HUD awards $1.7M to San Francisco for housing disabled homeless

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

Mayor London Breed today announced that San Francisco will receive money from the federal government to house 99 chronically homeless people who are disabled.

According to her office, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the San Francisco Housing Authority $1.7 million in housing vouchers.

The funding comes from the $98.5 million that HUD awarded 285 housing authorities across country for permanent affordable housing, with San Francisco receiving more than any other authority.

"This funding is an incredible opportunity to bring 99 San Franciscans with disabilities off of our streets and into housing," Breed said in a statement. "We are in the midst of a housing crisis that is having 
a dramatic effect on our low-income population and increasing homelessness in our city. Funding like this is critical to providing paths out of homelessness for people who need help."

The funds will be provided through HUD's Section 811 Mainstream Housing Choice Voucher Program, which provides funding to housing agencies for non-elderly people with disabilities who are transitioning out of institutional settings, are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

The vouchers will be administered by the San Francisco Housing Authority, while the city's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will help identify participants through the Coordinated Entry System, which has already signed up 2,114 people since August.

"We look forward to working closely with the Housing Authority to quickly deploy these vouchers and get them into the hands of the people who need them the most," Jeff Kositsky, the director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said in a statement.