Senate Unanimously Passes Homeless Legislation

Earlier today, the Senate unanimously passed a major piece of legislation to expand and reform programs serving the homeless, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act. While many homeless advocates are lauding the Senate's support of this important legislation to combat homelessness, others feel that the legislation has a number of significant shortcomings.

The House version of the bill passed several weeks ago, but without the HEARTH Act (which would reauthorize McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance programs, the government's oldest and most comprehensive federal response to homelessness). Since the HEARTH Act was included in the Senate version, the legislation will head to the conference stage in the next few weeks to create a compromised version. We'll keep you posted on the final version.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, today's approved legislation will do the following:

• Allows up to 20 percent of funds to be used to prevent homelessness or rapidly re-house people who become homeless through the new "Emergency Solutions Grants" (formerly Emergency Shelter Grants);
• Consolidates the Supportive Housing Program, Shelter Plus Care, and the Moderate Rehabilitation/Single Room Occupancy Program into a single Continuum of Care program;
• Increases the emphasis on performance by measuring applicants' progress at reducing homelessness;
• Requires that HUD provide incentives for proven solutions, including rapid re- housing programs for homeless families and permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals and families;
• Designates 30 percent of total funds for new permanent housing for families and individuals with a disability;
• Simplifies the requirement for matching funds; Modestly expands the definition of homelessness; Allows grantees to use up to an additional 10 percent of competitive funds to serve families defined as homeless under the Department of Education (but not HUD);
• Creates the Rural Housing Stability Assistance Program, which would grant rural communities greater flexibility in utilizing Homeless Assistance Grants and allow them to use more funding for capacity building; and
• Authorizes $2.2 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2010, and such sums as necessary for FY2011.
• Senator Kerry (D-MA) submitted another amendment to S. 896, which was also approved. It would require 90 days' notice prior to eviction for renters living in properties that have been foreclosed upon. Please watch Alliance Online News over the coming weeks for updates as a final, compromise version of the legislation is created.

Certainly, the unanimous passage of this bill is a symbolic and important step in the right direction in the effort to combat homelessness. Yet, the nation's major homelessness advocacy groups differ on their support of the bill.

The concerns that National Coalition for the Homeless has with the legislation include:

• Ineligible People: The definition of "homeless individual" given in the amendment, though lengthy and burdensome for service providers who would have to adhere to it, fails to include all individuals generally recognized as homeless, including many in shared housing or motels and many vulnerable children and youth.
• Weakens Community Decision-Making: The amendment fails to assign a role to homeless people or service providers as formal decision-makers in a geographic area's collaborative application for funding.
• Restrictions on Eligible Activities: The bills would put into the force of law restrictions on a community's use of funds, and add would add some new restrictions as well. This will further reduce geographic areas' flexibility to respond to homelessness the way it makes most sense.
• Privacy Concerns: The bills authorize a data collection and reporting system on clients of McKinney-Vento-funded projects, but do not ensure client privacy and safety of their data.