Homeless Services

Of the 9,000 individuals who experience homelessness each night in Minnesota, about 7,000 are “fortunate” enough to receive shelter from a variety of homeless service providers across the state. Unfortunately, due to inadequate resources, sheltering programs turn away about 1,000 individuals each night. Worse yet, neither of these numbers include the hundreds of individuals who spend the night in a place not meant for human habitation, such as under a bridge or in a car.  Shelter numbers do not completely represent the homeless population as many are forced to live outside and / or “double up” in very short-term and unstable housing arrangements.

Our partners at the National Coalition for the Homeless believe that Congress should spend $3 billion annually for homeless assistance programs to make a serious reduction in homelessness.

Unfortunately, federal funding for homeless safety net programs fall far below that threshold.  The recently passed HUD Appropriation legislation provided $1.865 billion for homeless assistance programs — $1.4 billion of that went to local communities through the Homeless Continuum of Care collaboratives (only $200 million more than provided the previous year).

As Liz Kuoppala, Executive Director with the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless, recently noted:  “This is a shoestring budget that doesn’t allow for increases in anything and does nothing to address increasing homelessness.”