The resources and services available through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program are critical to ending family homelessness. State and local TANF programs can provide access to critical work opportunities and support services for families experiencing homelessness. This resource from the Heartland Alliance provides an overview of TANF, examples of where state and local TANF programs have been leveraged to support homeless families, and recommendations to ensure that TANF resources are leveraged effectively to support homeless families.

This research brief, the first in a series that will draw on data from the Family Options Study, answers questions about family homelessness. The findings suggest that homeless families in the study reported participation in most safety net programs at rates greater than or equal to those of other deeply poor families.

These podcasts were produced in partnership between U.S. Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB). They share information on providing resources and support for job seekers who are homeless youth, pregnant and parenting youth, or victims of domestic violence.

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, rates of student homelessness have risen rapidly in urban, suburban, and rural school districts throughout the United States. Approximately one million students were identified as homeless during the 2009 to 2010 school year. Since homelessness has been associated with an array of negative school outcomes including low attendance rates, poor grades and attendance scores, and social stigmatization, this represents a significant challenge for schools. One clear finding that has emerged from Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) studies of homeless and highly mobile students is that schools and community-based organizations have important roles in connecting students and families to a variety of education-related opportunities.

With many soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the late 2000s, the risk of homelessness significantly increased for veterans. The Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and Labor collaborated to implement the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration (VHPD). This interactive feature from the Urban Institute highlights the findings from the evaluation report.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Family Unification Program (FUP) provides low-income families in the child welfare system with housing vouchers. FUP is critical to understanding the overlap between the child welfare system and housing/homelessness, as well as how to provide housing to vulnerable families and facilitate partnerships between public housing agencies and child welfare agencies. This report highlights FUP implementation in eight sites and offers innovative practices and impacts.

This Trauma-Informed Organizational Toolkit was created to provide homeless service providers a roadmap for becoming trauma-informed. The Toolkit provides concrete guidelines for modifying practices and policies and ensuring appropriate responses to the needs of families who have experienced traumatic stress.

In a post from Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, she describes a woman who experienced homelessness and was cared for by a community health center. Secretary Burwell notes the interagency commitment to end veteran homelessness by 2015, chronic homelessness by 2017, and family, youth, and child homelessness by 2020.

This is the first of two messages from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs and highlights recent progress in combatting family homelessness and HUD’s future priorities. The resource provides practitioners and stakeholders with steps they can take to end family homelessness by 2020. These actions include using data to evaluate resources, maximizing emergency shelters, eliminating barriers, and tailoring assistance to the unique needs of families.