Efforts to fund government programs for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) are significantly underway. The President released his budget in March and Congress is beginning to consider related legislation. To help understand this process, the Alliance created a new dashboard that illustrates the potential impacts of FY23 investments on efforts to reduce homelessness.
Estimates Suggest Congress Could Significantly Impact Homelessness
Alliance modeling suggests that the President’s FY2023 proposal could create 201,286 new permanent supportive housing (PSH) beds and 97,556 new Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) beds. This would move 21 percent of people who enter the shelter system during the year from homelessness to permanent housing, based on 2018 estimates. The estimated number of people housed does not reflect the impacts of current resources.
The predicted outcome is shown in the dashboard below. Users can assess different outcomes of the FY23 budget by entering various dollar amounts Congress may consider for three of the most critical programs that get people into housing.
The set values in the dashboard are based on the proposed Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG), Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA), and Continuum of Care (CoC) Program appropriations.
Moving Forward
Investments in the Housing Choice Voucher program, as well as homelessness programs that fund PSH and RRH, will have a significant impact on the nation’s ability to reduce homelessness.
This work is critical, especially since the current state of homelessness is unclear. Due to the pandemic, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was unable to release a complete 2021 Point-in-Time Count in the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress earlier this year. Several federal initiatives (e.g., the eviction moratorium and Emergency Rental Assistance) helped mitigate the pandemic’s effects. However, researchers are unsure how these interventions affected the rising homelessness trend, evident from 2016 to 2020. Complicating matters further, COVID relief funds are expiring, but many people still need ongoing support.
Congress needs to decide how much it will equip the homelessness system moving forward.