$5B GRANT PROGRAM AIMS TO HELP STATES STEM HOMELESSNESS

Local governments will also be eligible to receive funding

Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge on Thursday announced nearly $5 billion in new grants to states and local governments across the country for rental assistance, the development of affordable housing and other services to help people experiencing or on the verge of homelessness.

The infusion of money to reduce homelessness, part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that President Joe Biden signed in March, is the latest example of how the administration is using the American Rescue Plan to enact an anti-poverty agenda during the pandemic.

“Let me be clear: These funds could not come at a more critical time,” Fudge said.

The former Ohio congresswoman appeared over Zoom with Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-ohio, Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Birmingham, Ala., Mayor Randall Woodfin, also a Democrat.

The grants, which must be spent by 2030, can be used to provide temporary or permanent housing, including buying and converting hotels and motels so people who are homeless could have a more private and safe place to live than in congregate shelters, Fudge said. The grants can also pay for housing for people fleeing domestic violence. The money will be allocated through a Housing and Urban Development program designed to create affordable housing for low-income families.

This $5 billion in grants is the first of two funding streams to address homelessness in the American Rescue Plan. In the coming weeks, Fudge expects to announce how an additional $5 billion in emergency housing vouchers will be allocated.

“With this strong funding, along with additional emergency rental vouchers that we will be announcing soon, communities across the country will have the resources needed to give homes to the people who have had to endure the COVID-19 pandemic without one,” Fudge said.

While these dollars deliver near-term relief to homeless individuals and families and those at risk of losing their homes, Fudge said Biden’s $2 trillion American Jobs Plan, unveiled last week, would bring additional funding necessary to address homelessness and housing instability. Biden’s jobs and infrastructure plan would include $213 billion for housing programs, including $40 billion to improve public housing.

The nation’s homeless population grew to 580,000 individuals, up 2 percent from the previous year, according to HUD’S latest count, taken on a single night in January 2020.

The number, released last month, does not consider the impact of the pandemic, during which millions of Americans lost their jobs, fell behind on rent and faced the possibility of eviction despite state and federal moratoriums. Most at risk of being evicted are Black and Latino households, according to studies.

“We know the pandemic has only made the crisis worse,” Fudge said. “So, while Americans were told to stay safe by staying home last year, more than half a million individuals and families had no way to do so because they did not have a home.”

Fudge, in a White House news briefing last month, said she expects to use the stimulus money to get as many as 130,000 homeless people off the streets over the next 12 to 18 months.

Much of the money will target communities in California, Florida, New York and Texas.