HUD announced on December 13 that the department helped more than 424,000 households access homeless support services and exit or avoid homelessness in 2023. HUD worked with public housing authorities (PHAs) across the country to help more than 94,000 households exit or avoid homelessness in 2023, including more than 56,900 households through incremental Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs), more than 8,200 households through public housing, and more than 28,200 households through the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program.
New programs and efforts by the Biden-Harris administration have contributed to this progress. The “American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)” – the largest single-year investment in ending homelessness in U.S. history – prevented a rise in homelessness between 2020 and 2022. In 2023, HUD provided additional resources and guidance to encourage PHAs to address homelessness. HUD coordinated an allocation of 3,300 Stability Vouchers to PHAs that are partnering with Continuums of Care (CoCs), which received $486 million in grants to address unsheltered and/or rural homelessness. Additionally, HUD issued updated guidance on how PHAs can address homelessness through their public housing and incremental HCVs and highlighted available flexibilities, such as alternative requirements and the opportunity to request waivers. Through the EHV program, HUD required PHAs to formally partner with local CoCs and victim service providers to target vouchers, provided technical assistance, and allowed greater regulatory flexibilities. During this time period, PHAs administering EHVs placed nearly 37,000 households – the majority being people experiencing homelessness – into homes.
Data collected by HUD show that these efforts have been effective. The number of people who exited homelessness into permanent housing increased from 278,209 people in fiscal year (FY) 2021 to 299,580 people in FY22 – an 8% year-over-year increase. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced in November that it had permanently housed 38,847 unhoused veterans through October 2023 – surpassing the calendar year goal two months early (see Memo, 12/4).
With many of the pandemic protections and resources having expired or wound down, however, more people are falling into homelessness. To fully address the affordable housing and homelessness crises, Congress must provide the significant, long-term investments needed to make rental assistance universally available, preserve and expand housing stock affordable to people with the lowest incomes, fund a permanent emergency rental assistance program, sustainably fund homelessness and other supportive services to help people find and keep housing, and implement and enforce robust tenant protections.
Read the HUD announcement at: http://tinyurl.com/bdwht8j4
Learn more about the actions HUD has taken help to help communities address homelessness is available at: http://tinyurl.com/5n9anszw
Learn more about how communities are making progress in addressing and reducing homelessness: https://tinyurl.com/yj994hcv