HUD Budget Proposals Would ‘Turn Back The Clock’ on Homelessness Prevention
Mr. Mangano served as the executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness under President George W. Bush.
“It’s bad enough that the number of homeless people in the United States soared to the highest ever recorded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development over the past several years, driven largely by a national housing crisis and by what the homelessness researcher Dennis Culhane has described to me as the “migrant bump,” the increase in asylum seekers. Now, as part of broad proposed cuts to federal housing assistance, the Trump administration is poised to reduce funding for HUD’s housing program for the homeless by more than half, putting at risk tens of thousands of people who have escaped homelessness and stifling the creation of more housing for those still on our streets and in our shelters.
The modern manifestation of homelessness began in the 1970s, largely because of a national push to move people out of psychiatric hospitals without the community support services they needed. Nearly five decades into the response, researchers and policymakers in both Democratic and Republican administrations have consistently found that offering homeless people a place to live, coupled with support services for those who need them, is a highly effective way of getting and keeping them off the streets. This intervention, known as permanent supportive housing, is precisely what HUD is targeting for a $2 billion cut. The administration’s plan would be a draconian and nonsensical rollback of the very solution that has ended homelessness for people in every state in our country, and would threaten the tenancies of many more.
The United States should be going all in on what works. Sadly, even before the new administration, there have never been enough resources for either housing or services to end homelessness.”
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