Mayor Lee Announces $18.7m In U.S. Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Grants To Combat Homelessness In SF

Continuum of Care Grants Fund SF Programs from Street Outreach to Transitional Supportive Housing

January 24, 2011 – (RealEstateRama) — Mayor Edwin M. Lee today announced that the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded San Francisco $18.7 million in HUD’s Continuum of Care grants to fund a wide variety of programs from street outreach and assessment programs to transitional and permanent housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness. The HUD Continuum of Care grants are awarded competitively to local programs to meet the needs of their homeless clients, and this year, 51 San Francisco-based organizations and programs received grant awards.

“In the last seven years, San Francisco moved in a new direction on efforts to end homelessness, helping thousands of people get off the streets and into supportive housing and services instead,” said Mayor Lee. “These grants from HUD demonstrate the Obama Administration’s commitment to cities and will help San Francisco continue to make real progress helping people and combating chronic homelessness.”

HUD awarded a total of $1.411 billion in renewal grants around the country that will keep nearly 7,000 local homeless assistance programs operating in the coming year. HUD’s Continuum of Care grants provide permanent and transitional housing to people experiencing homelessness as well as services including job training, health care, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment and child care. The grants announced today form a critical foundation for the Obama Administration’s Opening Doors strategy, the nation’s first comprehensive plan to prevent and end homelessness.

“There is a tremendous need on our streets and in our shelters among those experiencing both long-term homelessness as well as families confronting a sudden economic crisis,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “These grants are the life blood for thousands of local housing and service programs that are doing the heavy lifting to meet President Obama’s goal of ending homelessness.”

“Across federal agencies, we are aligning mainstream programs towards a goal to prevent and end homelessness,” said Barbara Poppe, Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director. “While we continue to strengthen public-private partnerships in Washington and across the country to meet this goal, today’s grants provide essential support to continue the progress and meet critical needs of those who experience the crisis of homelessness.”

For a full list of 2010 Continuum of Care grant awardees, go to: http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/homeless/budget/2010/index.cfm

Today’s announcement also comes just a week before thousands of volunteers in nearly every city and county conduct a national one-night count of homeless persons and families. HUD’s Let’s Make Everybody Count! campaign is intended to document trends in homelessness that are crucial to local planners’ efforts to prevent and end homelessness in their areas.

San Francisco will conduct its 2011 Homeless Count on the evening of January 27, 2011. Locally, the homeless count helps inform the allocation of resources for services to help the homeless, and provides a means of measuring the impact of homeless programs and services. The San Francisco Human Services Agency (HSA) is leading the count, which takes place every two years and relies on the support of volunteers. San Francisco’s last homeless count conducted in January 2009 revealed that the City’s point-in-time homeless population was 6,514. On the night of the count, volunteers will meet at one of four dispatch centers throughout the City (Mission, Bayview, Sunset, and Downtown) at 7 p.m. to receive one hour of training and then be deployed in teams to count homeless individuals on the street along an assigned route, traveling on foot or by car. Volunteers will count from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m.

For more information about the 2011 Homeless Count, go to: www.sfgov.org/lhcb