Social Security

Homeless Outreach Project and Evaluation (HOPE) Overview:

Congress provided $8 million each in FY 2003, 2004 and 2005, directing SSA to use the appropriations to provide outreach to “homeless and under-served populations.” SSA used this earmarked funding to establish the Homeless Outreach Projects and Evaluation (HOPE) program in support of the President’s initiative to end chronic homeless within 10 years. The HOPE initiative is focused on assisting eligible, chronically homeless individuals in applying for SSI and SSDI benefits. The HOPE projects will help SSA to demonstrate the effectiveness of using skilled medical and social service providers to identify, engage and assist homeless individuals with disabling conditions file for benefits within current policy.

Grantees are required to provide outreach, supportive services, and benefit application assistance to chronically homeless adults and children. Individual HOPE projects can also include presumptive disability screening, pre-release procedures for institutionalized individuals with disabilities, the provision of representative payee services, the development of employment interventions, and the use of electronic applications to file for benefits.

SSA plans to fund projects for three years, with the requirement that grantees reduce their dependence on cooperative agreement funding in each year of this activity. We reserved a portion of the appropriations to evaluate the projects and to provide technical assistance to the grantees.

The Goal

The primary goal of the Homeless Outreach Project and Evaluation is to support the President’s initiative to end chronic homelessness within 10 years by:

• Demonstrating the value of assistance that skilled medical and social service providers give to homeless individuals who file for Social Security benefits through their efforts to identify, engage and support them with access and application assistance.
• Assisting eligible chronic homeless individuals in applying for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security disability benefits.

Current Status

SSA awarded $6.6 million in cooperative agreement funding to 34 public and private organizations in April 2004 and conducted an Orientation Conference for the organizations in August 2004. SSA awarded an additional $1.2 million in cooperative agreement funding to 7 organizations in November 2004. Work is underway to provide a technical assistance conference for these new grantees in January 2005. Work was completed through the competitive process to secure the HOPE evaluation contractor.

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

HOMELESS OUTREACH PROJECTS AND EVALUATION (HOPE) AWARDS

If you would like further information, you can send an email to:
Homeless.Outreach@ssa.gov