The Stewart B Mckinney Homeless Assistance Act: a Policy Analysis

Homelessness is an issue in American society today that affects anywhere from 800,000 to 3.5 million people. There are a substantial amount of people that are without shelter, food, or employment, and there are numerous other people affected by poverty and homelessness. People living in nearly every city in the United States are affected by homelessness due to the large amounts of homeless individuals living on the streets and begging for money, food, and other necessities. The issue of homelessness has been a constant problem since the conquering of the New World, and soup kitchens and homeless shelters have not been able to fully end homelessness. Especially today, with a lack of affordable housing and high unemployment rates, homelessness is prevalent.

In recent years, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have identified rapid re-housing as a critical strategy to meeting the national goal of ending family homelessness by 2020 (USICH 2013). As noted in a recent update of Opening Doors, the federal plan to end homelessness, "[US Department of Health and Human Services], HUD, [the US Department of Veterans Affairs], and USICH have joined forces to promote expansion of rapid re-housing as a part of community coordinated systems" (USICH 2013). Rapid re-housing, an intervention that helps homeless families exit shelters and get back into permanent housing quickly, provides short-term help with housing expenses (e.g., rent arrears, ongoing rent assistance, moving costs) and case management focused on housing stability. Rapid re-housing is a relatively new but, as early evidence shows, promising strategy that communities across the country are

With the informing of the nation, next comes the awareness of the government. The most influential Americans, the ones capable of written, federal change, have turned an ear to the cause. Legislation so far has helped greatly. Acts like the Housing and Community Act of 1974, which gave housing opportunities for lower income families, and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, an organization aimed at helping communities and with which the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program was added to in 1987, have supported the cause to this day. The aforementioned Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program ensured homeless children and youth equal access to an education. Even with this help, many schools found conflict arising in areas such as residency, guardian requirements, incomplete or missing documentation (Dealing with 114). There is

National Level: H.R. 251, a bill that addresses homeless veterans, is titled Homes for Heroes Act of 2015. H.R. 251 was introduced in the House on January 9, 2015 and passed the House without amendment on July 14, 2015. The bill is to establish in the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) a Special Assistant for the VA. The special assistant will make certain veterans have fair access to HUD housing and homeless assistance program, coordinate, all HUD programs and activities relating to veterans, and serve as a liaison with the VA (Congress.gov, nod).

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (McKinney-Vento) covers many aspects of homelessness. The original Act contained 15 different programs for people who were homeless (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], 2007). I will be focusing on Title VII-B of this act. This section of McKinney-Vento speaks to homeless children and their right to equal access to an appropriate public school education. This Act has been in existence since 1987. Due to school performance standards put in place by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, this specific section of the McKinney-Vento Act has been reauthorized to include new mandates (United States Department of Education [DE], 2004).

Given national recognition, The State of Homelessness in America benefits individuals needlessly suffering from a lack of shelter and a steady income. Efforts such as raising awareness and knowledge about the increase in the homeless population has sparked a number of organizations devoted to lessening the amount of individuals living on the streets in major cities. The state of homelessness is able to provide accurate information and statistics for viewers nationwide.

In order to combat homelessness and restore the people of the united states to their fullest capabilities, the government has to take the initiative to provide more funding for the homeless. This includes providing shelters for the homeless, while also building jobs for the unemployed ,and raising awareness to all that homelessness is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The section of the AFDC program was one of the most questioned of the welfare prior to 1996. AFDC welfare program was originally created by congress with the intention to provide essential necessities and protection to children and their families. This program however was eliminated when the 1996 welfare reform act was enacted. The reform act was distributed by block grants which provided welfare benefits to the recipients under new sets of rules and requirements. TANF, the new block grant transforms ADFC to a pre-established funding. TANF provided states a pre-established scale of funds for income funding and work programs based on what they spent on these programs in 1994. The succeeding variations in the scale of demand for this program

The bill I have chosen to work with was H.R. 4888: Ending Homelessness Act of 2016. This bill was introduced in House on March 23, 2016. The sponsor for this bill is Maxine Waters. Maxine is the representative for California’s 43rd congressional distract and she is a Democrat. The purpose of this bill is to provide a lead way to end homelessness that is happening in the United States. There are 14 co-sponsors of the bill. Some of those co-sponsors are the following: Rep. Gwen Moore, Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky, Rep. Alan Grayson, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, and more. Currently, there does not seem to be any bipartisan support. However, this bill appeared to amend the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. This bill is still in the “Introduced” section

The social program that addressed John and Jane’s problem of affordable housing is the Section 8- (Housing Choice Voucher Program) that was implemented through The Housing and Community Act of 1974. This is a federal program to assist low income families, the elderly and disabled to afford safe housing (hud.gov). Those who are eligible are responsible for finding their own housing which can include single family- homes or apartments outside of public housing units. The units must meet standards of health and safety which the PHA set. These vouchers are received by the local Public Housing Agencies and eligibility is set by the PHA, it is based on the total gross income and cannot be over 50% of the income for that area, by

The homeless are under-served vulnerable populace because this population is at an expanded risk for adverse health-related outcomes. These groups of individuals take asylum in the homeless shelter, and others live in surrendered structures, in this manner, reaching homelessness people's turns out to be progressively troublesome increasingly. In fact, homeless has various causes, for example, “deinstitutionalization in the 1960’s… freedom from slavery, westward expansion, lumber and railroad work, the Great Depression, and the aftereffects of the war” (Karkness and DeMarco, 2016, pg. 374). Indeed, even though, this populace is hard to reach, there are numerous things being done to address this issue. For instance, healthcare is

This act has been amended four times since being signed into law in 1987, in 1988, 1990, 1992, and 1994. The amendments in 1988 were relatively minor, and added a few additional places where funds from this act could be distributed (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2006). In 1990, the amendments changed far more of the act than with previous amendments, and many new programs were created, including Shelter Plus Care program (providing assistance to those with disabilities and addictions), and the Community Mental Health Services was amended and given a new name, Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2006). The amendments in 1992 both expanded and modified Title IV, which included several programs that were overseen by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to include the creation of “safe havens”, which are very low-cost shelters available to people who do not wish to utilize other services, and the Rural Homeless Housing Assistance grant program (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2006). The most recent amendments to the McKinney-Vento Act took place in 1994, and these amendments focused on Education of the Homeless Children and Youth program, and the

Even though these programs and projects have played a role in reducing homelessness, it does not mean these programs make a significant difference. There is a dilemma about funding for housing projects. There is no doubt that housing projects cannot maintain their operation without sufficient funding. However, increased funding for homeless programs can slightly reduce homelessness. In “Does Increased Funding for Homeless Programs Reduce Chronic Homelessness?”, Shawn Moulton estimates a “fixed-effects model” to examines the effect of new federal homeless funding on homelessness. The data from Moulton’s estimate implies that increased funding for homeless programs can decrease homelessness, and the data also indicates that the “first-year

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act, TANF, was created out of a block grant from PRWORA. TANF replaced two programs: the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program—JOBS—and the Aid to Families with Dependent Children—AFDC—program that provided assistance to mothers and children. Then president, Bill Clinton remarked that the creation of this act would “[end] welfare as we know it” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2015). AFDC had been criticized for providing assistance to non-working mothers and incentives for children out of marriage. As such, program’s design was tailored to fill the needs of poor families through cash assistance so that they would be able to obtain “economic self-sufficiency” (Abt, 2001). The program has four additional declared purposes: 1. to

There have been many Acts and Programs made to also help prevent homelessness, one is Entitled Homelessness: Coordination and Evaluation of Programs Are Essential. This is a study that “identifies 50 programs, administered by eight federal agencies, that either are specifically targeted to the homeless or are non targeted and therefore available to low-income people in general, including those who are homeless. We found that both the targeted and “non targeted” programs provide an array of services, such as housing, health care, job training, and transportation.” (p. 4).