Los Angeles, Portland, Ore. to Declare Homelessness Emergencies

Alliance Online News View in browser www.endhomelessness.org Tuesday, September 29, 2015 spotlight on... Los Angeles, Portland, Ore. to Declare Homelessness Emergencies This month two major U.S. cities, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., announced that homelessness had reached emergency levels. In Los Angeles, where homelessness in the city and county has increased 12 percent since 2013, city leaders said they would announce a state of emergency and devote $100 million to the problem. In Portland, Ore., Mayor Charlie Hayes announced the city is in the midst of a housing emergency, a move that, if approved by the city council, may allow the city more discretion to waive zoning codes and rapidly convert city-owned buildings into shelters. CityLab: What a State-of-Emergency Means for the Homeless » hill update Congress Expected to Pass Continuing Resolution On Monday, Sept. 28, the Senate gave a strong vote of confidence (77-19) to a clean continuing resolution (CR), or stopgap funding measure. The CR would continue funding government programs, including low-income housing and homelessness programs under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, at approximately FY 2015 levels through the beginning of FY 2016, until December 11. The CR is expected to pass through the Senate today and the House sometime this week. Congress must pass a CR before October 1, the start of the next fiscal year, to avoid a government shutdown. Pope Francis: There is No Justification for Homelessness After addressing the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, Sept. 23., Pope Francis spoke to an audience of homeless and low income clients of Catholic Charities. “We can find no social or moral justification, no justification whatsoever, for lack of housing,” he said in his remarks, which he delivered in Spanish at St. Patrick’s Church in Washington, DC. The appearance was part of a six-day, three-city tour of America. Watch video » alliance events Upcoming Webinar: Reviewing and Ranking Projects in the 2015 CoC NOFA Friday, Oct. 2, 1 to 2 p.m. EDT On Friday, Oct. 2, the Alliance will host a webinar for Continuum of Care (CoC) leadership and board members that will provide examples for conducting a competitive project review and ranking process for the Fiscal Year 2015 CoC Competition. Speakers, including Kelly King Horne of Homeward in Richmond, Va., and Cynthia Nagendra of the Alliance, will discuss setting funding priorities, and evaluating and scoring projects. Register » alliance events Webinar Rescheduled for Oct. 20: Transforming Homeless Service Systems: Spokane, Wash. Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2 to 3 p.m. EDT The Alliance has rescheduled a webinar on the expansion of rapid re-housing in Spokane, Wash. for Tuesday, Oct. 20. Speakers will discuss the programmatic and policy shifts Spokane has made, how the role of transitional housing programs has changed, and the impact these changes have had on family homelessness in the city. Register » Deadline Extended for Proposals for the 2016 Housing First Partners Conference The Housing First Partners Conference has extended its deadline for proposals to Wednesday Sept. 30, for presentations for its 2016 Los Angeles conference, which will take place March 23 to 25. Each proposal selected for presentation will receive one discounted conference registration. More information » Upcoming Webinar:  Improving Care for Homeless Medicaid Beneficiaries Thursday, Oct. 8,  2 p.m. EDT On Thursday, Oct. 8, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will host a webinar designed to help Medicaid agency leaders connect with homeless assistance and housing systems in their states. The webinar will introduce a new toolkit and feature presentations from a panel of experts from a state Medicaid agency, a Medicaid managed care plan, and a Medicaid provider. Register » from the blog Ending Homelessness Today the official blog of the national alliance to end homelessness HUD's FY 2015 CoC NOFA: What's In It for Families? by Sharon McDonald Like many of our colleagues around the country, folks at the Alliance are now carefully examining the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFA) that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued earlier this month for Continuum-of-Care (CoC) programs. The CoC grant application process is always a competitive one, but the competition will be more, well, competitive, this year than in prior years. So, what’s at stake? We are told that there is significant risk that some communities will gain new funding at the expense of other communities who will lose it. Read more » comments » | Here are 5 Ways We're Ending Veteran Homelessness by Steve Berg After 30 years of widespread veteran homelessness, communities around the country are racing to end it by the end of this year. Some communities like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, New Orleans, Houston, and Las Cruces, New Mexico have already announced that they’ve reached the goal. How has the country suddenly gotten so close to bringing an end to veteran homelessness? We get this question a lot. The truth of course is that there’s nothing sudden about it. People have been working behind the scenes at the national, state and local levels for years to make this happen. Since 2009, they have reduced the number of veterans who experience homelessness on a given day by 33 percent. Here’s a look at how we got here. Read more » comments » | Report: Cost-Burdened Renter Households Could Increase by 1.3 Million by 2025 by Liza Doran I have good news and bad news. The good news is that homelessness has been steadily declining in America since 2007. The bad news is that the number of people most likely to become homelessness has been steadily rising—and it doesn’t show signs of stopping any time soon. There are a lot of reasons for the increase in the number of vulnerable people. Some of these include low minimum wages and a lack of affordable housing in major cities and for low-income renters. Unfortunately, a new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and Enterprise Community partners shows that this trend is unlikely to reverse in the next decade. Read more » comments » |