The HEARTH Act
Changes to HUD’s Homeless
Assistance Programs
Norm Suchar
March 2010
COSCDA Conference
Overview
• HEARTH Act
• Enacted May 20, 2009
• Changes HUD’s McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance programs
• First significant reauthorization since 1992
Overview
• Major Changes
• More Administrative Funding
• Emphasizes
– Prevention
– Rapid Re-Housing
– Chronic homelessness
• Focus on Outcomes
• Rural Option
Overview
• Timeline
• Most changes take effect in the NOFA
released in Spring/Summer 2011
• Regulations Spring, Summer, or Fall 2010
• Public comment period
• Some changes phased in over several
years
Formula and Competitive Funding
Old (2008)
Formula (ESG)
10%
Competitive (CoC)
90%
New
Formula (ESG)
20%
Competitive (CoC)
80%
Changes to the ESG (Formula) Program
Old
Name: Emergency Shelter Grants
Distribution: Formula to Cities,
Counties, and States
Admin: Up to 5% for administrative
expenses
Eligible Activities:
–Shelter renovating, rehab, conversion
–Operating Emergency Shelter (limit of 10%
for staffing)
–Services in Shelter or for outreach (max.
30%)
–Prevention (limited, targets people with
sudden loss of income, max 30%)
New
Name: Emergency Solutions Grants
Distribution: Same
Admin: Up to 7.5% for administrative
expenses
Eligible Activities:
–Same as now plus HPRP activities (except
that prevention has to target below 30% of
AMI)
–No cap on prevention, services, or staffing
–Minimum of 40% must be for prevention and
Rapid Re-Housing (with a hold-harmless
provision)
Another way to look at ESG changes
• New ESG = Old ESG + HPRP
• Roughly the same amount of funding for
emergency shelters
• New funding for homelessness prevention
and Rapid Re-Housing similar to HUD’s
HPRP
Continuum of Care (competitive) Program
Old
New
3 programs
• Supportive Housing Program
(SHP)—including permanent
supportive housing, transitional
housing, safe havens, and
supportive services only projects
• Shelter Plus Care (SPC)—rental
subsidies for permanent
supportive housing
• Mod. Rehab./SRO—seldom
used, provides long-term rental
subsidies for moderate
rehabilitation of single room
occupancy buildings
Single Continuum of Care program
• Includes all of the eligible
activities of the 3 former
programs
• More flexibility for mixing and
matching eligible activities
• Explicitly specifies re-housing
services as an eligible activity
• Up to 10 percent for admin.
Costs (previous amount was 5%
for SHP and 8% for SPC
• Reasonable costs for staff
training
Continuum of Care (competitive) Application
Old
• Providers in community jointly
apply for funding
• Stakeholders in community
review and rank applications
• Application has two parts
– Exhibit 1 is the community wide part,
which includes information about the
number of homeless people, community
resources and gaps, and capacity to
administer homeless assistance
– Exhibit 2 includes individual project
applications
New
• Similar to existing process.
• Application will be submitted by
Collaborative Applicant, which
will be eligible for 3% of the
communities award for admin.
• Application includes plans,
timelines, responsibilities, and
measures.
• Application will be more focused
on performance, including:
– Reducing duration of homelessness
– Reducing recidivism
– Reducing the number of people who
become homeless
Continuum of Care (matching funds)
Old
New
Match requirement varies
depending on activity
Uniform 25% match except for
leasing projects
–25% for services, must be cash
–100% for rental assistance, must be
in-kind services
–100% for construction/rehab
–33% for operating expenses
–No match for leasing
–Match can be community-wide,
meaning some projects can have
higher matches to offset projects with
lower matches
–Match can be cash or in-kind when
documented by Memorandum of
Understanding
Additional Requirements
• Projects that serve families cannot refuse
to serve families because of the age of the
children (i.e. must serve families with
adolescent children)
• Projects must identify person who will be
responsible for coordinating child’s
education
HMIS
•HMIS is here to stay!
Incentives
Old
New
• Communities that score well on Communities that score well will be
their application are eligible for a eligible for a bonus for proven
bonus permanent supportive
strategies, including—
–Permanent supportive housing for
housing project.
• In some years, the bonus project individuals or families with children
experiencing chronic homelessness
had to serve individuals without –Rapid Re-Housing that serves homeless
children experiencing chronic
families
–Other activities that HUD determines are
homelessness.
effective at reducing homelessness
–Communities that fully implement a proven
strategy can receive a bonus to do
whatever they determine is necessary
Unified Funding Agencies
Old
New
Each project submits to HUD an
application for funding, and HUD
enters into a contract with each
project sponsor
HUD
HUD
Project
Sponsor
Project
Sponsor
Communities may designate a
Unified Funding Agency to receive a
direct grant from HUD and then
subgrant to project sponsors
Project
Sponsor
Project
Sponsor
Unified Funding
Agency
Project
Sponsor
Project
Sponsor
Unified Funding Agencies
• A Collaborative Applicant could apply to become
a Unified Funding Agency (UFA) or HUD could
designate a Collaborative Applicant as a UFA
• UFAs would be responsible for ensuring audits
and appropriate fiscal controls
• UFAs would be eligible for up to 3% of a
communities award for administrative expenses
(on top of the 3% that a collaborative applicant
could receive)
Rural Areas
Old
• Rural homelessness
program was never funded.
• Rural Applicants were
treated the same as other
applicants
New
Rural Continuums of Care may
apply for funding under a different
more flexible set of conditions
–Allowed to serve people who are
homeless or at risk of homelessness
with their competitive funding
–May use up to 20% of funding for
capacity building
–Compete with other rural programs for
funding
–More eligible activities
Many of the details will be worked out
in regulations.
Rural Areas
• Rural area defined as—
• Being located in a rural state (Alaska,
Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, or
Wyoming);
• Being a CoC with no Metropolitan
Statistical Areas; or
• Being in a CoC with only a rural part of an
MSA included in the boundary (HUD will
provide more specific definitions later)
Definition of Homelessness/Eligibility
Old
New
Except for a small amount for
prevention, homeless assistance
could only serve homeless people
which includes people living in the
following places
ESG funding can be used to serve
people at risk of homelessness. All
programs can serve homeless
people, including those previously
considered homeless and
–On the streets or in a place not meant
for human habitation
–In an emergency shelter
–In a transitional housing program
–In housing, but being evicted within 7
days and not having resources or
support networks to obtain housing
–Fleeing domestic violence
–People who are losing their housing in 14
days and lack support networks or
resources to obtain housing
–People who have moved from place to
place and are likely to continue to do so
because of disability or other barriers
Communities may use up to 10%
(more in some cases) of CoC
funds to serve people who are
living doubled up, or in motels.
Additional Changes
• Bigger capital grants
• Non-competitive renewals for PSH
• 15-year contracts subject to funding for projectbased PSH
• All Permanent Housing Activities are adjusted for
inflation at renewal
•What Does It All Mean???
Major Changes
• More Administrative Funding
• Emphasizes
– Prevention
– Rapid Re-Housing
– Permanent Supportive Housing for Chronic
Homelessness
• Focus on Outcomes
• Rural Options
More Administrative Funding
•
•
•
•
•
•
HEARTH Allows up to—
3 percent for Collaborative Applicant
3 percent for Unified Funding Agency
7.5 percent for ESG
10 percent for CoC Project Sponsors
Comes out of the same funding as for
programs
Collaborative Applicant/UFA Options
• Models for Administering ESG/CoC
– City/County/State led
– Non-profit led
• Funder (e.g. United Way)
• Dedicated Entity (Community Shelter Board)
– Public/Private
Unified Funding Agencies
Old
New
HUD
Project
Sponsor
Project
Sponsor
HUD
Project
Sponsor
Project
Sponsor
Unified Funding
Agency
Project
Sponsor
Project
Sponsor
Why Unified Funding Agency?
• More responsive to project sponsors
• Align funding resources
• Align reporting and requirements
Fresh Start
• This is a chance to fix things that don’t
work!
• Who is part of the CoC
• Should you consolidate CoCs
• Better integrate ESG/CoC/TYP
New Focus: Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing
Old ESG
HPRP
?
New ESG
CoC Incentives
• Rapid Re-Housing for families with
children
• Permanent Supportive Housing for
individuals and families experiencing
chronic homelessness.
Performance
• New Measures
– Length of Stay
– Recidivism
– Newly Homeless
• Can you measure these?
• Can you manage for these?
• Can you influence these?
Get Ready
• Who will be the Collaborative Applicant?
Are they ready?
• Can we perform? HMIS ready?
• Which HPRP programs will continue?
• Ten Year Plan
Contact
•
•
•
•
•
Norm Suchar
Senior Policy Analyst
National Alliance to End Homelessness
nsuchar@naeh.org
www.endhomelessness.org