People First: One Size Does Not Fit All
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Homelessness is a rapidly growing challenge throughout the United States.
HUD is the largest funder of homelessness. Its funding is largely distributed through counties and through an additional layer of bureaucracy created under Housing First called Continuum of Care boards (CoCs). More than 230 counties and CoCs across the nation followed HUD in adopting Housing First as their one-size-fits-all policy, including ECHO, the CoC that oversees Austin’s HUD funding.
Housing First was initially introduced by HUD in 2008 to address the chronically homeless—those struggling with severe mental illness and addiction, largely the ones we see on the streets. The idea was to get them off the streets and into housing as quickly as possible as “the system” was incurring significant costs due to them living on the streets.