Tag: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The day breaks sunny and nippy in San Francisco and the wind is already whipping around Polk Street, in front of City Hall and down past the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium as the first Project Homeless Connect volunteer coordinators enter the auditorium prior to 7 AM. Just before midnight, the news is that some 2200 homeless showed up for services today. Final tallies are not yet published.

The mission of Project Homeless ConnectTM (PHC) is to connect San Francisco’s homeless with the system of care that will help them move off the streets and into housing.

US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama last winter signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, appropriating $1.5 billion for a Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP). These monies are being distributed via a formula used for the Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG).

HUD, oversees the funding and serves as the hub for information on the program, And the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) is working alongside to ensure the successful implementation of HPRP.

This Sunday, BrokenRoots shines a light on HPRP: How’s it doing so far? What are its guidelines and philosophy? Who’s eligible and how is HPRP  defining homelessness? And, perhaps more significantly, as the days grow shorter and the temps drop, what are YOU doing about the homeless crisis in your own backyard? We’ll provide a few suggestions and solicit some ideas.

If it’s Sunday, It’s ‘Homeless in America”