Alliance Online News: Webinar Today on Ending Veteran Homelessness

Alliance Online News View in browser www.endhomelessness.org Tuesday, April 7, 2015 alliance events Upcoming Webinar - Ending Veteran Homelessness: Setting Goals and Creating a List Tuesday April 7, 2015 , 3 to 4 p.m. EDT Today, Tuesday, April 7, at 3 p.m. EDT the Alliance will host a webinar covering steps one and three of the Alliance resource "5 Steps for Ending Veteran Homelessness.” During the webinar, speakers from the Alliance, Community Solutions, and HOPE for the Homeless in Shreveport will discuss the importance of bringing stakeholders together to set goals and create timelines as well as the ways in which your community can create a master list of homeless veterans. Register » hill update HUD Publishes Rule on VAWA Reauthorization Act of 2013 On Wednesday, April 1, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a proposed rule that would amend its regulations to implement the requirements of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). As reauthorized in 2013, VAWA provides enhanced protections for victims of domestic violence beyond HUD’s public housing and Section 8 programs to other HUD programs that provide rental assistance. With this proposed rule, HUD is also seeking public comment on two documents that outline tenant protections: a notice of occupancy rights and an emergency transfer plan. Read the proposed rule alliance events Upcoming Webinar - Rapid Re-Housing: Taking It to Scale Tuesday April 14, 2015, 1 to 2:30 p.m. EDT On Tuesday, April 14 at 1 p.m. EDT, the Alliance will host a webinar that will discuss two communities that are expanding their capacity to rapidly re-house individuals and families. During the webinar, Kathy Robertson with the Virginia State Department of Housing and Community Development will describe Virginia’s effort to increase rapid re-housing capacity that resulted in a 25 percent decline in family homelessness.  Register » from the blog Ending Homelessness Today the official blog of the national alliance to end homelessness Thank You, Advocates! You Generated Strong Congressional Support for Homeless Programs by Julie Klein If you receive the Alliance’s advocacy alerts, you might recall that not long ago members of Congress were circulating “Dear Colleague” letters in the House and Senate. These letters give members of Congress the opportunity to publicly sign on in support of robust funding levels for programs that they believe should be national priorities. The Dear Colleague letters circulating in congress that were of most interest to us, of course, were letters in support of increased funding levels for homeless assistance and affordable housing programs. Read more » comments » | Just Released: The State of Homelessness in America 2015 by naehblog Overall homelessness in America has declined, but millions remain at risk of falling into homelessness in the future, according to  The State of Homelessness in America 2015, the fifth in a series of annual reports on the nation’s progress on homelessness by the Alliance’s Homelessness Research Institute. The report, which we released today, examines national and state trends in the homeless populations and the number of beds available to assist them. It shows that, during a period of economic growth for the nation when unemployment decreased in nearly every state, the rate of homelessness fell by 2.3 percent, but the number of people at risk of homelessness remained at post-recession levels. Read more » comments » | Could Shelter Policies Increase a Youth's Vulnerability to Sexual Exploitation? by Sharon McDonald Last month, the Urban Institute released a report that examines the experiences of young Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) youth who have engaged in “survival sex” in New York City.  Survival sex is a term frequently used to describe the exchange of sexual acts for money or goods that people require to live (e.g. food and shelter) Of all the findings in this compelling report, “Surviving the Streets of New York,” one in particular should give homeless service providers pause: “Many … credited the instability and rules associated with emergency housing with driving them back to the street [and sexual exploitation].” Read more » comments » | Corrections In the Alliance News Alert distributed on April 2, 2015, two statistics were in error. The time period during which the nation’s rapid re-housing capacity expanded from 20,000 to 38,000 beds was listed as 2012 to 2013. The time period for the expansion was actually 2013 to 2014. The numbers of states where homelessness declined or increased from 2013 to 2014 were incorrect. During that period homelessness declined in 34 states, and homelessness increased in 16 states and Washington, DC.