Press Room

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the availability of up to an additional $5 billion in emergency funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. This new Emergency Fund, established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will help states serve more families seeking employment opportunities and other forms of assistance during the economic downturn.

This map, produced by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, serves as a database of January 2009 point-in-time counts that have been reported in the media or on Continuum of Care websites. Red markers indicate media reports of increases and green markers indicate media reports of decreases. Yellow markers indicate reports of increases in some subpopulations and decreases in others. Links to news story's or CoC websites are included.

A new study shows supportive housing for the homeless and mentally ill saves Illinois taxpayers money -- nearly $2,500 a year for each resident served. Researchers looked at money spent on 177 Illinois adults, comparing the cost of their tax-funded services for two years before and two years after they entered supportive housing.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said it sold 47 defaulted home-mortgage loans to a New Jersey nonprofit group that seeks to find new owners and alleviate neighborhood blight.

Despite having one of the highest median incomes in the country, close to 2,000 homeless people live in Fairfax County at any given time. Children make up 35 percent of the homeless population, and recent economic struggles have seen more two-parent families coming to shelters for help.

Richard Corbett has been homeless for long periods of time. He has struggled with depression and alcoholism. But he says he doesn't drink very often anymore and only moderately when he does. The difference, Corbett says, is that now he has a permanent place to live and that makes him feel safe. He says he no longer has "to worry about being hit in the night with a brick upside the head and being robbed."

A Chronically homeless woman in her late 50s has emphysema from years of smoking, her condition aggravated by life on the streets or in cramped shelters where respiratory contagions flourish. Several times a year she collapses and needs to be rushed to the emergency room for oxygen, intravenous antibiotics, or other treatments. She costs the state Medicaid program an average of $26,000 a year.

Of the thousands of people sleeping on the streets of Los Angeles on any given night, there is a segment of the population categorized as being chronically homeless and the most at risk of dying on the street.

Nearly 3,000 people accessed the homeless shelter system in Montgomery County last year for the first time, officials said Thursday, March 26. Homeless Solutions Policy Board co-chairs Walt Hibner and Charles Meadows wrote in a new report that there was a substantial increase among families and adults and "the big concern is that homelessness is increasing because of the deteriorating economy."

In the midst of economic gloom and doom, there remain good organizations doing good deeds. The Frey Foundation of Minnesota, for example, has announced that it is giving $5 million to several organizations to provide support services for the homeless.