Homelessness

This report provides a legislative history of the McKinney Act; a description of each McKinney Act program; and the amount of money provided under each program, by state, for fiscal year 1991. It also briefly describes newly authorized assistance programs for the homeless and significant changes to existing McKinney Act programs. Overall, about $2.4 billion was earmarked during fiscal year 1987-91 for federal programs to help the homeless; 95 percent of the money went for food, shelter, and health care; the rest went for education and job training.

GAO found that: (1) the McKinney Act's programs provide homeless people with emergency food and shelter, transitional and permanent housing, primary health care services, mental health care, alcohol and drug abuse treatment, education, and job training; (2) the McKinney Act required jurisdictions applying for assistance programs for the homeless administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD) to develop and submit a Comprehensive Housing Strategy; (3) the McKinney Act authorized property disposition programs; (4) the McKinney Act created the Interagency Council on the Homeless, which is responsible for coordinating assistance programs for the homeless at the various federal agencies; (5) the McKinney Act programs are administered by HUD, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Education, and Veterans Affairs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the General Services Administration; (6) Congress authorized $992 million and appropriated about $687 million for the McKinney Act programs for fiscal year (FY) 1991; (7) the largest funded McKinney Act program for FY 1987 through FY 1991 was the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program; and (8) in FY 1991, the McKinney Homeless Assistance Amendments Act of 1990 and the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990 appropriated $687 million for the 19 programs and the Interagency Council on the Homeless.