On September 23, Secretary Shaun Donovan of U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the release of $300 million to almost 100 communities throughout the U.S.   The goal in distributing the funding is to prevent families from falling into homelessness and to quickly re-house families who become homeless.

The source of the funding?  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  So far, HUD has obligated nearly 75 percent of the department’s Recovery Act (RA) grants, a total of $10 billion.  HUD was allocated $13.61 billion from the ARRA, $1.5 billion of which the department designated for Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing funds.  The September announcement reveals that the $1.5 billion allocation for the homeless and re-housing funding is complete.

In the announcement, Donovan stated that he was proud that funding for the homeless and re-housing has been released, because it is now in the hands of groups that can directly assist families facing homelessness.  In a just a little over six months, Donovan noted that the department made $10 billion accessible to states and communities to create jobs and help families at the brunt of our tough economy times.

Grants from the HPRP offer communities a means to assist with short- to medium-term services for renting in order to prevent homelessness, or to rapidly re-house those who fall into homelessness.

Long-term support is not intended through the program, nor will mortgage assistance be provided to homeowners who are facing foreclosure.  Short-term renting assistance, up to three months and medium-term renting assistance, up to 18 months, is provided, along with utility deposits/payments, security deposits, hotel vouchers and moving expense assistance.  Households will not receive the payments.  Instead, payments will be made directly to third parties – e.g. utility companies or landlords.

Once HPRP assistance concludes, assistance will also be provided to quickly re-house those who are homeless, but able to remain stably housed once they are given assistance, whether subsidized or not.

Visit HUD’s Recovery Act website for a list of grantees and allocations for funding amounts under the September $300 million release.