Arizona Balance of State Continuum of Care Awarded Nearly $4,000,000 by HUD

In January, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded over $2 Billion nationally for homeless housing and services through the Continuum of Care (CoC) process.  The Arizona Department of Housing was awarded nearly $4 million for the Arizona Balance of State Continuum of Care (AZBoSCoC), which services Arizona’s rural counties. This award will continue support for existing permanent and rapid re-housing projects throughout the AZBoSCoC, including ongoing operations, supportive services, and over 500 housing units that ended the homelessness of over 1,000 individuals and family members in 2017.

HUD CoC funding also supports regional coordination and planning efforts to improve the effectiveness of the homeless services system, including the AZBoSCoC Homeless Management Information System data base. The awards are the result of a competitive process that compares the effectiveness, organization and outcomes of communities throughout the country working to reduce and end homelessness. The Department thanks the over 200 homeless local service providers, governmental organizations, and community partners who participate in the AZBoSCoC efforts to end homelessness, making this award possible.

2017 AZBOSCOC PIT Count Completed

The Department thanks the hundreds of volunteers, agencies, and community members who participated in the 2017 HUD Point in Time (PIT) Homeless Count for the AZBoSCoC. Every year, the federal government requires each CoC to outreach over its entire geographic area to find and interview homeless individuals and families who are unsheltered.  This data is combined with shelter data to ultimately provide a snapshot of people experiencing homelessness in the community.  From January 23 through 27, over 200 hundred volunteers from homeless provider agencies, governmental organizations, college students, faith based groups, veterans providers, and local community members traversed the 95,000 sq. miles that are covered by the AZBoSCoC to find unsheltered homeless individuals.

As part of the process, volunteers also provided the people they interviewed with clean socks, hats, food, hygiene supplies and other necessary items that had been donated by the community.  While final counts are still being tabulated, we wanted to express our gratitude for those caring people who donated their time to participate in this effort. The information gathered in the PIT count is used by local, state and federal programs to allocate resources and better understand the needs of our communities’ vulnerable homeless populations so that we can improve services to end their homelessness.

For more information, visit Special Needs Programs administered by the Arizona Department of Housing.