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.
Funding delays and confusing spending restrictions have hampered communities’ abilities to capitalize on the largest influx of homeless aid in American history.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Gregg Leslie, executive director, and Laura Layton of the First Amendment Clinic at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.