Last week, HUD released its annual Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), containing data on homelessness through September, 2008. As with all past AHARs, the data paints a thoroughly incomplete picture, as it does not count individuals and families temporarily staying with others, or living at their own expense in motels. Individuals and families in these dire circumstances are erroneously viewed as housed, to be considered homeless only when they wind up on the streets or in emergency shelters.
The newly passed HEARTH Act requires HUD to begin defining many of these individuals and families as homeless. This is a good, though woefully incomplete, first step toward providing them with the housing and supportive services they need. Unfortunately the bill also contains troubling language that would inhibit HUD's ability to gather data any of the newly added groups - it simply prohibits the Secretary from requiring communities to count people living in these conditions.
Presumably, this was done out of a concern that undertaking such counts would be difficult. But we have to try - without reasonable local estimates of the prevalence of homelessness, even as newly defined by HUD, how can communities properly plan to address it?
From the limited information we do have, what new statements can be made about homelessness in the United States? Because the new data is nearly a year old, it does not appear to fully reflect the impact of the economic and foreclosure crises. However, the report does contain some important information, which is consistent with what NPACH is receiving from advocates and service providers from across the country.
The demographics of homelessness are changing. More families are becoming homeless, and homelessness is growing fastest in suburban and rural communities. These trends are not surprising to anyone who works on homelessness policy issues, and we can only expect them to continue in next year's report - which will provide the first data on homelessness after the September 2008 beginning of the economic crisis.
We look forward to working with the new Administration - at the White House, HUD, and the US Interagency Council on Homelessness - to focus more attention on short and long term solutions to the growing crisis in family homelessness, and to help suburban and rural communities increase their capacity to provide homeless assistance. The first step in this process will be implementation of the new HEARTH Act, which completely re-wrote the law governing HUD's homeless assistance grant programs, and will require HUD for the first time to draft and publish comprehensive governing regulations. We hope and trust that the Administration will reach out and work with us, to ensure that the new law's flexibility is used to meet our most pressing emerging needs.