This blogpost illustrates findings of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency Service Coordinator program (ROSS-SC). ROSS-SC provides funding to local public housing authorities to support public housing residents—primarily seniors, persons with disabilities, and very low-income families. The blogpost identifies how ROSS-SC helped residents to access food and transportation, deal with health emergencies, address domestic violence, and access child care.

(See also Resources on "intimate partner violence" in the Resource Library)

This webinar discusses new federal investments in kinship navigator programs, grandfamilies housing, and relevant child welfare programs that can help grandfamilies. It highlights how funds can be utilized to assist families in critical areas during the pandemic, such as housing, lawyer fees, transportation, technology, food, and emergency support for older youth aging out of foster care.

States have discretion and flexibility in how they use TANF funds to provide services to families experiencing or at-risk of experiencing homelessness. Some states partner with their state-level housing departments, direct providers of homelessness services, local public housing agencies, and/or Continuums of Care (specifically Emergency Solutions Grants programs). This research-to-practice brief includes findings from a 2019 state TANF administrators survey, a review of state TANF plans, and a county TANF administrator survey highlighting differences between state and county approaches to identifying and assisting families experiencing homelessness.

Federal housing subsidies can support low-income and disadvantaged families in meeting their monthly rental needs through public housing and housing vouchers. Federal initiatives in the public housing system have also been used to incentivize work, boost earnings, and provide families with pathways to move out of poverty. This research-to-practice brief examines strategies that have incorporated housing subsidies to promote economic self-sufficiency with employment-focused supports and work-based rent incentives. The brief identifies program approaches used to engage persons receiving housing assistance, and presents program components that can be used when designing employment-related initiatives.

This April 9, 2020 webinar, hosted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, was facilitated by Iain De Jong of OrgCode Consulting, Inc. The webinar highlighted several considerations for staff working in Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) and Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) programs to support individuals remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Webinar topics included: staff wellness; communicating with program participants; keeping connected; considerations regarding prioritizing time and who to serve; supporting harm reduction, financial matters, and landlords; helping with crisis planning, changing support plans; and addressing food security.

This Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report provides a summary of recent data to illustrate the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the rental and mortgage market and its effect on low-income and minority households. The report notes that over 11 million renter and homeowner households were significantly overdue on housing payments as of December 2020, placing them at greater risk of foreclosure or eviction.

The 20th Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS) was held virtually on October 13–15 and October 19–22, 2020. The conference sessions were organized in six thematic tracks: TANF Programs, Policies, and Populations; Employment and Mobility in the Labor Market; Youth Well-Being and the Transition to Adulthood; Strengthening Families, Fatherhood, Marriages, and Relationships; Evaluating Social Programs, Building Evidence, and Using Data; and Approaches to Alleviate Poverty and Expand Opportunity. A complete set of videos covering plenary and breakout sessions and a career panel is now available online.

Tipping Point Community, a nonprofit organization in the Bay Area, initiated the Chronic Homelessness Initiative (CHI) in 2017 (a $100 million private investment) with a goal of halving chronic homelessness in San Francisco within five years. CHI’s approach utilizes three strategies: increasing placements to permanent housing for persons experiencing homelessness, preventing persons from becoming chronically homeless, and changing systems that sustain homelessness and with which people experiencing chronic homelessness frequently interact. This brief evaluates CHI’s progress toward these goals in 2020 and identifies challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic created, including a decrease in permanent supportive housing unit placements and in agency and staff capacity to support the needs of persons with chronic homelessness. The brief also points to what steps CHI will take in 2021 and 2022 to meet the initial goals set in 2017. This evaluation is drawn from analysis of publicly available data from the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, data reported to Tipping Point from its grantees, and interviews with Tipping Point staff members, grantees, community advisory board members, and government and community partners.

The National Association of Counties (NAC) held the second webinar of its County Eviction Series on February 4, 2021 to discuss how some county governments have addressed the need for housing and financial stability among at-risk families during the COVID-19 crisis. Presentations included solutions that were implemented in local communities during the national evictions crisis. A video and a PowerPoint presentation are available for downloading. Webinar presenters included representatives of the NAC, the Orange County (Florida) Housing and Community Development Division, and the Palm Beach County (Florida) Community Services Department.

This updated interactive mapping tool highlights aspects of communities associated with safe children and strong families. The research-based framework, composed of select community indicators, is offered to communities nationwide. The tool maps community indicators at geographic levels defined by the user, from the state level to neighborhoods. Most indicators are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The tool was informed by significant evidence of the community factors correlated with child maltreatment and a healthy community framework developed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Factors include child and family wellbeing, economics, education, and housing. The tool includes new indicators, such as COVID-19 data and resource accessibility, and breaks down many of the data indicators by race and ethnicity. Training videos on how to use the tool are available.