HUD proposes to reward transitional housing, sober housing and police partnerships in its homelessness grant competition
A notice published Sept. 11 names five activities HUD would favor in future Continuum of Care competitions. It says transitional housing and services-only projects fell from 36 percent of the program's money in 2009 to 6 percent in 2024. Comments are due Oct. 13.
Washington. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking public comments until Oct. 13 on five kinds of work it proposes to reward in future rounds of Continuum of Care, its largest homelessness program, which funds nonprofits and state and local governments that serve homeless people.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Sept. 11, HUD says the five are proven effective at reducing homelessness. The homelessness law names two such activities, permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people and rapid rehousing for families, and lets the secretary add others "based on research and after notice and comment." HUD may reward communities that fund them with bonuses or other incentives.
The five activities
They are transitional housing with services aimed at employment and behavioral health, particularly for youth, families and survivors of domestic violence; supportive services such as addiction and mental health treatment; participation agreements that engage participants in services tailored to them; drug-free and sober housing with recovery support; and coordination with law enforcement and first responders.
All five are already allowed under the program's rules, the notice says. It does not say how large the incentives would be or when they would first count. After the comment period, HUD will either revise the determination or adopt it for future funding rounds.
“HUD finds that the weakness in the nation's homelessness system is not that too few entities condition assistance on sobriety, but rather that too few entities create the accountability and structure needed to help an individual recover or a young person to finish school and find meaningful employment.”
A turn from Housing First
The notice attributes a long decline in transitional housing to the Housing First policy HUD adopted in 2013, which put people in permanent housing without preconditions or required services. It says chronic homelessness rose 80.5 percent after 2013 even as permanent supportive housing beds grew 44 percent.
The notice also follows a court ruling. On Aug. 7 a federal judge in Rhode Island, in suits by states and by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, ruled that HUD could not set aside money for transitional housing and services-only projects in this year's competition without notice and comment. HUD says it does not concede the ruling's lawfulness and published the notice "to reinforce its ability to establish the set-aside." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has since vacated that ruling, and this year's applications are due Sept. 30 everywhere but Los Angeles.
By Sept. 28, 186 comments had been posted to the notice's docket on the federal rulemaking portal.
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