Congress has voted to enact the American Rescue Plan and President Biden signed it into law today! The legislation includes nearly $50 billion in essential housing and homelessness assistance, including over $27 billion for rental assistance and $5 billion in new funding for states and cities to provide housing stability for tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness.
The $27 billion for rental assistance, combined with the $25 billion provided by Congress last year and a separate $5 billion for utilities in the American Rescue Plan, can eliminate the over $50 billion of rent and utility arrears that renters have accrued during the pandemic and will enable longer-term housing stability for some renters. This success would not have been possible without your incredible advocacy and the unwavering leadership of congressional champions!
The $1.9 trillion relief package provides broad based relief. This new law will:
Extend enhanced unemployment benefits through the summer.
Give millions of people a desperately needed cash infusion of $1,400.
Expand the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit to help low- and middle-income people.
Fully fund vaccine distribution.
Extend nutrition assistance for hungry children and families.
Provide housing and utility assistance to keep people in their homes.
And deliver aid to states, communities, tribes, and territories to cover safe education in the pandemic, maintain critical services and prevent job layoffs.
This new law will cut childhood poverty in half. This new law will provide a critical lifeline for millions of people and families who have lost jobs and wages during the pandemic. And, it is vital to fully vaccinating the U.S. population.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday February 28, 2021, to discuss the third vaccine approved for emergency use against the spread of the COVID-19. He provided the grim reality of this highly infectious and dangerously adaptable virus, and he urged Americans to take whichever vaccine becomes available to them when they become eligible.
The National Coalition for the Homeless supports experts like Dr. Fauci and the health care professionals at the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council (NHCHC) who are recommending that all those experiencing homelessness and those serving homeless people take whichever vaccine is available as soon as possible. COVID-19 has decimated fragile populations in the United States especially members of minority populations such as African Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans. Any level of protection against this killer is going to be essential to protect the homeless community.
NCH Executive Director, Donald Whitehead, receiving his first COVID vaccine dose.
To that end most of our staff are people with previous experience with homelessness, many either have been, or are in line to be immunized against the coronavirus. We trust the scientists and hundreds of thousands of hours of research, oversight and testing that went into developing these vaccines. It is not worth the risk waiting for the one shot from Johnson and Johnson. We urge our friends who we serve every single day to get the first shot offered. We implore that all those working in the shelters and social service networks in the United States seek out the first vaccine available to them. We need everyone to get the vaccine as soon as possible so that we can return to finding solutions to all the other barriers facing the population. We need you to be healthy and capable of receiving that key to the front door of a brand new apartment when it is ready for you.
In the words of our friends at the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council (NHCHC), experts who have the trust of the homeless community,
COVID-19 vaccines are an essential part of ending this pandemic, but there are many challenges to ensuring successful and equitable vaccination campaigns. A number of key factors will influence the success of these campaigns for people experiencing homelessness and the providers who serve them. Health centers and homeless service providers should be taking action steps now to create an intentional operations plan, an effective communication and engagement strategy, and broad community partnerships to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available to everyone.
Please do your part to keep our community safe: get the vaccine as soon as you can!
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. Well, you have to give people life, in order to receive the revolution of redemption. Guaranteed Income does just that, give people the chance to dream again. That’s what former mayor of Stockton, CA, Michael Tubbs, had in mind when the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) was launched.
Based on a philosophy from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr that economic freedom can help eradicate poverty, Stockton, CA, was the first major American city to take measures into their own hands. One hundred twenty-five Stockton residents were randomly selected to receive $500 a month in a two-year pilot program. The cash was completely unconditional, with no strings attached and no work requirements. A report on the project’s results found that:
Guaranteed income reduced income volatility, or the month-to-month income fluctuations that households face.
Unconditional cash enabled recipients to find full-time employment.
Recipients of guaranteed income were healthier, showing less depression and anxiety and enhanced wellbeing.
The guaranteed income alleviated financial scarcity creating new opportunities for self-determination, choice, goal-setting, and risk-taking.
More cities in the United States are launching programs because their constituents need it. Guaranteed Income can eliminate debate on raising funds for social services through tax credits, temporary direct payments until the pandemic is over, or raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Private funding has deeply influenced this bi-partisan movement. What will it take to influence Congress, maybe mass eviction due to the lingering pandemic economic downturn? The people have the power, and decisions have consequences, so do elections. Want unhoused people off the streets? Guaranteed Income is a good start.
Some think that it is hard to reach people experiencing homelessness, especially with the smaller population of people with a mental illness who often refuse shelter or services. Barb Anderson, working in Jeffersonville, Indiana, has found a way to reach people where they are, not where she wants them to be or where society things they should be.
Barb talks about her clients as her friends – truly some of the most amazing people she has ever worked with in her career. Some of her friends’ minds don’t process information in a linear or sequential manner but have a creativity, spontaneity, and unique perspective that is enlightening. The downside is they will often make horrible decisions that are harmful to themselves, and it is so painful to see them suffer unnecessarily. There is also the issue of looking on in horror when seeing how others react out of fear or hostility when they are face to face with a mentally ill person who lives outside. Barb takes it all in stride and is able to calm the situation with her quick wit and loud Hazard, Kentucky laugh!
Barb shared a story about a man who traditionally lives outside with mental illness, who she was trying to coax inside this winter. Anderson was trying to convince him to stay in the hotel designated by the County as the emergency spot for the hardest cases; he refused to follow the rules designed to serve the mainstream paying customers. This conflict led to being asked to leave the end of the line, hotel of last resort. Barb tried her best with the staff person at 1:00 a.m. to get them to reverse course because she could not let him sleep outside in the middle of a cold winter night as the wind blew through the rural Indiana landscape. She called a neighboring hotel and paid for a room, they fed him, treated him very well and the issue was resolved. It was a long night with little sleep, and she knew her long time friend appreciated her efforts. He was safe, fed, and sleeping in a warm bed. Her friends deserve nothing less.
Barb Anderson
Barb began her career in 1979 as a public service employee (sort of like a national service member) and in the local city planning department. She told me that she had grown up in poverty and had never really planned to work on social justice issues. In 1985, she worked with many to open the only shelter in a 14 county region in Southern Indiana. In 1996, the shelter became an independent non-profit. In the same year, she joined the Board to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Anderson has been fighting for her friends for decades in rural Indiana with policy work at the national level, twisting the ears of state officials in Indianapolis and confronting the mayors at their favorite hangouts in the region.
Small town America does not typically have the number of visibly homeless as the big cities like the one just across the Ohio River in Louisville, but that may be changing. The poverty rate in this area is 9.6% but that hides many who are out of sight and thus out of mind. Barb reports a sharp increase in street homelessness in the region over the last few years with no new resources to address the issue. The opening of a walking bridge between Louisville and Jeffersonville has resulted in an increase in street homelessness but is only one contributing factor in the increase. Louisville also tends to do more sweeps, has a more violent reputation, and homeless people have said that they feel safer on the streets in rural Indiana. The problem is that the resources in a small community are fewer and friendliness does not keep people safe on a cold night.
Barb reported that in the initial stages of the pandemic serving homeless people was very productive because of the “crap load of money” that the region received, but NIMBY issues resulted in tearing tents down. The region has used CARES Act assistance funds to assist with COVID relief, and used some of those funds to put people up in hotels and motels. The unemployment rate in Southern Indiana is really good at only 3.9%, but they do boast a higher than the national average of medically uninsured. Haven House, in partnership with other agencies, has worked hard to provide outreach services to those living outside and those who were evicted despite the federal guidelines pushing an eviction moratorium. But just like everything associated with the pandemic, things have gotten progressively worse as time wore on. The money was not flowing like it did in the beginning, and people’s patience was wearing as thin as the same face mask being worn for 8 months straight. Anderson traveled to Bloomington recently and worked with activists in South Bend to find solutions to the sweeps being done in their communities.
The increase in homelessness over the past year is not confined to one population with families, women and young people all on the rise in the region. Barb and the Haven House volunteers did a get out the vote campaign, but Indiana is one of the state’s with many barriers to voting like mandatory identification. The reality is that it is extremely difficult to motivate people to vote during a pandemic. Haven House has a Facebook page and would love your input on ways to better serve people experiencing homelessness living in a rural community.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The impact of judicial nominees can be traced back to the founding of this nation. Today that impact was felt in a painful way when Texas federal judge John Barker ruled that the current CDC moratorium exceeded the authority of the constitution. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued order 361 of the public health act to temporarily halt evictions back on September 4, 2020. This guidance shielded some tenants from eviction due to the current coronavirus pandemic. This order was also issued to help prevent spread of the coronavirus.
The state of Texas, which ranks at the top in carrying out evictions, is helping perpetuate homelessness. The state is living up to their slogan “everything is bigger in Texas”. According to the Eviction Lab, there have been 2,668 evictions carried out in the United States just in the last seven days. The state of Texas ranks at the top when it comes to executing evictions. Since March of last year, cities in Texas evicted people at an alarming rate. Austin executed 877 evictions, Fort Worth 12,353 evictions, and Houston executed 24,355 evictions. Bigger does not always equate to better.
The National Coalition for the Homeless supports adhering to eviction moratoria, and preventing housing displacement due to the pandemic economic downturn. As the top public health agency of the federal government, the CDC issued an order meant to protect the health and safety of everyone. By allowing evictions to proceed, city and state governments are ignoring the purpose of the CDC’s moratorium and guidance on quarantine and social distance. Housing is a human right. It says so in our declaration of independence; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Public servants including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government are supposed to execute that, not evictions.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Elizabeth MacDonough, the current Senate Parliamentarian ruled today that the Raise the Wage Act would not be included in the current American Rescue Plan. Her decision now puts a temporary halt to the Democrats plan to raise the wage. During a recent townhall, Senator Bernie Sanders I-VT, indicated that this fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour is not over. It’s disappointing for someone that does not have a vote to make that decision, but we will not give up. There are other ways to do this.
There are other economic solutions to focus on beside raising the wage that may make wages more sustainable. Guaranteed Income and Universal Livable Wage would eliminate the argument that jobs and businesses would be lost. It now becomes a matter of the will of the people instead of the skill of the politician.
Background: In 12 years, the cost of most necessities like housing, transportation and medical care, have increased, and in some cases, astronomically increased. But this the longest period of time the Federal minimum wage has remained stagnant since it was created. While the minimum wage is not the cause of homelessness, it does contribute to it. In the United States, there is not one county where you can afford a two-bedroom apartment working 40 hours per week earning minimum wage.
There are success stories with cities that have raised their own wages to $15 per hour. Millions of Americans have been lifted out of poverty, while millions are still there. In the most expensive cities in the nation, $15 per hour keep Americans in poverty. We are exploring things like guaranteed incomes and wages indexed to the local cost of housing. There is a deep income divide that must be addressed. Stay tuned, game on.
As we enter (hopefully) the final phase of the COVID pandemic with vaccinations, it is unclear in many states if there is a plan to inoculate every resident of the state facing a housing emergency.
California has the nation’s largest homeless population and has yet to clearly define their plan to distribute the vaccine to the hundreds of thousand people experiencing homelessness, or frontline homeless services workers. The is not just an issue of reaching folks who are homeless. The narrow Federal definition of homelessness prevents many from being clearly defined as vulnerable.
The National Coalition for the Homeless is asking the California Department of Public Health to prioritize vaccinations for all those without a stable place to live, those living outside or in a shelter, and those who work in service to these folks.
While the statewide plan issued by the Department of Public Health makes some mention of homelessness, direction on how to vaccinate all people who do not have permanent housing is vague. There are huge numbers of people sleeping outside in California and no real plan to reach this difficult to serve population. In addition, it is unclear if those who were recently relocated into housing meet the definition of homeless. We are asking for California officials to provide a clear plan that local communities can implement that takes into account the diverse needs of all of those experiencing homelessness.
Very few states, in fact, have published comprehensive plans to get COVID vaccines to the entire population of people who are unhoused. We are urging our advocacy network throughout the United States to reach out to their state health departments to ask if there are detailed plans to vaccinate homeless people. We hope that the media begin to ask these questions as well. We would ask that these plans be published on the state health department websites so that they can be implemented on the local level.
The National Coalition for the Homeless is hearing mixed messages from social service providers and there is a great deal of confusion in the field about the vaccination program and how homeless people fit into the plans. Now, as the country prepares to vaccinate the population, in most states there is no sign yet that homeless people, those who serve homeless people, are a priority to access to the vaccine.
TAKE ACTION
For those in California: Contact Dr. Tomás Aragón, the State Director of Public Health, at 516-553-1784. Tag @CApublicHealth in a tweet with the hashtag #VaccinateHomeless, or drop them a note on Facebook @capublichealth. “Please clarify when all homeless people, homeless and hunger social service providers (including those serving homeless people in permanent housing programs), throughout the state will be vaccinated.”
For those outside of California, please contact your state health department with a similar message to be made public.
According to George Santayana “An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world,” which pretty much sums up the world occupied by homeless activist Richard Troxell who currently resides in Union County North Carolina.
Most of Richard’s work was in Austin, Texas, where he caused the most trouble and left his mark with a sculpture he designed called “the Homecoming” at Community First! Village. Richard can give you an hour’s long narrative about the chance meeting between the elderly woman depicted in the sculpture and the man and her daughter. He can give you the military background of the dad and how the elderly woman’s journey led to this place. This 7 year quest to bring this sculpture from concept to learning how to cast sculptures to collaborating with other artists to finally seeing his creation placed in 2019 is a dream realized for any artist, but the grassroots organizing and assistance offered by Richard to those oppressed by society may be his biggest impact on the world.
The Homecoming
Richard had a day job helping people navigate the legal and social services network in Austin, but he had a side gig as the face of House the Homeless to twist the arms of city officials to stop pushing around people experiencing homelessness. Pushing people out of the arts areas of Austin; pushing them away from South by Southwest conference; pushing them off park benches, and pushing them out of sight. While everyone thinks Austin is some liberal oasis in the middle of a right wing fundamentalist state, sometimes the worst people who strip you of your rights are those with so called liberal beliefs. In the 1990s, nearly every city in the United States led by “progressive-man-of-the-people” mayors were horrible places to live for those experiencing homelessness. Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Seattle all had Mayors who were just cruel and heartless to homeless people. The City of Austin was no different with police sweeps, selective enforcement of certain laws, and attacks of free speech panhandling like the other liberal bastions. Richard found success fighting the “No Camping” ordinance in the courts after five years and argued his case for more humanity from City Hall in the court of public opinion. He fought disorderly conduct tickets for existing as a person without a home and regular attempts to shut down the shelters. Many cities including Austin pass these laws under the umbrella of “Quality of Life” ordinances. They are more appropriately called “Quality of Life for Mostly White Visitors to the City” ordinances, but they typically targeted the lowest income members of society. Richard successfully fought against an ordinance that made it illegal for certain people to rest in public which then began a cascade of other similar laws to fall.
Richard set up a huge fall event for 18 years to give out long underwear and winter gear to those facing a tough cold winter without regular shelter. The Thermal Underwear that “winterized them” and threw live music parties serving over 600 people, while his wife, Sylvia served them ham with cakes and pies, cornbread and real butter etc. (This event continues to this day.) He passed out hats during heat waves, emergency whistles to fend off serial assaults, and he worked to get those without a roof, some privacy in our society.
Semi-retired and relocated to North Carolina making personal COVID-19 face masks, Richard is now the national field general for House the Homeless and still on the quest to get the Universal Living Wage to be a part of the national discussion. Richard joined the National Coalition for the Homeless way back in the early 1990s and has always felt that the key to ending homelessness is giving people enough income to be able to sustain themselves free from shifting winds of benevolence from government or the religious sector. Richard wants to see a second statue in Washington DC to memorialize all the homeless individuals who did not survive without a roof over their head. He has become very interested in pushing for Social Security to be more equitable and not doom a person to a life of poverty if they are disabled. He would like to see social security income, SSI, assistance paired with a housing subsidy that limits the amount a person pays toward rent to no more than 30% of their income or even better 25% of their income as it was during the Nixon administration. In this way, people who cannot work will be able lift themselves off our streets. He will always bring the discussion back to honoring a person’s labor by paying them a wage that provides them the basic standard of living in a community. If Richard attends the meeting, he is going to bring up the need for a universal living wage in America. I was always surprised that he did not bring a neon sign with the Universal Living Wage logo so that he could turn on and off at various times during the National Coalition for the Homeless board meeting.
He moved from the state with the highest number of uninsured people in the United States in Texas to the rural county of Union, North Carolina which boasts a large number of uninsured as well at 12.3%. So, plenty of work for Richard in North Carolina. Child poverty in Austin was around 13.1% when he left with about 12% of the population living in poverty while only 7.3% of the population of rural North Carolina live below the poverty level. The unemployment rate in Austin is around 6.3% while it is only 5% in Union County North Carolina. The semi-blue state of North Carolina has a partial postponement of evictions while the deep red state of Texas only has the federal CDC moratorium on evictions. All other state and local restrictions on evictions have expired during this pandemic in Texas. Austin is the fastest growing metro area in the United States, but it also boasts the widest income disparity of any community.
Two other goals for Richard that he has been looking at as the new administration begins in Washington include a federal ban on discharges onto the streets as well as more involvement by the US Department of Transportation under the guidance of newly ratified Transportation Cabinet Member, Mayor Pete Buttigieg to include those sleeping under the highway bridges of America in the plan to improve infrastructure. It is a sad reality in the United States that many sexually based offenders cannot find housing anywhere after they have served their time and often turn to encampments mostly under the nation’s highways. This is not to say everyone who lives under bridges are sexually based offenders, but there are a disproportionate number. This has led to absurd situations where offenders register with the County sheriff a highway bridge as their permanent residence, which is certainly not the safest or most effective way to reduce recidivism. In fact, the current method for tracking offenders is probably the dumbest and worst strategy on the planet to keep society safe. Richard saw the big plans for investing in roads and bridges out of the Biden administration and wants housing to be a part of that plan that would create a lot of well paying jobs. This is not to reward sexually based offenders, but to keep all society safe by reducing risks.
California passed a law Senate Bill 1152 in 2018 which attempts to eliminate hospitals from dumping patients onto the streets, and sets up a training protocol to prevent people showing up at the shelter in cabs with their hospital gown and an IV bag still attached. Richard would like to see this law expanded to include alcohol and drug treatment programs as well as mental health institutions; given some teeth for a strong enforcement mechanisms, and expanded to every health care facility that receives Health and Human Services dollars in the United States. He also has toyed with the idea of seeing the same apply to all federal institutions so that there has to be some thought about where an individual will live after leaving the US military, housing subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Agriculture or even those released from a federal penitentiary. Richard demands that we discharge no one into homelessness (with strong enforcement). After a period of extreme cruelty by the United States government where we caged kids and separated them from their family, reinstated the federal death penalty and banned people from entering the country because of their religion, it is time to bring back a government of compassion and concern for the well being of everyone living within its borders.
Richard is a published author, Looking Up at the Bottom Line: The Struggle for the Living Wage, which carries on through today as he is in the process of publishing his latest book, Short Stories in a Long Journey. He self-published, Striking a Balance (about pending gentrification in East Austin) and Ending Homeless at its Core-Richard’s first e-book. If you are interested in more of his history of activism, you can pick them up on Amazon. He will continue to work toward economic justice as well as civil rights for the most vulnerable in our society albeit in a slightly more compassionate community in North Carolina. He combines the passions of an artist with the common sense of an advocate and the knowledge of a social worker making him one of the best friends to have if you do not have housing in America.
The population of people experiencing homelessness is diverse and may need different strategies to best serve their individual needs. For example, two dose vaccines pose a challenge for people who live unsheltered on the streets in cars or encampments, as they often are forced to move and therefore cannot always be found by outreach workers, and therefore might never receive the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. Cononie is encouraging communities to wait a couple of weeks and use the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine when it is approved for use. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be administered in just one dose, plus, it is easier to transport to those on the streets, and does not require the extreme cold storage that the other two vaccines require. (Please note, NCH encourages all to access whatever vaccine is available to them.)
Sean Cononie
Cononie has worked on the streets for decades in South Florida and currently travels the streets of Broward County assisting those largely forgotten by the rest of society. He has set up a firehouse model of emergency responders who go out on the street around the clock to provide personal protective gear, masks, water, and COVID tests. He can help house individuals if they are interested and can work to quarantine individuals who are recovering.
Unfortunately, Cononie, a board member of the National Coalition for the Homeless, reports that the response in South Florida to the pandemic has been scatter shot at best. He has seen mistreatment of those experiencing homelessness at some of the local hospital emergency rooms, and Cononie said some of the hospitals have given up on serving homeless people altogether. Many people who are homeless report that hospitals will just give them a blanket, some food and then send them on their way saying, “Come back if it gets worse.”
Some cities have been successful in housing vulnerable and quarantined unhoused folks in hotel rooms, or other temporary housing. Cononie believes that his local health care system needs to find safe accommodation for those without housing to recuperate even if their symptoms are mild. The risk of them passing the virus to a large number of people at meal programs or shelters is significant and has deadly consequences for the fragile population served by the homeless continuum.
In South Florida, as in many communities, systems have either forgotten the population or have set up bureaucracies that make it impossible for those without an address to participate in programs that would keep them safe. The religious community has stepped up to help with meals and other basics, but the need is continually increasing as the pandemic has worn on. Broward County has a relatively high unemployment rate of 7.3%, and 14.6% of the Southern Florida population do not have health insurance, both of which can lead to increases in homelessness. Cononie is committed to bringing resources to people often forgotten to get them through this global health crisis.
The horrific story of the Bronx Parent Housing Network presented in the New York Times recently points to the need for those experiencing homelessness to be more involved in the governance, oversight and distribution of homeless dollars in every city in the United States. Staff and Board of the National Coalition wish to express our deep and profound sadness that women were allegedly sexually abused at a publicly funded shelter in New York City, and condemn all abuse, especially when inflicted on those seeking help in traumatic times.
“It is shocking that the board of an agency serving abuse victims would not put in place strict protocols to protect those women from assaults while they are attempting to rebuild their lives. This agency is using taxpayer dollars to provide emergency housing, and these staff and residents faced some of the same misogynistic, controlling behavior they were fleeing. It points to a need for better oversight by both the local government as well as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the source of much of this funding,” said Donald Whitehead, executive director of NCH.
We believe that if people experiencing homeless were more involved in a meaningful way in the governance of the shelters in the United States, staff exploitation and harassment would be significantly decreased. Consumer feedback is a necessity in so many industries, why not in homeless or other social services? We at NCH have long advocated for both currently and formerly homeless folks to be employed with the task of collecting and reporting shelter concerns to community leaders.
The agency facing these disgusting allegations rose from a small organization only 5 years ago to a multi-million dollar operation, in response to the explosion of homelessness in NYC. We now spend billions of federal dollars to provide direly needed services to those experiencing homelessness across the country. Yet no city has instituted full oversight by people who have used these services. Unfortunately, people who are utilizing the services are not treated as equals to homeless services providers, Continuum of Care funding boards or in the oversight of the shelters.
This is not an isolated incident in New York City. We have documented media accounts of exploitation and harassment at shelters in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Florida, and Washington, DC. But there are many examples of homeless led organizations that could be tapped by HUD and local communities to provide oversight of homeless services. San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness has the most advanced Shelter Monitoring Committee which could be modelled around the country. Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Portland and Philadelphia all have the infrastructure in place to take a leadership role in monitoring and providing peer support.
We must more fully integrate those experiencing homelessness into reforming our systems. NCH demands that:
Communities receiving federal homeless dollars initiate a review of protections against the harassment and exploitation of residents.
Each funded Continuum of Care should have a reporting system that prompts action by the local government.
Cities should employ an advisory committee of people who have been homeless, or a homeless ombudsman, to review agencies serving people who are unhoused and ensure that they are acting in the best interest of those experiencing homelessness.
HUD initiate a process where local groups of unhoused folks are given a chance to weigh in on local funding decisions, and ensure that recommendations are taken seriously by community leaders.
