FACT SHEET: HUD ANNOUNCES $486 MILLION IN GRANTS AND $43 MILLION FOR STABILITY VOUCHERS TO ADDRESS UNSHELTERED AND RURAL HOMELESSNESS 

April 17, 2023 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), under the leadership of Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, is committed to housing people experiencing homelessness and providing them with safe, affordable, and sustainable living options. This is a top priority for the Biden-Harris Administration – illustrated by the American Rescue Plan (ARP)’s historic funding to address homelessness and the recently adopted Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, All In, which sets a national goal to reduce homelessness 25 percent by 2025.

Today, HUD awards $171.2 million and adds to the first set of grant awards announced in February, bringing the total value of grants to $486 million to communities across several states to address unsheltered and rural homelessness.

In addition, HUD is inviting 139 Public Housing Authorities who partnered with grantee communities to accept approximately 3,300 Stability Vouchers to provide rental assistance to people experiencing or are at-risk of homelessness, including survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, or human trafficking.

This package of grants and vouchers from HUD is part of a first-of-its-kind funding initiative to address homelessness among people in unsheltered settings and in rural communities. This initiative responds to the rising problem of unsheltered homelessness and homeless encampments, as well as to the unmet homelessness problem in rural areas.

Communities receiving this package of grants and vouchers will implement coordinated approaches to address unsheltered and rural homelessness, coordinating homeless outreach services with permanent housing and supportive services. To develop these approaches, communities were encouraged to engage in coordinated planning with a variety of partners that include healthcare providers, public housing agencies, other HUD-assisted housing providers, and people with lived experience.

This funding initiative is the latest action that HUD and the Biden-Harris Administration is taking to address the nation’s homelessness crisis with the urgency it requires. Last year, the Administration, under the coordination of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, adopted All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, which set an ambitious goal to reduce homelessness by 25% by 2025.

It builds upon the national momentum to address homelessness created through President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, in which communities received historic resources to address homelessness, such as Emergency Housing Vouchers; Secretary Fudge’s House America initiative, in which HUD partnered with leaders from 105 communities to provide permanent housing to over 100,000 individuals and families experiencing homelessness and add over 40,000 units of housing to address homelessness in the development process by the end of 2022; and HUD’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to reduce Veteran homelessness by 11% decline since early 2020.

Special Notice of Funding Opportunity

• 62 Continuums of Care have been awarded under the Special Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to Address Unsheltered and Rural Homelessness:
  • $419,799,026 of this funding is for Unsheltered Awards
  • $65,853,908 is for Rural Awards
  • Resulting in a total of $485,652,006 in awards made under this NOFO.
• Below are some examples of what these new grants will do in communities across the country:
  • Southeastern Oklahoma will use its $395,924 to rapidly rehouse families and individuals and provide enhanced supportive services by partnering with the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency, local mental health providers, county health departments, public housing authorities, and tribal rental assistance programs among many others. The partnering PHA, Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency, is being invited to accept 20 Stability Vouchers.
  • New York City will use its $60M to support the creation of a centralized complex care coordination unit to connect unsheltered homeless, outreach teams, shelters, hospitals, and community-based health providers to help unsheltered program participants navigate services and get permanent housing. Two partnering PHAs, New York City Housing Authority and New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, are being invited to accept a total of 612 Stability Vouchers.
  • New Orleans, LA will use its $14,962,540 to support additional beds and supportive services to make available private and semi-private accommodations. The CoC has been very effective in sheltering and permanently housing persons who are homeless using a trauma-informed approach and honoring client choice. Four partnering PHAs, Housing Authority of New Orleans, Housing Authority of the City of Kenner, Parish of Jefferson, and Louisiana Housing Authority, are being invited to accept a total of 34 Stability Vouchers.
  • Kentucky Balance of State will use its $11.4M to address unsheltered and rural homelessness throughout the state to make hundreds of units of new housing available. More than half of the new projects will be available in areas where CoC funds have been entirely unavailable or where the proposed projects have never existed. Four partnering PHAs, including the Kentucky Housing Corporation, the Housing Authority of Henderson, Boone County Fiscal Court, and Bowling Green Community Development Agency, are being invited to receive a total of 40 vouchers.

Stability Vouchers

• The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Public Law 116-260) (2021 Act), made available $43,439,000 for new incremental voucher assistance targeting individuals and families:
  • Experiencing or are at-risk of homelessness;
  • Those fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence dating violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, stalking, and/li>
  • Veterans and families that include a veteran family member that meets one of the proceeding criteria.
• On August 16, 2022, HUD published PIH Notice 2022-24. Through this notice, interested PHAs were provided an opportunity to register interest in receiving an allocation of Stability Vouchers. Per the notice, HUD committed to prioritizing PHAs partnering with their local Continuums of Care and/or Victim Service Providers to develop a community-wide plan to pair Stability Vouchers with CoC-funded services and local resources.
• Similar to the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program, HUD’s Stability Vouchers allocation formula takes into consideration need and agency capacity, as demonstrated by EHV utilization rates, and ensures geographic diversity, among other indices.

Biden-Harris Administration Actions 

• In the first year of the Biden-Harris Administration, Secretary Fudge launched House America, a federal initiative to address the crisis of homelessness by through a Housing First approach.   
  • In January 2023, HUD announced that the 105 municipalities, states, and tribes who joined House America have collectively housed more than 100,000 households experiencing homelessness and added over 40,000 affordable housing units into development.
• The American Rescue Plan Act delivered one of the largest investments in ending homelessness in U.S. history. The legislation included billions of dollars to house people currently experiencing homelessness and keep those in need housed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, HUD deployed:
  • $5 billion for emergency housing vouchers for individuals who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.
  • $5 billion for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program to help create housing and services for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
  • $750 million for assistance for Native Americans and Native Hawaiians, helping reduce housing-related health risks during the pandemic.
  • $100 million to help people in rural communities keep their homes during the pandemic.
  • $100 million for grants to housing counseling providers to provide services to households facing housing instability.
  • $20 million to investigate fair housing complaints, strengthen enforcement, and assist those who believe they have been victims of housing discrimination.
• The Biden-Harris Administration has have made ending veteran homelessness a top priority: 
  • VA, HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) announced in 2022 that actions taken by the Biden-Harris Administration had reduced Veteran homelessness by 11% since 2020-the largest in Veteran homelessness in five years.
• Throughout the month of January, Biden-Harris Administration officials participated in Point-in-Time counts across the country:
  • During this process, HUD officials will strive towards better understanding the local needs, measure trends in homelessness, hear from the community and more accurately target federal resources.

See here for more information on the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan to end homelessness.