The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently announced that it will make $300 million in competitive grant funding available for nonprofits renewing their SSVF grants to work with homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families. Several pieces of the announcement highlight opportunities for providers to improve the services they offer to program participants, and ways to enhance their program's effectiveness and reach.
Category: Policy
New Budget Bill Supports Youth
The eleventh hour budget bill passed at the end of 2015 does more than increase funding for homeless assistance. It makes specific investments to end youth homelessness.
Here’s How You End Veteran Homelessness: Employment, Housing, and Health Care
In 2009, Congress authorized a three-year demonstration program to explore ways to increase the housing stability of homeless and at-risk veterans and their families.
Now, here we are at the tail end of 2015, and a lot has changed in the years since. The nation has reduced veteran homelessness by 35 percent using many of the same methods first employed in that program, known as the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration (VHPD). It was one of the first steps in the Obama administration’s initiative to end veteran homelessness by 2016.
Congress Passed a Spending Bill. Here’s What it Means for Ending Homelessness in 2016
Last week, just in time for the New Year (and to avert another government shutdown), Congress passed a final $1.1 trillion spending bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 that will fund all federal discretionary programs through next fall. President Obama signed the bill into law Friday, Dec. 18.
The bill includes all federal agencies’ discretionary spending: big ticket items like the military, veterans’ health care, education and law enforcement support, medical research, and virtually all of the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), including all its major homeless programs.
It’s Time to Break the Connection Between Foster Care and Homelessness
Research shows that people who have spent time in the foster care system tend to become homeless at an earlier age than homeless people without foster care histories. They’re also overrepresented among the homeless youth population.
It’s well known in the homeless assistance field that the foster care system itself is a feeder into youth homelessness, but this year it’s come to the attention of several senators who have introduced legislation to address the problem.