$1.4-Billion in Federal Grants to Homeless Programs Announced

The Housing and Urban Development Department has awarded $1.4-billion to nearly 7,000 homeless programs operated by charities and other organizations across the country.

The money, known as Continuum of Care grants, will go to programs that now provide permanent and transitional housing to homeless people and services such as job training, counseling, and health care. The federal agency said it would award additional money to new projects to aid the homeless later in the year.

The announcement comes one week before thousands of volunteers in nearly every city and county are set to conduct a national one-night count of homeless people. The housing agency said chronic homelessness has declined since 2005 and the total number of homeless people dropped slightly between 2008 and 2009. However, the number of families without homes increased both of those years, probably because of the recession, it said.

The Obama administration has set a goal of ending chronic homelessness for veterans by 2015 and for children and families by 2020.