The White House is rolling out a nationwide push to reduce homelessness 25% by the start of 2025 as major cities across the country wrestle with a growing, stubborn crisis.
The Biden administration's plan, which was announced Monday, will offer federal intervention for a problem that has been mounting for years. Federal agencies will work with states and cities to target unsheltered homelessness, expand housing and services and attempt to prevent homelessness before it happens, according to the administration.
The plan builds off the March 2021 American Rescue Plan, which gave tens of billions of dollars in rental assistance to people struggling during the pandemic. Biden also has requested an increase in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's homelessness assistance spending of more than $360 million for the 2023 fiscal year, the White House said.
The plan aims to maximize the use of existing resources and will inform future budget requests across all agencies, said Caroline Cournoyer, Communications Manager for the council that created the plan.
The Biden administration's Interagency Council on Homelessness will send federal staff to targeted communities with acute needs and work to create solutions with local leaders, including people who have experienced homelessness.
By working directly with cities, the federal government hopes to quickly mobilize federal resources and streamline the creation of housing and services such as health care and job training, a process that has faced administrative hurdles in the past.
Individualized approaches in each community will mean solutions to homelessness won't be one-size-fits-all, White House officials said, although they have not shared a list of areas selected. The administration said in a press release that a rise in local strategies in some U.S. cities that forces homeless people off the streets was troubling, arguing it criminalizes homelessness without offering solutions to the problem.
The Biden administration's Interagency Council on Homelessness includes HUD and the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Education, Agriculture, Labor, and 13 other federal agencies.
Federal data shows 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness in January 2022 – a number about the population of Milwaukee. The number includes people living in shelters and unsheltered people. The U.S. saw a .3% increase in homelessness since 2020, not an overall spike, federal officials said. Notably, veteran homelessness dropped more than 11% since 2020, and homelessness among families and unaccompanied children also decreased, according to HUD.
Although federal data doesn't show a rise in homelessness nationally, encampments in many U.S. cities became more visible during the pandemic, sparking debate and concern among the public and putting pressure on elected officials to address the growing problem. Since 2020, the unsheltered homeless population, which includes encampments, increased by more than 3%. Chronic homelessness, which includes many people with disabilities, increased 15%.