The new year starts with new opportunities, new challenges -- and unfinished work.

In 2007, Congress came close to reauthorizing the 20-year-old McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and significantly increasing its funding and legal protections for homeless people. In pushing for this, advocates came closer to a common position. Now we all need to work together to get the job done. Please contact your member of Congress now -- tell them how critical federal resources are to your community! Your call really makes a difference.

We must also initiate new work. Groups from across the country are calling our offices seeking help to address the most basic needs. Children kept out of school. "Not-in-my-backyard" opposition to housing and services. Laws punishing homeless people for living in public places -- when there is nowhere else to go. Homeless people unable to prove their identity -- and therefore unable to get the aid they need and to which they are entitled. Domestic violence survivors losing their homes through no fault of their own.

We have victories to build on, in the courts and Congress, to address these needs, and that's what we intend to do in this new year. In 2008, we'll work to make sure that homeless children can go to school and preschool -- to get the skills they need to have a chance to succeed. We'll work to enforce our victories on behalf of domestic violence survivors -- so that they can find and maintain housing and avoid homelessness. We'll advocate for the right of homeless people to vote in this election year -- and to remove the ID barriers to this and other key rights and benefits. We'll help providers across the country get and use free vacant federal properties, so that these public resources can be used for housing and other public needs. We'll fight NIMBY and criminalization, and work for housing and services instead. And we'll press our case before international fora to hold the U.S. accountable.

Just before the holidays, I had an interview with an international TV program. The host said that people in other countries have a difficult time understanding how there can be homelessness in a rich and powerful country like the U.S. -- and she asked me to explain this to her audience.

I could only say that it's a matter of national priorities -- and political strength. Homelessness is not a mystery. It's not like a disease that we don't know how to cure. Homelessness is solvable and the solutions are evident in programs across the country -- programs that house people and help them become self-sufficient. But these programs are not nearly large enough. They simply don't have the resources.

Maria Foscarinis
Executive Director

This past summer, NLCHP, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, and a broad coalition of homeless advocates, faith-based groups, and anti-poverty advocates called on Congress to take Ten Steps to Prevent and End Homelessness Now.

In December, President Bush signed into law a funding bill to carry out one of the Ten Steps. The Step called upon Congress and the President to provide funding for at least 5,000 new housing vouchers for homeless veterans with mental health or substance abuse disorders. The Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations bill provided $75 million in new funds for this program -- enough to provide 7,500-10,000 new housing vouchers.

The housing vouchers will be distributed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Supported Housing (HUD-VASH) program. Under this program, created by HUD and the VA in 1992, Public Housing Authorities apply for vouchers to distribute to homeless veterans in their area. Local VA facilities then recommend individual veterans for these vouchers and provide supportive services to those who receive housing under the program.

For the past several years, there had been no new funding for this program, even though a 2003 study found that there were better outcomes for homeless veterans in the HUD-VASH program than for those who received either case management services or standard VA services alone. President Bush did not ask for funds for this program in his FY08 request, so the new funding represents a significant victory for homeless advocates.

The VA and HUD are working to develop guidelines for distribution of the new vouchers. NLCHP will post information on the funding guidelines when they become available.

After vetoing several earlier appropriations bills, President Bush signed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 appropriations into law in late December. The final bill represented a compromise with Congress. It provided an overall funding level within the President's request, but shifted some funds away from Administration priorities into domestic needs, ensuring level funding or small increases for most homeless assistance programs.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act programs administered by HUD received the largest increase--$144 million above FY07 levels, bringing the FY08 appropriation up to $1.586 billion, including:

• $25 million set aside for a demonstration program to provide rapid re-housing for homeless families;
• $64.07 million for the McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth program, up $2.2 million over FY07 levels; and
• an increase of $8.3 million above FY07 levels for the Runaway and Homeless Youth program.

McKinney-Vento programs administered by HHS did not fare as well. While Health Care for the Homeless programs received $177.59 million, up $6.62 million from FY07 levels, funding for the Projects to Aid in the Transition from Homelessness was cut $948,000 below FY07 levels, a reduction that will be further amplified by inflation.

Homeless veterans' programs fared better than in past years, including $75 million allocated for the HUD-VASH program to provide 7,500-10,000 new housing vouchers for homeless veterans with mental health and substance abuse disorders.

NLCHP will be advocating for increased funding for all McKinney-Vento programs for Fiscal Year 2009. If you would like to help NLCHP advocate, please contact Laurel Weir to be added to NLCHP's legislative alerts list.

At NLCHP's National Forum on the Human Right to Housing in November, New Orleans participants called for national solidarity around their housing crisis. Heeding that call, NLCHP has since brought national and international attention to this crisis.

• In December, NLCHP successfully advocated with two UN officials, the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing and the Independent Expert on Minority Issues, to engage in dialogue with U.S. officials about human rights concerns around the destruction of public housing in New Orleans.

• On Christmas Day, The Washington Post published a Letter to the Editor from NLCHP condemning the Post's endorsement of the destruction of New Orleans public housing and advocating policies that would respect the human dignity of former residents.

• On January 14, NLCHP met with Walter Kälin, the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons. His visit to the U.S. was timed with the release of the Institute for Southern Studies' new study, which uses international human rights standards to examine the government's response to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The meeting included several groups new to the housing-rights movement, many of whom are now working with NLCHP on future advocacy.

NLCHP will continue to advocate for policy changes that reflect the human rights of internally displaced persons from New Orleans, and to promote durable solutions to the housing crisis there and across the country.

NLCHP thanks the US Human Rights Fund and the Butler Family Foundation for support of its Human Rights Program.

As we begin 2008, it is important to recognize how much there still is to be done to provide victims of domestic violence with safe and affordable housing. The 2007 Report on Hunger and Homelessness from the U.S. Conference of Mayors listed domestic violence as one of the top three reasons that families become homeless, and 43% of cities surveyed reported an increase in the number of families with children seeking emergency and transitional shelter services.

Victims of domestic violence have many obstacles to obtaining safe housing, which may include safety concerns, mental health issues, unfavorable employment or rental histories, a lack of credit and immigration and language concerns. As a result, many women and children move into the shelter system or into crowded, often illegal, situations with family or friends.

NLCHP provides technical assistance, trainings and publications on a range of housing issues affecting victims of domestic violence. NLCHP is also available to co-counsel cases that will have a significant impact on the movement to improve housing for victims of domestic violence.

In 2008, NLCHP will be conducting trainings on federal housing laws for judges, attorneys, advocates, public housing authorities and landlords across the country. NLCHP is also developing curriculums on cross-training domestic violence and housing attorneys and advocates for use by local advocates.

For more information on the Domestic Violence program or upcoming trainings, please contact NLCHP's Domestic Violence Staff Attorney, Kathy Zeisel, at 202-638-2535 or Kzeisel@nlchp.org.

NLCHP thanks the Waitt Foundation for its support of the Domestic Violence Program.

Recent disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the California fires, as well as the current crisis of mortgage foreclosures, have only magnified the problem of homelessness in America. And yet, NLCHP and its allies across the U.S. continue to achieve significant gains in the struggle to work for a future without homelessness and to meet the immediate needs of individuals and families who are increasingly invisible in our society.

In 2007, NLCHP successfully challenged laws criminalizing homelessness, won court victories to help those affected by the Gulf Coast Hurricanes, won new protections for domestic violence survivors in the nation's capital, improved access to Head Start programs for homeless children, and organized trainings to build support for a human right to housing here in the United States.

Visit our website at www.nlchp.org! Contact us at (202) 638-2535 or email us at network@nlchp.org