This month, LAHSA and our partners secured the largest federal funding award in our history. On February 20, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released homeless grant awards for the 2008-09 fiscal year, awarding the Los Angeles Continuum of Care (LACoC) nearly $69 million. (The LACoC includes the City and most of the County of Los Angeles, with the exception of Pasadena, Glendale and Long Beach; these cities each submit separate applications and receive separate awards.)

As lead agency of the LACoC, LAHSA coordinates our region's application for the SuperNOFA Competitive Award program. Through this competitive grant process, HUD awards billions of dollars in funding to homeless Continuums of Care in cities and regions nationwide.

In addition to the SuperNOFA funding, HUD simultaneously announced awards for their Emergency Shelter Grant Program (ESG), which funds basic shelter and essential supportive services for homeless people. The City & County of Los Angeles were awarded over $4.4 million in ESG grants, bringing the total amount of next year's federal homeless funding awarded to the LACoC to over $73.4 million. Taken together, this year’s awards represent an increase of more than $1.3 million over last year’s funding of $72 million.

“We are thrilled to receive this crucial funding for our programs providing housing and services to our most vulnerable citizens,” said LAHSA Executive Director Rebecca Isaacs. “Our partner agencies provide a continuum of programs including emergency shelters, safe havens, transitional and permanent housing, along with supportive services that address issues intertwined with homelessness, such as domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse, and job skills. Together we create and sustain solutions that are ending homelessness as we know it.”

The majority of projects receiving LACoC grants are ...    READ FULL ARTICLE