NPACH: The National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness

HUD recently published draft regulations on the HUD definition of "homeless," as expanded in the HEARTH Act of 2009. NPACH has identified a number of concerns with the draft, and will be submitting detailed comments to HUD outlining our views and proposing alternative language. You can find NPACH's memo detailing our concerns here.

We urge all interested organizations and individuals who share our views to submit comments to HUD. Only by ensuring that a large number of comments are received can we hope to see positive changes in the final regulation. Those comments are due on June 21. Read below the jump for more information on how to submit comments.

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Last year, U.N. Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik spent considerable time in the United States, traveling the country and speaking with advocates and other interested parties, to examine how well the United States is succeeding - or not - in providing a right to housing for all people living in this country.

Recently, the Special Rapporteur released her report. It's a tour de force - reflecting everything that NPACH and other affordable housing and homelessness advocates have been saying for years about the current affordable housing crisis in the United States, the government disinvestment in production and preservation of affordable housing that caused the crisis, and the solutions to the crisis.

Read the report here

As required by last year's HEARTH Act, the US Interagency Council on Homelessness is working on a federal strategic plan to end homelessness. We at NPACH remain mindful of the fact that a plan is not a home - we continue to be skeptical that our government can plan our way to ending homelessness. Instead, we would rather see efforts focused on building support for funding key interventions that we already know are successful at ending homelessness.

But since the Council is preparing a plan, NPACH submitted these comments. In our comments we urge the Council to move away from rigid one size fits all typologies of homelessness that require fixed and unchanging interventions, and instead move towards recognizing that every individual or family experiencing homelessness needs a flexible and customizable package of housing and supportive services.

We are also pleased to highlight the comments of a number of key allies.

NAEHCY comments - homeless families

NAEHCY comments - homeless youth

NCHCW comments - youth aging out of foster care

NNEDV comments - homeless families

NCFH comments - homeless families

Yesterday, at a town hall meeting in Tampa, President Obama responded to a question about what could be done to help provide ex drug felons with jobs, so that they would not return to a life of crime, by touting the Second Chance Act. NPACH worked diligently with a bipartisan group of advocates and Members of Congress to pass this legislation, to help ensure that people leaving jails and prisons do not become homeless because they cannot rent an apartment or find work.

Our partners at NAEHCY have recently released a report detailing the ways in which school districts and staff can help provide housing for homeless youth, to help keep them stably enrolled in school through graduation. The report provides recommendations to districts interested in establishing housing programs, and offers great examples of existing programs that have used American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or "stimulus" funding, HUD McKinney-Vento housing money, and other creative sources of funding to put youth in housing.

Read the report here.