and come up with a sound judgment. >> wait a minute, i buy you said it was a mistake to paint with a broad brush? >> it is. >> anthony cummings paining federal bureaucrats with a very broad brush like. >> with respect, i have to disagree. when we proposed regulations, there's changes in our procedures. ..

we have conference calls for our entire staff why believe once a quarter where we talk about issues, regulation, talk about congressional click actions of a impact the way we are going to regulate and we are also issuing internally all types of memorandum that detail this is the way we are going to consider. some of our fil and commercial lending and encouraging that banks do continue to three new credit and when you take those

memos we talk to the staff and encourage them if you see a critic that's the terrie reading or the collateral is deteriorating but the individual store was the capacity let's not criticize that credit to read news judgment and balance. >> of one to go to the jury for one second. is their anyone that thinks there is a problem with consistency and coordination? yes, sir, raise your hand. kathleen? spec we just heard that from community banks so if you are expecting that it sounds like you've got the right routines in place as long as you are expecting that's the case and i've heard that from community banks. it's not an national bank issue. >> i think this is one of the -- it is an issue that is like many others we are talking about right now and that is we are in a process of flocks.

we've had this tremendous run-up in the amount of credit small firms have been able to get going back into the 70's and of a sudden it changes very abruptly and goes back down the other way. we don't have rules and we don't understand one another any more and everything is changing so we keep blaming one another as to what the problems are and i'm not sure until such time we don't get a little bit more stability and find out what normal means. we don't know what normally is any more and until we find that now we are going to be pointing fingers at one other and the will be a problem. >> any of our banks, if a banker feels they are not being treated fairly or that we are not being balanced, we want to hear about that at the regional level, the official level, we have been zero gutzman and st to on their earlier panel we are going to have a 800 number that consumers can call that if you don't feel

like you're getting a fair shake and we aren't using proper judgment we are going to hear about it. >> kevin kelly who may be in the audience and i would invite kelly to stick to the microphone asks how can local community-based organizations post work with the fdic? >> there are a number of ways. we have had several events are now the country where we talk with community-based organizations how they potentially can partner with the banks to do some activities. we also have an advisory committee that composes completely of community bankers and you can provide input to that group about our practices that might be individual lending or small business lending so a number of things we do across the country and a lot of our policies that, you know, give the public an opportunity to give input about our operations, what we are doing, but we can do

better, what kind of obstacles we are presenting to lending. >> i want to go to an off the wall topic on the agenda linked to something to cause something happening next week. hu jintao is coming to meet with president obama next week. secretary guice mer give a speech yesterday and talked about the issues related to american competitiveness both decisions we can take in this country and things we'd want china to do regarding the evaluation of the currency. denney, jorge, kathleen are you satisfied with the approach the administration has taken to china? would it be better off for american business if they were more aggressive in trying to press the chinese on protection of intellectual property, currency, or would that risk treated the would ultimately backfire if rebut the? >> that's a little out of my area of expertise. >> i going to play the same

thing. i don't feel competent to answer that question. >> i have an experience not a great deal but with regard to that, there's no question the president needs to engage more greatly on the impact in china. they are a major partner, they hold a great deal of our debt and we need i think to show more leadership over the past several years i think, and with regards to the valuation but also with regards to importing business is i'm on the board of governors of the economic development corporation and the deily lot with chinese companies and some of them moving into this country and we are looking to generate some contractual agreements with them to expand business with some of the product the major corporations, so overall we need

to play a much stronger role for d.c.. we are doing some things in southern california, however, it is a far bigger issue bill on these kind of things, we need much stronger leadership and all of these areas. >> john, i know it's not your area of specialty but it would be interesting if you have a few should the administration be tougher with china? some of the polls say they should. >> i definitely think we should toughen up and protect the dollar and we stand a lot to move if we don't because half-hour debt or a big portion of it and i don't know we want to get any deeper. >> i want to go to a question that jorge said witches besides small-business lending what steps would have the greatest impact on the development and creation of new jobs? we talked about realistic.

let's put that aside because we've been discussing that, but what else either the government can do more business can do but have the greatest effect on generating job creation given the fact we've got over 9% and it's going to stay high for a long time. who wants to take that? >> to some extent, the whole idea of the payroll tax been debatable to two percentage points greater on the individual side it's a great idea but two years too late. that's the problem that should have been the stimulus policy to begin with is to focus entirely on this. going forward on this i don't see -- i think we are limited by the amount of money that we had already spent. i heard senator warner talking about the deficit, we are going and all that sort of thing, so i think our options are really, really limited, and the idea

that we now have begun to put out a natural stimulus in the place is probably the best we are going to be able to do for a while as long as we are not talking about real estate. >> is their anything the government can do? already talking of the $2 billion in the balance sheets that is sitting their waiting to be invested. we talked about the lack of demand that that is a problem that is causing the money to sit there but what can be done about that? >> it's going to come when there is a demand for investment. i mean, you look at small firms right now and you look for either physical investment or you look for inventory investment and if we are back to a low level now. >> is it devotee else like the 100% expensing? is that a good thing?

>> bye means we have to get on that but that is part of it is caused by sales and that they have the profits but a lot of them are coming from overseas rather than from here, domestically, so if we are going to get more investment we have to have some more assailants. you are in charge of the economy and -- [laughter] what can we do to spur the creation of jobs given the fact we are broke? >> i don't think there is any one silver bullet. rather any part lee silver bullets? >> it is a range of things you've already heard today. it is spurring additional lending to small businesses. it is spurring innovation and the president talked at length about his innovation agenda so it's helping small business owners contra nor take advantage of the great ideas they have right now and being able to turn those ideas into products and

services they can sell both domestically and abroad. where i actually agree with my colleague, it is finding a balance of protecting american companies but also ensuring that we are competitive globally. it's working all across the globe with our trading partners to make sure small-business is, large businesses have access to their markets, but also have the financial wherewithal to do with the need to do. i think you've heard recently from the business roundtable that they expect their members to increase their hiring, to increase their investment in the company's fairly substantially and i think there will go a long way to turning around the types of increase in small business investment that we all like to see that it's not going to be

one thing. housing as well, insuring responsible homeowners can stay in their homes and the of everything the need for the -- it's really just stabilizing the economy as a whole, not one individual effort. a couple months ago i interviewed alan blinder who used to advise president clinton, democratic economist obviously. he said we need to recognize -- he's generally considered a moderate. we need to recognize the jobs crisis and we are going to be in a crisis some period of time because it is going to be slow so we ought to think about your lack of our hiring, new deal kind of stuff. is that crazy talk? could it make sense? >> i want no -- i don't know that cutting federal programs aimed at hi zearing is the way to go and i'm probably not qualified -- >> is it a good way to go? you? >> i think it's important

because again, from our point of view in los angeles and southern california, los angeles has about 600,000 small businesses, that's more than any large group of states put together. in the last years we've lost over a quarter of them and if you look at the desperation of these businesses it is critical. people need to have money in their pockets to buy from the local retailers. without we will see a flood of people but or going under. so, i think that is very much part of the stimulus package. what's important to note is we cannot slow down or stop this recovery by the absence of stimulating the economy and that is what we are taking a look at, and i think it has a value. >> my comment is this country as small business. this country is built on small business, this country has been pulled out of the depth of every recession we've gone through

with help from a small businesses in this country the opportunities for us going forward are our small businesses. to all with almost every three of us work for small business, correct? yp4 to these businesses for 27 years is because i'm fascinated by them. they will find the opportunities. every single time and so we go back to what we discussed, sales where are the opportunities. we are a global economy, exporting, these are the attendees for small businesses and we need to take a look at that and see can we provide the assistance, can we provide the technical training, can we provide the tools for our small businesses that really define us to take a vintage of that?

>> let me follow on that point and test the panel because i've had conversations with economists left and right who usually this part of course of the record because it sounds politically incorrect but when i talked to a few months ago said something to the effect come on, we over romanticist small business. it reflects a whole lot of churning and small business starting, stopping and that sort of thing and if we look at it candidly the best jobs are in large business that he the best and have the best benefits we need to focus more attention on increasing, and among large businesses it's like talking about family farmers in an era where that is a little bit obsolete and i can drive through town and playing up to my kids all the businesses life helped over the years. i was in the trenches. i was doing this and a perfect example, businesses i've provided may have provided a

loan for a restaurant to open a second location, and we talk about how many jobs is that going to predict that restaurant, how many employees do you have? but as you walk through the project and step back and take a look at how many jobs has that actually touched on that project, the contractors, the equipment companies, it is mind-boggling to stop and think about it. the we are overestimating that. >> actually it's been really interesting recently because these economists coming out with new sorts of things. it was accorded the a recorded from 92 through ongoing. it's 64 to 65% of all net, not

just gros, met in the words how your verses layoff or whatever. net jobs are created by smaller firms. and a good number of those are smaller firms under 20. those are government members. i am not making those up. vandals the data that we have the wingback to about 1976 prelude to that says possibly the same thing. so all of a sudden we get somebody comes out and i know who the people are the suspects year. [laughter] they are good people and a very bright people but all of a sudden they come through and say well a lot of them are just brand new firms. well, hello. they are new firms for the most part. we don't start firms with 500, 600 employees. so that makes -- that's kind of

just super phyllis for the whole argument. and so the job generation thesis is quite clear going into this recession what's going to happen after this recession. david birch growth with the same devotees criticizing it but everything is written as proven to be correct with data and so here we are these are job generators. we are in this recession and maybe see something new happening from this recession but basically, it's indisputable to just look at the government members. >> with that stirring defense of the contribution small business to the u.s. economy and with a lot of hope things get a little bit better than they look right now, we want to thank the panel and we have to more speakers at

the end. we are not quite done. thanks. [applause] i believe the best way to carry on dr. king's to work is to reach out to someone and make an ongoing commitment to community service. the national alliance to end homelessness released its state of homelessness in america report at a news conference earlier this week. the report from the nation's homeless population increased buy approximately 3% from 2008 to 2009 and cited the recession as a contributing factor to the speakers of pledge your i went senator jack reed is a senior democrat on the banking, housing and urban affairs committee. this is about 40 minutes.

>> [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. welcome and thank you for coming to our release of state ofomeles homelessness in america.nan i am president of the national alliance to end homelessness. steve of homelessness is the first of what we plan to be an p annual relaport that will examie two things. hom whether homelessness has gone uh and whn since the last year's report, and with the economic and demographic causes of homelessness look like over thee same period of time. we will answer these questions both nationally have reached state. typically when we think aboutlln homelessness we focus on homelessness programs and homelessness as asistance as bee responsible for whether the number of homeless people goes up or down. the homelessness assistance is

definitely part of the equation, but the other part is larger outside drivers like houng unemployment and housing costs,. and this report really focuses on those economic factors. homelenessomelessness shows homelessness which had been whih declining over the past few years went up between 2008 and 2009 and that this increase wase associated with the economicthe recession be read the total number of homeless people was 656,129 and that was up 3%. popf populations of homeless peopleet went up, however, families went up about 4%. melessmber of chronically homeless people went up less than 1%. a note about the data that we used for the homeless numbers numbers, we used data from counts that communities submit to hud. the data are not perfect but we examine them carefully and they are adjusted where we find problems with them.

although not without limitations, we think that the data do present a valid picture of what's going on in terms of homelessness in america. the homelessness went up -- this is probably not a surprise to anyone given the recession. we looked at several economic factors that are associated with homelessness to see what happened to them during the period. unemployment, unemployment, of course, is up some 60% more people were unemployed during the period we looked at. incomes, low wage worker incomes were down about 2%. that's twice as much as the rate of workers incomes fell overall in the country. housing, the number of people who were low income and doubled up went up 12% over the period we looked at. people who become homeless were often doubled up before they became homeless. so this has obviously appearance big effect. the number of severely housing cost burdened households which are low-incomed households that

are paying more than 50% of their income -- more than half of their income for their rent went up 9% so these housing factors also have an impact on the number of homeless people. so the national picture is that the economy did poorly especially for low-incomed people and as a result, homelessness went up. while the national picture is clear, the picture in the states varies. in some places the number of homelessness went up and some went down. in 19 of the states homelessness went down and in the majority of the states, 27, homelessness went down among chronically homeless people. similarly the economic causes of homelessness did not behave consistently. in some states the factors got worse and other places they got better. or the picture was mixed that was more typical. we did find that states had the most signs of economic distress were the states that had the

biggest increases in homelessness. so if you hear locally or talk to local communities that say that their numbers went up substantially more than 3%, that wouldn't be a surprise. also, it says we said it's true that in some communities, the numbers actually went down during this period. but homelessness did get worse nationally because of the recession. and it's important to remember that these data are comparing '09 with 2008. this was early on really before some of the interventions that later emerged to help prevent recession related homelessness kicked into gear. it's also important to remember that homelessness is a lagging indicator. people don't become homeless on the day they lose their job. it typically takes a while for that happen so the pressure is not yet off. we anticipate that there could be continued increases in 2010 and 2011. on the other hand, the good news

really is that the number could have been a lot worse. what's been happening in communities to forestall a recession-related increase in homelessness what have people been doing? in a lot of places, the number of homeless people went down during this period so communities are to be congratulated for improving their homeless systems, for redouble their efforts for investing wisely in solutions. those things can obviously work and did work. an example of this was the big increase in permanent support of housing during the period. the result of which was that the chronic homeless numbers did not go up at all, barely at all. since this report, communities and the federal government have continued to take steps to try to prevent homelessness increases. communities are focus in prevention and getting people into housing faster and the federal government has stepped up with a $1.5 billion federal

stimulus program and rapid rise program. it also passed the heather act authored by senator reed who's going to join us that funds action oriented activities and these are upcoming but these resources are not adequate to meet all of the projected needs nor will they probably last long enough. so we'll be discussing a little later what can be done to prevent further increases in homelessness. i now would like to introduce bill sermons. bill is the author along with pete witty who's also here of the report and he is the director of the homelessness research institute which is the research arm of the national alliance to end homelessness and he's going to tell you a little bit more about what's in the repor report. >> thanks, nan. and thanks everybody in attendance today. you should have all found copies of the report in your seats. the binder -- or the folder that you have has a copy of the full report. and what you'll find inside is a

report that consists of three main chapters. the first chapter looks at 2009 levels and 2008 to 2009 changes in overall homelessness and for individuals for the nation and each state. recognizing the impact of housing affordibility and income on homelessness, the second chapter looks at 2009 levels and changes from '08 to '09 in four economic factors and factors, the number of unpeople the number of households below of the poverty line that pay half their income on households, average real incomes of working poor people and the number of residential units in foreclosure. these measures are reported nationally and also for each state. further recognizing another truth about homelessness that some specific groups of people are at increased risk of experiencing homelessness, chapter 3 looks at the 2009

levels and '08 to '09 changes in the sizes of four specific groups. these are low-incomed people who are doubled up, that is living with family and friends for economic reasons. young adults who have aged out of foster care, people discharged from jail or prison and people without health insurance. these indicators are all reported against nationally and at the state level. as i move into presenting some additional findings from the report i'd like to acknowledge the very hard work of pete witty, my co-author and has katherine and shaun. it's an honor to be able to present our team's work today. nan provided an overview of the major findings in the report particularly at the national level. and i won't repeat those here but i'd like to highlight some additional findings including some insights into some of the state level data. nan mentioned in her introduction that while the nations saw an increase in

overall homelessness, the individual states point decreases. and this is the wide variability across states and also in individual communities. by contrast, one thing that stood out when we were looking at the economic data was the relative consistent worsening of the economic circumstances across states. between 2009 -- 2008 and 2009, the number of unemployed people increased in all states. the number of doubled-up low-incomed people increased in 45 states. the number of units in foreclosure increased in 42 states. and the number of severely housing cost burdened households increased in 40 states. the ubiquity of the increases across states points to the widespread economic pressures faced by families experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. and to the demands on the systems that serve them. the first three chapters focus on homelessness and the economic and demographic factors that i talked about separately. chapter 4 looks at the economic

and demographic factors in their relationship to the measures of homelessness that are in the report. a review reveals a handful of states, states like florida and nevada and california have rates of unemployment, cost burden, doubling up, lack of insurance, all worse than the national averages. and so not surprisingly, all of these states also have high rates of homelessness and they also have changes from 2008 to 2009 well above the 3% national increase. the report goes on to identify additional states with multiple high or worsening economic and demographic factors as well. lastly, the report combines 12-month shelter use data from hud with data on doubled-up people, young adults who age out of foster care and people discharged from prison and estimates that all three of those populations have annual odds of experiencing homelessness of 1 in 11 or

greater. these relatively high odds speak clearly to the need to address these and other high risk groups and efforts to end homelessness. an appendix in the back of the record provides specifics about the data used in this report which relies most heavily on the 2008, 2009 january point in time counts conducted by over 450 communities across the country and reported to hud. and on the census bureau 2008 and 2009 american community survey microdata. sources also include foreclosure data from realty track, unemployment data from the bureau of labor statistics and data on prison releases and foster care emancipations from the departments of justice and health and human services respectively. sources using the report represent the most recent available national data.

newer national data on homelessness and most of the indicators will be available toward the end of this year. i want to close with a little bit of background. two years ago, we released a report called homelessness counts, changes in homelessness from 2005 to 2007. the second in the homelessness count series. at that time, we were in the midst of a major economic downturn that was ultimately declared the recession of 2007 to 2009. because of the economic services at that time, the question that most people wanted answered was, what will this recession mean for homelessness? and while we knew anecdotally that many homeless service providers across the country were reporting increased demands for services and unemployment would lead to increased poverty and lead to increased homelessness there was no archive of national annual homeless data from past economic crises that we could consult to

validate this expectation. fortunately, given the fact that annual national counts have been conducted since 2005, these data are available for 2007 to 2009 and the state of homelessness in america provides the first of its kind 5x5 look at changes in homelessness and the relevant economic and demographic factors. as nan mentioned, this is the first in the state of homelessness series which we expect to release annually. because of the relatively slow pace of economic recovery through 2010, it is expected that the next issue in the series will again focus largely on the economy's impact. it will also be where the first -- the first where the initial impacts of efforts like the homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing program will begin to be evident. thank you for your attention and i'll turn it back over to nan. thanks. >> thank you, bill. we'll be taking questions at the

end about the report. but in the meantime, homelessness really can seem, when you read a report like this or hear comments about it, to be rather an abstract concept but for people who experience it obviously it's all too real. and i want to introduce you now to ebony roscoe, ebony and her children were homeless. they were living in the community of hope which is a wonderful organization here in dc that helps homeless families and thanks to the resources of the homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing program that bill and i both mentioned earlier, ebony and her family were able to move into an apartment and now she has a job with the mental health services organization. so ebony is going to give us a little bit of a perspective of the reality of homelessness and what it means in human terms to see these kinds of numbers increase. ebony? >> hello.

my name is ebony roscoe. several years ago i moved to washington, d.c., from charlotte, north carolina, with my four children. we had need an unhealthy marriage that i was involved. i moved in with my brother who is staying here in washington, d.c. and without a job and stayed there for approximately four months. i stayed unemployed for 20 months. during the of unemployment and even while employed now, i make ends meet with assistance that i receive. benefits from social service have decreased tremendously but we still try to make things do with the current situation that we're in. homelessness and unemployment took a toll on me and my family. but we were able to receive the things that -- i'm sorry, my children weren't able to receive the things that they wanted as being children such as like bikes and small toys that they wanted during the time. we had to relocate so staying --

staying and feeling stable within a school was difficult. it was hard enough moving from place to place and not knowing where we were actually going to be staying. so making and keeping stable friends made them feel sad at times. plus, they didn't have a place to call home. we were finally housed by community of hope, a local housing program here in washington, d.c., with resources from the hprp program, my family and i were able to find permanent housing. finding housing is like a brick being lifted off of my soldiers shoulders and being placed back on the ground. my family and i are able to move and be more involved in our school and in the community. without being restricted to any time frame. also, it gives my children security, and they are happier. you can tell when they want to have a sleepover or have some of their friends over i'm able to say yes and make the decision

without turning to someone else for approval. i'm able to build my independence again and make wiser choices when it comes to living with the necessities and wants. it makes a significant difference for secure, confidence stability but for children it gives them a piece of a childhood that they can say is like everyone else's in their eyes. it's difficult to see parents who have problems and not know if the children blame themselves or if they will later in life blame themselves. you never know what children are going through in the midst. i'm sorry. but to see the change so drastic and for them to see a positive direction. if you keep aiming high and to change things in a bad situation, that they can go through anything and overcome

and see themselves come on top. moving forward, i'm aiming to increase my income to better support me and my family and eventually purchase a vehicle so that i can expand my children's eyes in the world. i would like to get back to my community because when i needed it, they gave it to me. [applause] that. the state of homelessness shows us not surprisingly that homelessness is linked to economic factors like unemployment and low wages and that as a result of the recession, homelessness is up. it also raises concerns that since homelessness is a lagging indicator, it may continue to rise over the next few years. what can congress and the administration do to avoid increased homelessness. while obviously as the report shows, there are two dimensions to this. one is the bigger picture that reduced unemployment, decent wages, in short and improved economy will lift all boats.

and especially if housing costs stay a little bit lower. so as the economy improves, we expect that to have a positive impact, obviously, on the number of homeless people. we need congress and the administration to target their economic interventions, though, to the very lowest-incomed people because it's the very lowest-incomed people who have been hit the hardest by the recession. and although resources are scarce, experience tell us that letting people become homeless because of budget cuts is a false savings. increased medical, education, housing and law enforcement costs eat up anything that might appear to be saved. now is not the time to abandon the most vulnerable people. scarce resources should be targeted to those people who need them most. since we will face a period of time before the economy recovers obviously and even longer before those benefits reach the poorest people, we will need to rely on

the homelessness assistance system in the short run to help people, obviously. the homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing program and other emergency resources are helping now. but they need to be replaced when they run out and they need to be strengthened. and communities across the country have shifted their homelessness approach from band-aid approaches to housing solutions to prevention to rehousing and to planning to end homelessness. these communities have developed plans to end homelessness. we need congress and the administration, good timing, to -- [laughter] >> which also the administration by the way also has a really excellent plan to end homelessness, opening doors which focuses on ending homelessness over the next 10 years. we need congress and the administration to continue to support these local and national plans to end homelessness and to fund them to succeed. and one of the real leaders in

congress really our leader on homelessness is senator jack reed from rhode island. we know he does not need any introduction to any of the people in the room but let me just say we will rely and continue to rely on senator reed to advance the issues relating to homelessness and homeless veterans. he authored and led the heather bill which is really going to change the help communities change their homelessness assistance to be much more solution and outcome oriented and really refiguring the approach to homelessness at the local level, his experience at west point and as an army ranger has -- has only strengthened his commitment to homeless veterans and he has been a leader in that issue as well. so we look forward to continuing to work with him to solve the issues of homelessness in the country and we're delighted to have him with us today. thank you so much, senator reed? [applause]

>> thank you very much, nan, for those very kind words. and i also want to recognize nan for her extraordinary work in leading this national alliance but bill sermons who's a researcher, bill, thank you for your great efforts and ebony roscoe, ebony is a consumer advocate a community of hope graduate and thank you so much. i also have to recognize on my staff james and tara who actually do the work. i get to give speeches. they actually do the work extraordinarily gifted and committed individuals. i've been engaged for many years in trying to address appropriately the issue of homelessness. as a young lawyer in rhode island, i was asked to go to be a pro bono lawyer for a a soup kitchen and homeless shelter in south providence and i began to

understand homelessness in this country. today's report state of homelessness in america, it's gotten much worse despite the efforts and despite the extraordinary contributions of individuals across this country. the partnerships that have evolved. one, it's a reflection of the most difficult economic circumstances we've seen since the great depression. that has taken a huge toll and not surprisingly in terms of the homeless population as well as other americans. and this is not just about a topic, a policy issue. it's about people. our neighbors. our fellow americans who are facing some very, very severe challenges. one of the ironies back home in my state of rhode island is that the average rent, monthly rent, has increased 45% at a time when

the housing market is collapsing. the residential housing market is collapsing. that is a bit of irony for people who are struggling to make ends meet struggling frankly in too many cases middle incomed families who have to give up their home and now have to look at soaring rents in the rental markets. that is a very bitter situation and all too prevalent in our communities, not just rhode island but in rhode island particularly we've seen the unemployment rate go from 6% to as high as 12.7% in 2008. it's come down to 11% plus now. still unacceptable. and the homeless population, no surprise, has increased dramatically. about 34% from 2008 to 2009 in rhode island. and what else is happening and what is identified in this report is the doubling up

rhe cots and mattresses in 2010 remember homeless for the first time. this is not the situation, the chronic individuals with several different issues, housing, health care issues, et cetera. these are people who have always had a home until very recently. so this issue of homelessness which has always been at the forefront of your efforts is now taking on an even more important dimension in our country and our neighborhood. the federal government, state government, local governments cannot tackle this issue alone. we need this kind of partnership that you're on the forefront but we all understand the fiscal pressures that are building in every level of government. that means we have to be more innovative, bring more ingenuity to these efforts, more partnership, more collaboration, more of those things that will put people in homes with less resources to do it. now, i'm here to work as i've

tried to in the past to help you in your efforts. we must build on a passage of the hearth in 2009. it's not sufficient to make a legislative statement and not put the resources behind it to actually help people and we've got to do that. that's going to be a challenge. it's going to require your grassroots efforts across the country to help my colleagues battle from difficult choices of priorities about where we put resources. and this is going to require a national effort in the rural communities, in the urban communities. one of the things about the hearth act there's significant improvements in how we deal with rural homelessness and this was a central city issue not an issue affecting the great plains and the small towns of america. it's there. unfortunately. and this hearth act has some

better approaches so i hope we can engage all of my colleagues in this effort. we're beginning an effort today but actually continuing an effort. i can recall again thinking back to the late '80s and when i came down here for a march against homelessness in the 1980s in washington, all across the country, that spirit is still ent. the reason it's alive, frankly, because you, ladies and gentlemen, but you have not forgotten we are literally our brothers and sisters keepers and that's an important thing to remember. thank you very much. [applause] >> well, you can see why we're so grateful to have senator reed on our side working on this issue. thank you so much, senator reed. and now bill and i would be glad

to entertain any questions you may have about state of homelessness in america. yes. >> i wanted to ask you about -- about homelessness in the district. and i wonder if you had a chance to look at the data and credit that to whether that was a policy or what were your explanation for that? >> well, i think here in the district, speaking from my own experiences as a resident of the district, that really was as a result of a policy to house chronically homeless people so there was a real effort on the part of the district government to identify chronically homeless people and get them into permanent supportive housing. there was also a big effort to house homeless veterans in the

district. identify them and house them using hud -- the hud federal program. and also families who were also housed so there was a policy change in the district focusing on housing. >> do you have any numbers on how many houses like yours in the country now? >> it's a good question. we do have information in the report about the number -- total number of beds broken out by -- into three categories. sort of permanent supportive housing beds. also looking at transitional housing beds and emergency shelter beds and so i think the 2009 numbers on shelter beds were about 180,000 in terms of transitional housing beds, about 185,000 and in terms of permanent supportive housing beds around 215,000. >> there was an increase also, i believe -- there was an increase in permanent supportive housing beds of 11,000 between '08 and

'09. >> given the variation that you found among states, did you look at what was working in a systemic way in the states where there was a decrease? i mean, you focus on the risk factors in the states where there was an increase but did you see in terms of states that spent more and allocated more of their budgets to this or what did you see that's consistent in those states whether there was a decrease? >> rights. and, you know, one of the things that's true is that these efforts tend to happen at very local levels. you know, one of the series that we have, of our publication series we have community snapshot series where we look at individual communities and our last three series which focused on wichita, quincy and alameda county all showed that from '08 to '09 there were individual communities that had decreases in specific populations and in overall homelessness in the context of the same economic factors that we're looking at. in this report we don't really look at sort of identifying one

single factor that seemed to drive things. although we did find -- and i didn't mention it in my findings, a particular association between high rates of severe housing cost burden for poor households and high rates of homelessness and so those two seem to go together. >> any questions or comments? yes. >> you talked about the inadequacy of the resources that are available for homelessness programs. you probably also are aware for many cities across the country are in severe financial distress and there are estimates -- some people are estimating 50 to 100 municipalities are going bankrupt. do you have any sense what kind of impact -- if this continues -- if the cities continue to collapse this way, what kind of impact that will have? >> well, we're obviously very concerned about the current situation and the numbers going

up because of the pressures you mentioned because, you know, the things that are talked about in the report in terms of income unemployment continue but also as you say, really the state and local budget cuts had not hit when this report came -- when the data from this report was accessed so we're very concerned about the numbers going up because of all of those factors. and the communities are going to have to do much, much more with much, much less because of the lack of state and local resources. i think with respect to state and local government resources it's also not only a matter of funding the homeless assistance programs for people after they become homeless but also whether those cuts are going to cause more homelessness because of inadequate mental health services, substance abuse treatment and supports for families. so we're worried about it. you know, the counter-veiling

pressure this report does not impact the homelessness rapid recovery housing funding which we hope will push back some of those potential increases. and really the change strategies that communities are taking. but we are very, very concerned about increasing numbers. >> what do you think of states like south carolina where the risk factors are going to up but then homelessness is going down? >> i think as i sort of alluded to before, i think and maybe nan will answer that with ebony sort of communicating her story, you know, every individual, you know, that experiences homelessness has a very sort of unique circumstance. and i think that shows up when you look at the fact -- when you look in states, you know, the same factors that may be caused homelessness to increase in one state may not have the exact same impact. nan mentioned the fact that homelessness is also a lagging indicator so as we move forward

with future reports we'll be able to take a little better look at that. one of the things that can't be overlooked and shouldn't be overlooked is that in the face of a lot of these overwhelming economic challenges, communities have adapted. they have innovated and introduced strategies to try to deal with homelessness to prevent it. and so i think we can't overlook, you know, the commendable work that's been done all across the country. >> any questions? >> over the years you guys have been great about identifying the different populations, especially chronic homelessness or, you know, youth aging out of foster case is there a new face of homelessness under the whole foreclosure crisis that we should be proactive about are making new alliances, you know, because there's like a world out there preventing foreclosures and something that we should be

doing nationally or as we were talking about it? >> i'll let bill speak to the foreclosure connection because he has worked on that but i will just mention something we didn't mention earlier, which is the report identifies that only a very small group of homeless youth were counted by communities, was it 12,000; is that right? >> yes >> there are 12 more than 12,000 homeless youth in the country. and one thing that we feel that we're very concerned about is that we don't have a handle on the problem of homelessness among youth. we don't have a handle on the numbers. we don't have a good assessment of the solutions. and we called a lot of -- we called the communities that had reported no homeless youth which a lot of -- was it 30% of the continuum of no youth at all. i don't know about the new face of the homelessness but that is

a population that i think we join with the federal government and the u.s. interagency council on homelessness and hha and hud trying to get a better handle of that problem and the solutions. >> and certainly as it relates to foreclosure, yeah, i see some people that help -- there was a joint multiorganization effort on the foreclosure to homelessness report. and one of the findings in the report was that while, you know, the majority of people being served by, you know, homeless assistance organizations are not there due to foreclosure. they're still are -- i think the report estimated 5 to 10%, you know, of serving organizations reported some of their -- the people that they were serving were experiencing foreclosures so i think that there's -- there's a mix. there's a lot of people who were experiencing the same kinds of factors that would have led them into homelessness before the foreclosure crisis and a lot of additional people who are having additional stresses whether it

would be foreclosure or unemployment that they just wouldn't have imagined a few years before. >> a follow-up to that we're still a nation at war. so what's the status of homeless veterans and specifically in increased homelessness or decreased or awareness of communities of that population. >> we don't report on homeless veteran numbers this time around at least in part because in the past, the va had a system of counting or estimating the size of the homeless veteran population. they've recently teamed up with hud to come up with a new methodology and they're releasing that as an addendum to hud's report and so as that becomes a regularly sort of issued item and as the methodologies of that become clear, we'll be able to report on -- be able to report on that. >> i just would mention there is

a national goal that the department of veterans affairs set the goals to ending veteran homelessness in five years. that's big priority for us as well. the number has been going down, which is a really good thing. and there's no reason we should have any homeless people, there's no reason we should have any homeless veterans. this is a solvable problem. and i think it's very -- there's a lot of political will behind it, and i'm pretty sure we'll be able to make good progress, we as a nation will be able to good progress on that moving ahead. other questions? very good. well, thank you all so much for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

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