Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced The Ending Homelessness Act of 2016 on March 23. The bill – designed as an emergency relief bill – would provide $13.27 billion in funding over five years.
The funding would provide access to both housing and supportive services to help the homeless achieve safe, decent and affordable housing as well as long-term, positive life outcomes.
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) most recent Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, there were approximately 407,000 homeless households in 2015. Homelessness within major cities, which accounts for 48 percent of all homeless people in the United States, increased by 3 percent between 2014 and 2015.
“In Los Angeles County alone, homelessness increased by a staggering 20 percent between 2014 and 2015,” Waters said. “We all remember how, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Congress came together in a bipartisan way to provide emergency funding to address the dire needs of New Orleanians. I believe that it is time for Democrats and Republicans to come together in that same bipartisan spirit to also help homeless Americans, many of whom only became homeless as a result of the housing crisis.”
The bill includes the following funding amounts over and above what is already annually provided for these existing HUD programs:
- $5 billion in McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants funding, with a significant portion of the funding targeted for chronically homeless individuals and families, which is expected to fund approximately 85,000 new permanent supportive housing units;
- $2.5 billion for special purpose Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV), which is expected to provide affordable housing for homeless families, youth and individuals on an ongoing basis and create an additional 295,000-300,000 subsidized HCV units;
- $1.05 billion annually in mandatory spending dedicated to the National Housing Trust Fund, which in the first five years of funding is expected to create approximately 25,000 new units affordable to extremely low-income households, ensuring that rents are affordable for tenants;
- $500 million in outreach funding to ensure that homeless people are connected to the resources they need; and
- $20 million in technical assistance funding to help states and localities align health and housing systems.
It is estimated that the bill, which is supported by the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, would provide 405,000-410,000 units of affordable housing for homeless individuals, families and youth.