Don’t miss the 10/9 deadline: THN’s QAP Public Comment Author: Eric Samuels, President and CEO  The TDHCA board will be considering proposed changes to the Qualified Allocation Plan. This plan sets policy for tax credits that are awarded for building new affordable and supportive housing. These proposed changes are to the Supportive Housing Definition. These[…]

Spotlight Post: AmeriCorps in Acton Salvation Army Food Distribution Author: Brenda Larsosa I’m currently serving as an AmeriCorps Coalition and Coordinated Entry Coordinator for the City of Texarkana. When The Salvation Army of Texarkana, a fellow member of the Texarkana Homeless Coalition, recently expressed a need for assistance with their food box distribution program during the[…]

Action Towards Equity and Protecting Equal Access Author: Giovanna DiNapoli  Recently, the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed a modification to the Equal Access Rule that would allow shelters to deny access to trans individuals based on their gender identity and sex assigned at birth. This harmful proposed change creates another level of discrimination that transgender[…]

COVID-19 Response Prompts New Collaborations and Programs in San Antonio Background SARAH is the Continuum of Care Lead Agency for San Antonio/Bexar County responsible for local coordination and strategies to prevent and end homelessness. Haven for Hope is a transformational campus focused on addressing root causes of homelessness with a person-centered and recovery-oriented approach. The[…]

The Way Home’s Response to COVID-19 The Coalition for the Homeless is Lead Agency to The Way Home, the Houston-area Continuum of Care (CoC) and collaborative effort to prevent and end homelessness in Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties, Texas. Like for everyone else, our world changed seemingly overnight once the novel coronavirus arrived in[…]

Sweeping new federal moratorium on evictions in effect until 12/31/2020 This rule only protects people who know about it. Please circulate this post widely. Arabic | Mandarin | English | Spanish | Vietnamese   Para leer sobre esta protección contra los desalojos en español, haga clic aquí o aquí. Firme y fecha este documento y entregue[…]

HUD Revokes Housing Anti-Discrimination Protections By: Nick Thompson The White House and HUD recently terminated the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Rule. The Rule, under the 1968 Fair Housing Act, mandated that localities receiving federal funds to assess housing discrimination and racial bias within their communities and plan for how to diminish these realities. […]

Show Me the Coronavirus Relief Fund Money By: Sophia Checa Did you know your community is eligible for funding under the Coronavirus Relief Fund? Did you know Texas received $11.24 billion? While $3.24 billion went directly to the 18 areas with populations over 500,000, Texas received $8 billion to be distributed across the rest of[…]

The 2020 Point-in-Time Count Has Been Submitted! Contact:  Kyra Henderson, Data Coordinator, 512-861-2192 Every year the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandates communities to conduct the Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, which aims to provide a snapshot of those experiencing homelessness over the course of one night. Each Continuum of Care then reports the number[…]

Texas Housing Unaffordability Fuels Homelessness During COVID-19 By: Nick Thompson The National Low-Income Housing Coalition released their 2020 Out of Reach (OOR) Report. The findings of the report are a harrowing warning that Texas and the United States are not moving in the right direction on housing affordability. There is not a single county in[…]

Without COVID-19 Relief Bills Passed, 28 Million Will Experience Homelessness With rent being due, eviction freezes expiring, and COVID-19 on the rise in Texas, countless low-income renters are weeks away from homelessness. Communities across Texas lifted eviction freezes in places such as Harris County, which started eviction proceedings for over 2,000 households last month. With[…]

Local Homeless Coalitions in Action: How Lamar County Homeless Coalition campaign for people experiencing homelessness Guest author Shelly Braziel, Executive Director of Lamar County Human Resources and Chair of the Lamar County Homeless Coalition (LCHC), outlines how the coalition responded to growing community support for an individual leading a rogue online campaign to criminalize panhandling in Paris,[…]

With eviction freezes expiring, here’s what you need to know By: Nick Thompson It’s the first of the month and we know thousands of people around Texas are fearful of being forced into homelessness due to COVID-19. It is estimated that at least 2 out of every 10 Americans have struggled, or failed, to pay[…]

Housing Inventory Count 2020 Results By: Kyra Henderson On January 23, 2020, Texas Homeless Network began collecting submissions for the 2020 Housing Inventory Count (HIC) which aims to provide bed and unit inventory information for all of the housing projects in the Texas Balance of State Continuum of Care (TX BoS CoC) 1. In addition[…]