https://laist.com/2019/08/19/federal_government_assist_la_homeless.php Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) The single most robust federal program that directly targets homelessness is the "Continuum of Care"
(CoC) grant program administered by HUD. A Continuum of Care
essentially coordinates the response to homelessness at the local level.
Federal grant money to CoCs pays for things like emergency shelters,
permanent supportive housing and case management. There are four Continuum of Care
bodies in Los Angeles County: Pasadena, Long Beach, Glendale and the LA
CoC, which covers the rest of the county. The four CoCs got a total of
about $139 million in federal grants in 2018. In addition, HUD administers the "Emergency Solutions Grant"
program for emergency shelters and related services. This year, HUD
awarded providers in Los Angeles County about $7.3 million. Though not directly aimed at helping
homeless people, the largest federal program designed to help keep
low-income people housed is the Housing Choice Voucher program, also known as Section 8. More about that later. Veterans Affairs (VA) The Department of Veterans Affairs gives grants to organizations that serve homeless veterans. The VA itself signs up homeless veterans for health and housing benefits. And then there's the "HUD-VASH" program, a collaboration between the VA and HUD to provide rental subsidies to veterans. The VA also offers homeless veterans other services like assistance in finding employment, dental work, and home care for those who need it. It also works with veterans and their families who are at risk of losing their housing. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) The Health and Human Services department has a few small grant programs, including one that targets public and private organizations serving runaway and homeless youth. Another funds organizations that provide healthcare for the homeless. That program served more than 1 million homeless people across the country in 2018, according to government statistics. Department of Education Finally, the Department of Education offers some support to local school districts to address the needs of homeless students. Federal law, specifically, the McKinney-Vento Act, requires public school districts to enroll and support homeless students. But the amount, and efficacy, of
support that students get varies greatly, starting with the tracking of
homeless students. Earlier this year, California lawmakers announced plans to audit the student homelessness data collected by school districts because of concerns about underreporting by some schools. The Department of Education's spending on homelessness programs in 2019 totals just $93.5 million for the entire country. DO THE FEDS SPEND ENOUGH? In this year's federal budget, all
the above programs totaled less than $5 billion in annual spending — an
infinitesimal fraction of the total federal budget ($4.4 trillion). Steve Berg, a policy expert at the National Alliance to End Homelessness,
said the relative pittance spent on homelessness by the federal
government is one of the reasons why so many people are on the streets. "The government programs to deal with
homelessness are not funded at nearly the level they need to be to do
their jobs," Berg said. Berg said Waters' proposed bill would be a step to remedy the shortfall. "What that bill attempts to do is
look at some of these homeless interventions and say, 'What would it
take to really fund these at the scale they need to be?'" Specifically, the bill would boost
funding for the production and maintenance of permanent supportive
housing for formerly homeless people, boost funding for the construction
of low-income housing and allocate more resources to rental subsidy
programs for formerly homeless people. Besides costs related directly to
housing, the bill would add about $100 million in annual spending for
homeless outreach and services. It would also make permanent the HUD
Continuum of Care and Emergency Solutions grant programs, which
currently have to be re-authorized periodically. But the reality is that the amount of
people in need far eclipses the amount of public assistance available
at all levels of government. As mentioned above, the largest
federal housing program for low-income people is the Section 8 program.
For households lucky enough to get a Section 8 voucher, the federal
government subsidizes their rent in public and privately owned housing. In Los Angeles County, about 94,000 Section 8 vouchers are in circulation, according to the California Housing Partnership.
But the group estimates about 757,209 households in Los Angeles County
would qualify for Section 8 assistance if it were more widely available. The results are mind-bogglingly long waitlists and a ridiculous lottery process to secure a spot on the waitlist. The waitlist is usually closed to new applicants. The last time the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles (HACLA) opened a lottery to get one of 20,000 spots on its Section 8 waitlist was in October 2017. At the time, nearly 188,000 households representing about 460,000 people applied. It was the first time the waitlist had been opened in 13 years. Nearly 90% of the households that applied for a spot on the waitlist didn't get one. "Clearly HACLA cannot keep up with
the demand without additional resources from the federal government,"
said Margarita Lares, HACLA's chief programs officer. Plus,obtaining
a Section 8 voucher is no guarantee of actually finding housing. Only
about 47% of voucher recipients in the city of Los Angeles were
successful in finding a place to live before their voucher expired.
That's in part because many landlords refuse to rent to Section 8
voucher holders. Landlords who participate in Section 8 have to agree to
federal property inspections and abide by rental caps. Plus, they may
fear extra wear and tear on their property. The City and County both outlawed
Section 8 discrimination this year. But whether or not that will make a
difference in the number of units available to voucher holders is yet
to be seen. WHAT ABOUT PUBLIC HOUSING? Los Angeles has few publicly operated housing units compared to other large American cities. According to the California Housing Partnership, L.A. County (population 10.1 million) has just 10,806 units of government-owned housing. In contrast, New York City (population 8.6 million), has 173,160 units of public housing. That means New York City has about 20 times as much public housing per capita as L.A. County. "This lack of depth of public housing
in Los Angeles means there are far fewer deeply affordable units, both
for those who are at risk of homelessness and for those that we seek to
move out of homelessness and into a housing unit," LAHSA head Peter Lynn
wrote in his written testimony before the recent House committee
hearing on homelessness. Homeless advocates and experts testify before members of the
U.S. House of Representatives at the California African American Museum
in Exposition Park. (Matt Tinoco/LAist)THE UPSHOT: LOCAL TAX DOLLARS ARE DOING WAY MORE THAN THE FEDS The reality is most of the money
paying for homeless services and housing in Los Angeles County comes
from Los Angeles County. Voter approved Measure H is raising nearly $400
million per year from a quarter-cent sales tax. That's almost three times the federal contribution. Last year, the state of California also contributed nearly $170 million to cities in L.A. County through its Homeless Emergency Aid Program. That's not to say that Waters' bill
to increase federal spending wouldn't help. But the amount of money it
would add to address homelessness is small, particularly given the scale
of homelessness in the U.S. In any case, it would require the approval of both houses of Congress and a signature from President Donald Trump to become law. UPDATES: 3:30 p.m. Sept. 11: This article was updated with an editor's note about the Trump administration's visit to Los Angeles. This article was originally published at at 12:14 p.m. Aug. 19, 2019.
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