113.How Lack of Counting = Lack of Funding

                                        

There has been some question of how various agencies get their funding from the federal government and in turn how the government counts the homeless. Here is a brief overview.When an agency for a state or grant agency provides a service that receives the funding from the federal government, they provide that individual’s social security number and name to HUD. HUD then records that individual as a veteran or non veteran and then forwards payment to the state or agency out of the appropriate funding source in what is also called Point in Time Counting in the Continuum of Care. In either case, of veterans, or non veterans it all goes through the GAO (Government Accounting Office). HUD is supposedly keeping a record of their non veteran and veteran homeless as well as the VA keeping track of theirs by social security record or service number, depending upon which department is applied through. This is supposedly easy to track, as it is all electronic data and easily cross checked. Unfortunately, little is done as far as the records checking and again the veterans and other homeless are continually falling through the cracks and continually dying.