOPE Team	SHP	SSO	1 Year	$78,352
Seminole County S+C 1	S+C	TRA	1 Year	$265,248
The Transition House Inc. Men's Program	SHP	SSO	1 Year	$52,500
The Transition House Inc. Men's Program Expansion	SHP	TH	1 Year	$42,105
Wayne Densch Center PLC	SHP	SSO	1 Year	$210,000
Wayne Densch Center TLP	SHP	TH	1 Year	$283,455

HUD recently sent out an email to alert HUD customers to a bogus and deceptive website (http://bailout.hud-gov.us) posing as HUD. The website attempts to dupe people into providing personal information. And because it has been designed to appear to be an official US Government website, people may fall prey to this scam.

HUD’s official website for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is www.hud.gov/recovery.

What web sites like this fake bailout site are doing is called ‘phishing’. The idea is to set up an official-looking web site and then ask curious people to submit important, personal information and pretend that will lead to good things. It usually just leads to spam in your inbox but can, in the worst cases, lead to identity theft.

We can expect more web site like this in the coming months. The lesson here is that you should always be careful with the information you choose to submit to web sites. Always take the time to look carefully at any site and if there’s ever any doubt, do not submit anything. For more anti-phishing advice, visit this web site.

Clearly, we’ll be talking a lot about this news at our next CoC meeting and in the months ahead. For the full details on awards throughout the state, please visit HUD’s Homeless Resource Exchange. For local reaction to this great news, please see the Orlando Sentinel’s coverage.

The SHP Desk Guide was designed to help homeless assistance program staff administering McKinney-Vento grants awarded through the Supportive Housing Program (SHP).  The Desk Guide provides information, key resources and technical assistance on the life cycle of grants obtained through the Supportive Housing Program.  The Guide is not a substitute for program regulations, but instead is a practical resource for common issues that arise during program implementation.

The SHP Desk Guide is available on the “What’s New” section of the HUDHRE web site.

Under Rapid Re-Housing for Families projects, one household may receive leasing dollars one time for 3-6 months or 12-15 months, as determined at the time of the assessment. These households must have lived in emergency shelter or on the streets of 7 consecutive days and have at least one moderate barrier to housing.  Households are expected to independently sustain housing, either subsidized or unsubsidized, at the end of the leasing subsidy; therefore, it is crucial that households are appropriately assessed.  Households may also receive the following supportive services: housing placement, case management, legal assistance; literacy training, job training, mental health services, childcare services, and substance abuse services.

For more information about Rapid Re-Housing for Families projects, consult either HUD’s Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), Part III or a summary by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (www.endhomelessness.org).