Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/DavePollack

This report examines the development, current structure, and likely future of Continuums of Care (CoCs) for homeless people throughout the United States. It describes how communities organize themselves to respond to homelessness, how they identify needs and plan their strategies, and how the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's requirement that communities submit a single, community-wide, coordinated application for funding has affected the development of homeless networks and services. Involvement of mainstream agencies (e.g., housing, mental health, veterans affairs) and the ease or difficulty of navigating the service system from a client's perspective is also examined. Information comes from case studies of a sample of 25 CoCs scoring highly on ratings of their annual funding applications.

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