The Hill News

Shortly, President Obama will present to Congress his budget proposal for fiscal year 2013. In the budget, he will outline his priorities for the year, undoubtedly reflecting some of the ideas he presented in the State of the Union. In the speech, he discussed economic disparities in the country, drawing attention to the divide between, as he noted, Wall Street and Main Street. But even beyond Main Street, there are people and families living at the furthest fringes of our economy.

Data suggests that between 2009 and 2011, a period of historic economic challenges in the nation, homelessness decreased by one percent in the country. This decline was largely due to a significant investment of federal resources to prevent homelessness and quickly re-house people who did become homeless.

The Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP, funded through the Recovery Act) was a $1.5 billion federal effort to prevent a recession-related incr! ease in homelessness. It was built upon ground-breaking work at the federal level and in communities across the nation to improve the homelessness system by adopting evidence-based, cost-effective interventions. In 2010, its first year of operation, it assisted nearly 700,000 at-risk and homeless people.

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