On Thursday afternoon Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan and senior HUD staff conducted a media conference call to discuss HUD's latest Annual Homeless Assessment Report (the actual report [pdf]). Secretary Donovan also announced funding under the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP) to help state and local communities prevent homelessness and then took questions from the media:
....Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan: Thank you all. As the recently elected chair of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness I’m pleased to have the opportunity today to discuss the findings of HUD’s annual homelessness report. And unveil our new effort to provide real time data on our homeless population. I’m also announcing that communities across the country can now begin to spend their homeless prevention and rapid rehousing program grant funds, uh, that are funded through the President, through President Obama’s recovery act. We all know that one of the most tragic consequences of our housing and economic crises is those who fall into homelessness as a result, whether through foreclosures, evictions, layoffs, or other financial problems. I come, I come to HUD as a big believer in evidence and performance based solutions. And frankly, they have never been more needed than right now. And as we at HUD continue to implement the President’s making home affordable plan and the recovery act it is my hope that the measures and tools we are announcing today will help us respond effectively and immediately to this ongoing crises.
First, I wanted to say a few words about HUD’s two thousand eight annual homeless assessment report to Congress which we will send to the hill today. It finds that on a single night in January two thousand eight six hundred and sixty-four thousand individuals were homeless. And throughout the course of a year approximately one point six million found themselves without a place to call home and sought shelter. These figures have held steady from two thousand seven to two thousand eight. However, our report does find a troubling increase in the number of homeless families, nine percent. And we found the increase tends to come not from cities, but from suburban and rural areas. This not only confirms what a lot of us had been predicting, it also indicates that as early as the end of two thousand seven the housing and economic crises was already beginning to take, uh, a toll. This data does not reflect the great many more families who are living on the edge, doubling up with friends and family members, and struggling to stay out of shelters and off the streets. And while it tells us a great deal about the nature and scope of homelessness during two thousand eight, the data does but beg many other questions about what’s happening right now. How is the housing crises playing out in our shelters and on our streets? Who is homeless today? And are more families on the street today than a few months ago? In which areas and regions is homelessness on the rise? And where is it holding steady? It is these questions and limitations to our current data that we are trying to answer through our new quarterly homeless pulse report that tracks real time changes in homelessness in nine geographically diverse areas of the country. This pulse data which we intend to expand in scope in the coming months brings the current picture of homelessness in America in to sharper focus. Helping us better gauge the impact of both the economic crises and our programs are having on homelessness across the country. As I said earlier we’re at a critical moment, and the need for real time data could not be greater. And with this data and the greater insight that it offers in to who is homeless and where, we will work with our local partners on the ground to insure that the necessary resources are in place to help individuals and families get off the street and prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place.
That’s where the homeless prevention and rapid rehousing program comes in to play. That program received one point five billion dollars through the recovery act and will keep households from falling in to homelessness and assist those that do. I’m proud to announce that later today we will release one point two billion dollars to communities across the country so they can now start spending. This program is drastically shifting HUD’s focus to homeless prevention by providing temporary financial assistance and services to help struggling Americans gain housing stability, such as paying for utilities to help a family remain housed or helping them move in to and stay in their new housing. As such this program serves as a bridge to long term stability for those who without this assistance would be homeless. Lastly, let me say that I believe this new program has the power to transform the way our local partners think about homelessness and structure their response.
At the same time we shift our focus more toward prevention, we’re also intent on doing it through local innovations, encouraging localities to conceive of new ways of using their resources to decrease the flow of people seeking shelter, quickly moving individuals and families into other housing, and protect those at risk of becoming homeless. Obviously these are only a few components of a broader strategy, whether it’s building safe and affordable shelter, fighting substance abuse, providing treatment for mental health disorders, or building the kind of economy that values work and good paying jobs. Our success in the fight to end homelessness ought to be how we measure our progress as a society and as a people, as Americans. The President has made clear we can and must do better. And with these funds and our new real time pulse data and by working closely with our partners on the ground, I believe we will. With that I’d be happy to take any questions you may have....
The transcript of the media Q and A at: Show Me Progress