By USICH, 12/19/2022
“All In” Is the Most Comprehensive Federal Plan to Systemically Prevent Homelessness and Address Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Homelessness
Today, the Biden-Harris administration released a federal plan for ending homelessness in America that starts with the ambitious goal of reducing homelessness 25% by 2025. All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness builds on the success of previous plans and will do more than any previous federal effort to systemically prevent homelessness and combat the systemic racism that has created racial and ethnic disparities in homelessness.
“My plan offers a roadmap for not only getting people into housing but also ensuring that they have access to the support, services, and income that allow them to thrive,” said President Biden. “It is a plan that is grounded in the best evidence and aims to improve equity and strengthen collaboration at all levels.”
President Biden encourages state and local governments to use All In, which was developed by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), as a blueprint for creating their own plans to prevent and end homelessness and setting their own ambitious goals for 2025.
All In recommits the federal government to strategies that have been proven to work, like “Housing First”—the model of care that treats housing as the immediate solution to homelessness, but not the only solution. Once housed, many people need support to stay housed—from health care and job training to legal and education assistance. This model works because it treats people with dignity, personalizes their care, and recognizes that—without housing—every other aspect of a person’s life suffers.
The release of the plan coincides with the week of Homeless Person’s Memorial Day, which commemorates the people who have lost their life while living without a home. People who experience homelessness die nearly 30 years earlier than the average American and at the average age that Americans died in 1900. All In responds to homelessness like a life-and-death crisis rooted in housing and health problems—not a crime for the justice system to solve.
While homelessness is deadly, it is also preventable. The pandemic proved the power of prevention: The Biden-Harris administration’s response to COVID—including emergency rental assistance for people at risk of eviction and direct cash assistance for most Americans—prevented millions from losing their homes and kept evictions at pre-pandemic levels. All In aims to further fix systems and failed policies in order to prevent homelessness, or the risk of it, long before it happens.
All In was built from the ground up and shaped by public input from more than 500 people who have experienced homelessness as well as leaders, providers, advocates, developers, and other partners from more than 600 communities, tribes, and territories. The plan is based on more than 1,500 online comments and more than 80 listening sessions that told USICH the federal government needs to:
- Urgently address the basic needs of people in crisis;
- Expand the supply of and access to affordable housing and high-quality support;
- Build better systems to prevent people from losing their home in the first place;
- Collaborate across sectors, systems, and jurisdictions;
- Rely on data and evidence that show what works; and
- Include people who have experienced homelessness in the policymaking process to dismantle systems that create disparities.
“Nobody—no veteran, no American—should experience homelessness in the greatest country in the world,” said Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, the chair of USICH, which developed All In with 19 federal agencies. “Together, we’ve driven down veteran homelessness by 55% since 2010, showing that we know how to tackle this issue if we all work together. Under President Biden’s leadership, we are going to build on that momentum and drive toward the day when every American has a good, safe place to call home.”
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