Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Announces $7.1 Million to Support Homelessness Solutions Program

Funding will aid in accelerating permanent housing outcomes for Maryland’s unsheltered population

NEW CARROLLTON, MD (July 28, 2023) – The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development today announced $7.1 million in funding to the Homelessness Solutions Program, which supports organizations across the state to respond to homelessness. The funding, which will be awarded to Continuums of Care across the state, will aid in reducing the need for emergency shelter and accelerating permanent housing outcomes for Maryland’s unsheltered population.

“It is our foundational belief that every Marylander has a right to safe and stable permanent housing,” said Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Secretary Jake Day. “With these funds, we’re making sure that we accelerate the process of getting our most vulnerable Marylanders experiencing homelessness off the streets and into a secure, dignified place to call home.”

Through the program, Continuums of Care work with residents to make fast connections to permanent housing with wraparound supportive services individualized to each household’s needs. The funds will be allocated to grantees via a formula based on each jurisdiction’s share of the overall state homeless population and local Fair Market Rents.

Additionally, the department will be performing a comprehensive review to ensure all shelters funded through the Homelessness Solutions Program are prioritizing permanent housing outcomes. The department will require individualized shelter assessments and improvement plans to identify opportunities for each to reallocate funds from shelter to permanent housing to increase the number of households that exit homelessness. Shelters will also need to maintain compliance with the department’s standards for policy, services, and habitability while undergoing the review process.

The funding and review work in tandem to ensure Continuums of Care across the state have the means to rapidly accelerate housing outcomes for the state’s most vulnerable populations while remaining aligned with the goals and objectives of the department.

The department has adopted national best practices, including Housing First, Rapid Rehousing, and Permanent Supportive Housing, evidence-based practices that have shown to dramatically reduce homelessness. Through these approaches to programs and significant state investment, Maryland has seen a 36 percent reduction in homelessness since 2015, according to the HUD Point-In-Time Count.

For more information on the Homelessness Solutions Program, visit https://dhcd.maryland.gov/HomelessServices/Pages/GrantFunding.aspx.