In Might, President Biden introduced that it’s his administration’s purpose to cut back homelessness in the USA by 25% by 2025 and to rehouse 38,000 veterans in 2023.
The Biden administration on Thursday introduced $3.1 billion in federal funding to help efforts to rapidly rehouse People experiencing homelessness, together with veterans.
The funding, which can be made accessible by means of the Division of Housing and City Growth (HUD) below the Continuum of Care program, is simply the most recent step within the White Home’s efforts to satisfy its targets of lowering homelessness in the USA by 25% by 2025 and rehousing 38,000 veterans in 2023.
“Nobody needs to be homeless on this nation, particularly not those that served it,” President Joe Biden stated throughout his State of the Union handle earlier this yr.
Of the $3.1 billion, $11.5 million can be allotted for authorized companies for veterans experiencing homelessness, to assist them get hold of illustration in landlord-tenant disputes, in addition to help with court docket proceedings. One other $58 million is headed in the direction of serving to veterans discover jobs, study occupational abilities, and supply them with help companies in order that they’ll extra simply reenter the workforce. How the remainder of the funds can be spent has not but been made public.
The administration additionally introduced a brand new sequence of “boot camps” by HUD and Veterans Affairs (VA). These will assist VA medical facilities and public housing businesses rehouse homeless veterans extra rapidly.
In accordance with the VA, 40,401 homeless veterans had been put into everlasting housing final yr, however 2,443 of them ended up homeless once more inside the identical yr. The Division of Veterans Affairs estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night time, though they observe that a precise quantity is tough to find out, because of the transient nature of homeless populations.
“We prefer to say right here that the phrase, ‘homeless veteran,’ mustn’t exist within the English language,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough informed CNN. “Ending veteran homelessness has been and continues to be a high precedence of the president and his relentless advocacy for that purpose has led to crucial investments and developments, together with strong funding.”
Whereas this newest spherical of funding shouldn’t be particularly earmarked for homeless veterans, Biden administration officers hope that making progress on rehousing former service members will in the end result in extra broadly enhancing the state of homelessness in the USA.
“Homelessness is a problem we face as a nation,” White Home home coverage adviser Neera Tanden stated in an announcement. “However most significantly, it’s a solvable one. There are such a lot of classes there that may assist us sort out this downside for all People.”
