A report that has been billed as the first comprehensive strategy to end and prevent homelessness landed somewhat quietly on Wednesday.
After characterizing homelessness today, the report outlines a path to end chronic and veteran homelessness in five years and family homelessness within 10, before creating a path for eradicating the problem altogether.
The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness released the 74-page report [PDF] during a White House press conference. Watch video of the hour-long announcement here.
More than 170,000 families visited U.S. emergency homeless facilities in 2009, a 30 percent spike from 2007, according to the study. The report did show that nationwide individuals experiencing homelessness on a given night dropped from 2008 to 2009, McClatchy reported. Read more about quantifying the size of the U.S. homeless population.
Public hearings had been held leading up to the report, though they were “little noticed.”
That doesn’t mean the report isn’t ambitious.
As the Department of Defense recounts:
The council’s strategy includes several milestones in which they will measure progress. It calls for ending chronic homelessness – where people cycle in and out of shelters and hospitals — and homelessness among veterans in five years, Donovan said. Next, they will get every family, youth and child off the streets within 10 years, and then eventually set a path to end homelessness altogether, he said.
The proposal suggests the efforts would focus on integrating support services and applying state and local initiatives at the federal level, according to the council. It serves as a roadmap for joint action to mainstream housing, health, education and human services programs.
Donovan cited the homeless veteran population, underscoring the need for a joint, interagency approach. More Vietnam-era veterans are homeless today than the number of U.S. servicemembers who died in the Vietnam War, he said. [Source]
Those in attendance at the announcement showed the interagency’s broad base, including the following: Secretary Shaun Donovan, Department of Housing and Urban Development; Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Department of Health and Human Services; Secretary Hilda Solis, Department of Labor; Secretary Eric Shinseki, Department of Veterans Affairs; Melody Barnes, Director, White House Domestic Policy Council; and Barbara Poppe, Executive Director, United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.
[...] when the very big news of the country’s first national report on homelessness was published and was part of a call to end homelessness in five years, we certainly shared it promptly, [...]