* HHS to offer focus on Access to Health Insurance and Health Services
* Interagency activities to be developed around Homeless Youth and Homeless Families
* Interagency Housing for Veterans Workgroup to be established

WASHINGTON, D.C. At the 10th formal meeting of the revitalized United States Interagency Council on Homelessness on Monday, March 5, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt (pictured here) was elected chair of the Council. Accepting the gavel from U.S. Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi, representing Secretary Jackson, the Council chair since September 2005, Secretary Leavitt reaffirmed the commitment of his Department and the Council to the Administration's goal of ending chronic homelessness and announced two special initiatives of the Chair for the coming year. The first, Access to Health Insurance and Health Services, will build on important work on health care issues underway at HHS. The second, A Focus on Homeless Youth and Homeless Families, will be an interagency initiative to assess federal investments and develop a set of activities focused on homeless families and youth.

Secretary Leavitt released a 2007 HHS Departmental 5-Year Strategic Plan on Homelessness, updating the plan released by then HHS Secretary and Council Chair Tommy Thompson in 2003. The Secretary also unveiled a new report from HHS' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, A Primer on How to Use Medicaid to Assist Persons Who are Homeless to Access Medical, Behavioral Health, and Support Services. The 2007 Strategic Plan, CMS report, and other resource material are available on a new HHS website on homelessness www.hhs.gov/homeless.

Following the tradition of special guest presentations at the Council's formal meetings, Secretary Leavitt introduced State of Utah Division of Housing and Urban Development Director Gordon Walker (pictured right) and Mr. Lloyd Pendleton (pictured left). Mr. Pendleton began his work with the State of Utah as a loaned executive from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2003 and 2004 and took the lead in writing the State's Ten-Year Plan for ending chronic homelessness. Upon retiring from Church employment, he went to work for the State to continue the implementation of the organization and systems change to end chronic homelessness in Utah. Mr. Pendleton also served as Utah's state team lead for the most recent federally sponsored Families with Children Homeless Policy Academy.

Initiatives for Veterans

At the request of Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, an interagency workgroup will be created to explore increasing permanent housing opportunities for homeless veterans and creating new relationships to meet that need. Recognizing that some veterans returning from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom may seek primary and behavioral health care assistance at community-based health centers, Secretary Nicholson encouraged a collaboration between the VA and HHS to offer training to community-based centers to familiarize them with the VA services available to returning veterans to enable appropriate referrals "so no veterans will fail to get the services available to them."

Secretary Nicholson discussed the growth of initiatives to help homeless veterans in the 20 years since the VA's first benefits outreach efforts. Today, the VA offers 6000 residential treatment beds; 8000 transitional housing beds which will be increased by 3000 beds over the next two years; and with the help of 16,000 volunteers, VA Stand Downs have reached 23,000 homeless veterans including 1,600 women veterans and 3,700 spouses with children. This month's $24 million funding availability notice was the largest single VA NOFA ever for assistance to special needs veterans. Pictured here, l-r, Council Director Philip Mangano, HUD Deputy Secretary Bernardi, HHS Secretary Leavitt, and VA Secretary Nicholson.

Interagency Collaborations Produce Results

In comments before passing the gavel to Secretary Leavitt, HUD Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi, who convened the Council meeting on Secretary Jackson's behalf, spoke of the real progress towards ending chronic homelessness made by HUD in partnership with HHS, the Department of Labor, the VA, and the Council through three demonstration projects:

• HUD/HHS/VA Collaborative Initiative to Help End Chronic Homelessness has created over 600 permanent supportive housing tenancies with only 4% of homeless clients returning to the streets.

• HUD/DOL Ending Chronic Homelessness Through Housing and Employment Initiative has had no program participants return to the streets.

• Chronic Inebriate Demonstration program developed by HUD in consultation with the Council has provided permanent supportive housing to over 500 homeless clients disabled by chronic alcoholism.

Deputy Secretary Bernardi also discussed the release last week of HUD's landmark first time Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), which analyzed point in time counts from over 3,800 cities and counties and Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) data. The report concludes that an estimated 754,000 people are homeless on any given night. "We recognize that behind every number is a person who desperately needs our help," said Mr. Bernardi, who also noted the nearly $1.4 billion in Homeless Assistance Grants awards announced by Secretary Jackson last month to support a record number of local homeless programs nationwide.

Growth in Federal Investments to Prevent and End Homelessness

OMB Associate Director for General Government Programs Michael Bopp summarized the substantial increases in federal funding for homeless assistance programs since FY 2001 including the President's proposed FY 2008 budget.

• The President's FY 2008 budget request for targeted homeless assistance programs including both McKinney Act programs such as HUD's Homeless Assistance Grants, Health Care for the Homeless, DOL's Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, and other non-McKinney programs, totals $2.7 billion, a 6.8% increase over FY 2007.

• Additionally, the VA and OMB report that the VA will spend more than $1.8 billion providing health care to homeless veterans in FY 2008, bringing the total federal investment in the President's FY 2008 budget for programs to prevent and end homelessness to $4.4 billion.

• In FY 2008, HHS targeted homeless programs would receive an overall 5% increase under the President's budget, a 64% increase since FY 01.

• The $1.586 billion included in the President's FY 2008 budget for HUD's Homeless Assistance Grants program would be a 10% increase in funding over FY 2007, and a 65% increase over the FY 2001 level.

• VA targeted homeless programs (not including overall health care spending) would receive a 6.5% increase in FY 2008 over FY 2007 in the President's budget, a 54% increase since FY 2001.

Agency Activities Reported

Assistant Secretary Charles Ciccollela, Department of Labor:

• The Disability Program Navigator (DPN) effort will soon be expanded to up to 16 more states and territories. DPN is a collaboration of DOL's Employment and Training Administration and the Social Security Administration intended to help one Stop Career Centers more effectively serve customers with disabilities, including people who are homeless.

• Over 5 weeks in January and February, more than 600 Job Corps students from 23 Job Corps Centers sponsored by Major League Baseball helped to build 11 homes in Lafayette, Louisiana for families left homeless by Hurricane Katrina as part of Habitat for Humanities " Build Blitz" effort. Job Corps is also strengthening its commitment to serving foster care youth and will allow a longer pre- separation period during which counselors will help foster care youth connect to housing, transportation, and other community resources.

• The Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative is an interagency effort involving the Departments of Labor, Justice, HUD, HHS,VA, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. DOJ grants to state correctional agencies provide pre release services and DOL grants to community and faith based organizations provide post release services. Almost one year into the program, the 30 PRI sites have enrolled 5,569 persons, of whom 2,885 have been placed in employment. The Departments of Labor and HHS will explore whether Access to Recovery vouchers might be a resource for participants in the prisoner re-entry initiative.

Rural Development Administrator Russell Davis, U.S. Department of Agriculture:

Mr. Davis discussed USDA's interest in participating in collaborative efforts to respond to rural homelessness and summarized some of the work of the Rural Development Administration,

• The USDA Rural Development Service, which works in communities of 20,000 or less, has 742 state and local offices and 2,500 housing specialists.

• There are 470,000 housing units in 19,000 USDA subsidized housing apartments.

• Approximately 30,000 apartment units are vacant at any given time.

• A new rural voucher program can provide rental assistance similar to HUD's Section 8 program to 16,000.

• USDA Rural Development has submitted to Congress a rehabilitation program for over 8000 multifamily properties.

• In FY06, the USDA Rural Development community facilities program of grants, loans and guarantees created $50 million in group homes.

Executive Director's Report

In his Executive Director Report, Director Mangano noted that the meeting not only commemorated the 20th anniversary of the passage of the McKinney Act, which established the federal intervention in homelessness and the Interagency Council, but also marks 5 years to the month the revitalization of the Council by President Bush in March 2002 after a six year dormancy.

In these five years:

• There has been an unprecedented amount of partnership and collaboration between federal agencies including initiatives as varied as the Policy Academies for States, the Re-Entry Initiative for ex prisoners, the Chronic Homelessness Initiative, the HUD-DOL employment effort, the HUD-HHS-SSA SOAR Initiative, the HHS-DOL Job Corps-Foster Care Initiative, the VA-DOL efforts, and the HUD/ICH Chronic Inebriate Initiative.

• The Council has constellated an unprecedented national partnership that includes 20 federal agencies in Washington, and has joined together 49 Governors of states through State Interagency Councils on Homelessness, and nearly 300 Mayors and County Executives in jurisdictionally-led, community-based 10-Year Plans to End Chronic Homelessness.

• The Administration has proposed mainstream initiatives that would prevent homelessness for those exiting prisons and jails, those aging out of foster care, those in need of health care treatment in disadvantaged areas, those who require substance abuse treatment, veterans in need of health care, and victims of domestic violence. Though not specifically targeted to homelessness, these efforts and others have the effect of reducing homelessness through initiatives that effectively prevent homelessness.

• There are now 64 cities engaged in cost benefit studies that are uniformly revealing that the cost of chronic homelessness in health and law enforcement systems is significant, adding an economic reason to our moral and spiritual obligations to respond and to fashion solutions that move us beyond managing homelessness to ending the disgrace.

Remarking on the recently released motion picture Amazing Grace, the story of the English abolition of slavery featuring William Wilberforce, the leading Parliamentary abolitionist and John Newton, former slave captain who penned the graceful hymn, Director Mangano said, "Wilberforce reminds us that persistence and relentlessness are essential in ending social wrong. His 30 year campaign against a millennial old evil succeeded. Our five year old initiative needs the same blend of persistence and urgency that Wilberforce and his allies demonstrated. Our intent is in our seal. Domicilia Omnibus Americanis. A home for every American. That's the commitment of this Council."

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