News from the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

In newly released PSA, First Lady Michelle Obama encourages landlords to help end Veteran homelessness.

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November 5, 2015

Just Released: First Lady Michelle Obama Encourages Landlords to Help End Veteran Homelessness As part of Joining Forces' continued support of communities across the country as they drive to end Veteran homelessness, First Lady Michelle Obama released a new video message today to encourage landlords to provide housing opportunities to Veterans exiting homelessness.   Read about and share Mrs. Obama's message as you engage landlords in your efforts.   To further accelerate your local landlord engagement efforts, we've also gathered a comprehensive set of resources from our Federal and non-profit partners. Also, discover what Seattle/King County learned through organizing a landlord engagement event. Aligning Hearts, Heads, and Budgets to End Chronic Homelessness in 2017    Deputy Director Richard Cho walks us through why ending chronic homelessness is both the most compassionate and the most fiscally responsible thing to do. As the FY 2016 budget process moves forward, there could be good news for our efforts to end homelessness, and in particular, chronic homelessness. Council Confronts Racial Disparities, Including Criminal Justice Involvement and Native American Homelessness   On October 21, Department of Labor Secretary Thomas Perez convened the quarterly meeting of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. At the meeting, Council members confronted the important issues related to racial disparities among people experiencing homelessness, including Federal strategies for reducing criminal justice involvement and for setting a path to ending homelessness among Native Americans.   Read USICH Executive Director Matthew Doherty's reflection on the meeting. In the coming weeks, USICH will be talking further about these issues -- and the Federal strategies to address them -- in more depth. We encourage you to join the conversation in your communities.  New Opportunity: Program Support for State Medicaid-Housing Agency Partnerships States now have an exciting opportunity to apply for targeted program support to help them strengthen state-level collaboration between health and housing agencies and bring to scale permanent supportive housing by coordinating housing resources with Medicaid-covered housing-related services. State Medicaid, housing, and behavioral health agencies should work together to complete the Expression of Interest by December 1, 2015. Learn more about this opportunity for intensive, action-planning technical assistance. Please join us in commemorating National Runaway Prevention Month this November. All young people deserve a safe, stable place to call home.