The Federal Homelessness Response: McKinney-Vento, the HEARTH Act, and the CoC System

The federal homelessness response is not a single program. It is an architecture — a set of laws, funding streams, data systems, and organizational structures that together define how the United States identifies, counts, and serves people experiencing homelessness. At its center is the Continuum of Care (CoC) program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which distributed approximately $3.6 billion in competitive grants to local communities in fiscal year 2024^[1]. Around it sit the Emergency Solutions Grants program, the HUD-VASH program for veterans, the Homeless Management Information System mandate, and the policy coordination of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

This architecture was not built all at once. It evolved over nearly four decades, from the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 — the first significant federal legislation addressing homelessness — through the HEARTH Act of 2009, which restructured the system around the principles of coordinated entry, performance measurement, and Housing First^[2][3]. Understanding how these programs work, how they interact, and what they require of local communities is essential to understanding why some communities — like Houston, which achieved a 63 percent reduction in homelessness between 2011 and 2025 — have succeeded within this system while others have not^[4].

This article maps the federal architecture: the laws that created it, the programs that fund it, the data systems that measure it, and the strategic framework that guides it. For the broader federal safety net within which homelessness programs operate, see federal safety net architecture on systemsofpoverty.info.

The McKinney-Vento Act (1987)

The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, signed into law on July 22, 1987, was the federal government's first comprehensive legislative response to homelessness^[2]. The Act — renamed the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act in 2000 — created a set of programs spanning multiple federal agencies: emergency shelter grants through HUD, healthcare through the Health Resources and Services Administration, education protections for homeless children and youth through the Department of Education, job training through the Department of Labor, and food assistance through the Department of Agriculture^[2].

Three structural decisions in the McKinney-Vento Act shaped everything that followed. First, the Act established the Interagency Council on Homelessness (now USICH) to coordinate the federal response across agencies. Second, it created a competitive grant program — the precursor to the modern CoC program — that required local communities to organize themselves into planning bodies to apply for federal funding. Third, the education provisions (Title VII, later Title IX) established the principle that children and youth experiencing homelessness have a right to enrollment, stability, and services in public schools regardless of their housing situation^[5].

The Act was emergency legislation, born of a crisis that had become visible on the streets of American cities during the 1980s — driven by the deinstitutionalization of state mental hospitals, the loss of single-room occupancy housing, the recession of 1981–1982, and cuts to federal housing programs^[2]. It was designed to respond to an emergency, not to build a system for ending homelessness. That systemic transformation would come two decades later.

The HEARTH Act (2009)

The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act, signed into law on May 20, 2009, as part of the reauthorization of McKinney-Vento, fundamentally restructured the federal homelessness response^[3]. Where McKinney-Vento had created separate programs competing for funding, the HEARTH Act consolidated them into a single Continuum of Care program. Where the original system emphasized shelter and transitional housing, the HEARTH Act oriented the system toward permanent housing, rapid rehousing, and prevention. And where outcomes had been loosely tracked, the HEARTH Act built performance measurement into the program's DNA.

The HEARTH Act's key reforms included: consolidation of three separate HUD homeless assistance programs (Supportive Housing Program, Shelter Plus Care, and the Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation SRO program) into the unified Continuum of Care program^[3]; creation of the Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) program from the former Emergency Shelter Grants, expanding eligibility to include rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention^[3]; a mandate for communities to establish coordinated entry systems that standardize how people access housing and services^[6]; requirements for communities to set goals and measure performance on key metrics including length of homelessness, returns to homelessness, and exits to permanent housing^[3]; and expansion of the definition of homelessness to include people who would lose housing within 14 days and people fleeing domestic violence^[3].

The HEARTH Act did not just change program rules. It changed the theory of the federal response from managing homelessness to ending it — a shift that aligned the funding structure with the Housing First evidence base that had been accumulating since Sam Tsemberis's Pathways to Housing program demonstrated 85–90 percent housing retention rates in the 1990s^[7].

The Continuum of Care Program

The CoC program is the federal government's primary funding mechanism for homelessness services. In fiscal year 2024, HUD awarded approximately $3.6 billion through the CoC program to communities across the country^[1]. The funding supports permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, joint component projects, supportive services only, and HMIS infrastructure^[1].

The program is competitive. Each year, HUD publishes a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) specifying the priorities and scoring criteria for CoC applications^[1]. Approximately 400 CoCs nationwide submit collaborative applications ranking their member projects. HUD scores applications based on factors including the CoC's performance on system performance measures, its capacity to collect and use data, its coordination with other systems (mainstream health services, workforce development, criminal justice), and its adoption of Housing First principles^[1].

The competitive structure creates powerful incentives. Communities that demonstrate measurable reductions in homelessness, low return-to-homelessness rates, and high exit-to-permanent-housing rates are rewarded with renewed and expanded funding. Communities that underperform risk losing projects in the next competition. This performance-driven model helps explain why some communities have achieved dramatic results: Houston's CoC (TX-700) received $71.6 million in FY2024 — the largest CoC award in Texas and among the largest in the nation — reflecting the system's track record of housing more than 30,000 people since 2012 with a 12 percent return-to-homelessness rate^[4][8].

The CoC program also structures how communities organize themselves. Each CoC must have a governing board, a lead agency, a designated HMIS administrator, and a coordinated entry system. It must conduct an annual Point-in-Time count, submit data to HUD through the Homelessness Data Exchange, and produce a strategic plan for addressing homelessness within its geography^[6]. These organizational requirements are not optional — they are conditions of federal funding — and they have driven the creation of the institutional infrastructure that effective homelessness responses require.

The Emergency Solutions Grants Program

The Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) program is the second major federal funding stream for homelessness services. In fiscal year 2024, ESG distributed approximately $290 million to states, metropolitan cities, urban counties, and territories through a formula allocation based on the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) formula^[9]. Unlike the competitive CoC program, ESG is a formula grant — communities receive allocations based on their share of the national CDBG formula, not on competitive performance.

ESG funds five eligible activities: street outreach (engagement with unsheltered people), emergency shelter (operations and renovation), rapid rehousing (short-term rental assistance and services), homelessness prevention (assistance for people at imminent risk of homelessness), and HMIS^[9]. The HEARTH Act's restructuring of ESG was intentional: the old Emergency Shelter Grants program funded only shelter. The new Emergency Solutions Grants program added rapid rehousing and prevention, reflecting the shift toward resolving homelessness rather than maintaining it.

In Texas, TDHCA administers the state's ESG allocation, distributing approximately $9.8 million in 2025 through 88 awards across the state's CoC regions^[8]. This pass-through function is often described as state homelessness funding, but the money is federal — a distinction that matters because it means the state's administrative role does not represent a state funding commitment.

Veteran-Specific Programs

The federal homelessness response includes a dedicated pipeline for veterans that operates alongside the CoC system. The HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program combines HUD-funded housing vouchers with VA-funded case management, creating an integrated model that provides both the housing subsidy and the wraparound services veterans need^[10]. Since its expansion beginning in 2008, HUD-VASH has distributed more than 110,000 vouchers nationwide^[10].

The Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program provides rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention services specifically for veteran families, funded through the VA and administered by community-based organizations^[10]. The Grant and Per Diem (GPD) program funds transitional housing for veterans, providing a bridge between the street and permanent housing.

Together, these programs have produced the most dramatic reduction in homelessness for any population: a 55 percent decline in veteran homelessness between 2010 and 2024^[10]. The veteran pipeline demonstrates what happens when dedicated funding, integrated service delivery, and political commitment are aligned behind a specific goal. Houston achieved functional zero for veteran homelessness on June 1, 2015 — the largest U.S. city to do so — through the coordinated deployment of HUD-VASH and SSVF within The Way Home system^[4].

HMIS and Data Infrastructure

The Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is the data backbone of the federal homelessness response. Required by HUD as a condition of CoC funding, HMIS is a local database system that records client-level information for people accessing homeless services: demographic data, service history, housing placements, and outcomes^[6]. Each CoC operates its own HMIS, administered by a designated HMIS lead agency, and reports data to HUD through the Homelessness Data Exchange.

HMIS data serves multiple functions: it powers the coordinated entry system that triages people into housing based on vulnerability and need; it generates the system performance measures that HUD uses to evaluate CoC applications; it produces the AHAR data that Congress uses to understand the scope of homelessness; and it enables communities to track individual-level outcomes over time^[6]. Houston's HMIS, operated through the Coalition for the Homeless, has been central to the city's success — enabling by-name lists, real-time dashboards, and the case conferencing that matches specific individuals to specific housing resources^[4].

USICH and the Federal Strategic Plan

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) is the only federal agency dedicated to coordinating the government's response to homelessness across 19 member agencies^[11]. Created by the McKinney-Vento Act in 1987, defunded in 1996, and reauthorized in 2001, USICH has operated continuously since 2002 as the coordinating body that aligns federal policy, promotes evidence-based practices, and supports communities in implementing effective strategies^[11].

USICH's most significant policy contribution is the federal strategic plan. The first plan, "Opening Doors," was published in 2010 and set the goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015 and chronic homelessness by 2017 — goals that were partially achieved for veterans but not for chronic homelessness^[11]. The current plan, "All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness," was published in December 2022 and sets an ambitious agenda: reducing overall homelessness 25 percent by 2025, expanding Housing First adoption, advancing racial equity in homelessness systems, and strengthening prevention^[11]. The 2024 PIT count's 18 percent increase makes clear that the 25 percent reduction target was not met.

USICH also plays a critical role in promoting evidence-based approaches and opposing criminalization. The council's guidance documents consistently affirm that Housing First is the most effective approach to ending homelessness, that criminalization does not reduce homelessness, and that encampment responses should be housing-centered rather than enforcement-driven^[11].

Systemic Connections & Related Articles

The federal architecture described here is the structural foundation for every local homelessness response in the country. Coordinated entry and systems approaches explains how the HEARTH Act's coordinated entry mandate works in practice — the triage, assessment, and matching systems that connect people to housing. How America funds the homelessness response traces the money through these programs at the national level, while Texas homelessness funding shows how federal dollars flow to a specific state. Houston's navigation of this federal system — competing for and winning $71.6 million in CoC funding through demonstrated outcomes — is documented in The Way Home. The principles underlying the system's Housing First orientation are examined in Housing First: principles and evidence, and the veteran-specific pipeline that produced the most dramatic national reduction is covered in the national campaign to end veteran homelessness. For the broader federal safety net within which these homelessness programs operate, see federal safety net architecture on systemsofpoverty.info.