Caring for
COVID's invisible victims

Down Arrow

The CARES Act included $4 billion to protect homeless people during the COVID-19 pandemic and a chance to reimagine how America cares for its most vulnerable.

Putting together the prebab buildings

Communities struggle to make best use of COVID homeless aid


Funding delays and confusing spending restrictions have hampered communities’ abilities to capitalize on the largest influx of homeless aid in American history.

Bunce giving a talk

Calculating the impact of HUD’s homeless formulas


It took a pandemic for the federal government to actually consider homeless people in determining how much homeless aid to give out. Without congressional action, a decadeslong formula problem remains.

Mino Oski Ain Dah Yung facility

Federal aid divides homeless in the Twin Cities


The Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis have faced an alarming rise in homelessness during the pandemic, but there’s nothing similar in how they’ve confronted the crisis.

Nikki Macho and her RV

Two cities tried to fix homelessness, only one succeeded


Housing First is considered a best practice for addressing homelessness, but where one city succeeded, another still struggles. A surge in pandemic homeless aid will help, but experts say only with strategic planning.

Men waiting by side of road

Puerto Rico’s nonprofits fear history repeating itself in homeless aid


Homeless providers in Puerto Rico fear that the history of federal emergency funding problems in the U.S. territory will continue with homeless aid provided by the CARES Act and impede their ability to care for those trying to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mino Oski Ain Dah Yung facility

Racial equity is key to helping homeless during the pandemic


Racial equity should be at the center of homeless responses during the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say, a recognition that people of color are disproportionately affected by both homelessness and the pandemic.


Credits

Reporters

  • Madeline Ackley
  • Agya K. Aning
  • Andy Blye
  • Molly Bohannon
  • Austin Fast
  • Audrey Jensen
  • Chloe Jones
  • Anne Mickey
  • Shaena Montanari
  • Jill Ryan
  • Lidia Terrazas
  • Natalie Walters
  • Helena Wegner
  • Helen Wieffering

Data analysis

  • Austin Fast
  • Helen Wieffering
  • Andy Blye

Graphics

  • Austin Fast
  • Andy Blye
  • Helen Wieffering
  • Agya K. Aning
  • Audrey Jensen

Photography

  • Chloe Jones
  • Agya K. Aning
  • Audrey Jensen
  • Madeline Ackley
  • Natalie Walters

Project editors

  • Maud Beelman
  • Lauren Mucciolo

Data editor

  • Sarah Cohen

Research editor

  • Molly Bohannon

Copy editor

  • Ian McGibboney

Special thanks to
Gregg Leslie, executive director, and Laura Layton of the First Amendment Clinic at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.