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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 1

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Fiscal Year 2018 Performance and

Accountability Report

Contents

Message from Executive Director Matthew Doherty...................................................................................................2

Accelerating Progress: Home, Together ...................................................................................................................3

Areas of Increased Focus..........................................................................................................................................4

Annual Performance Measures and Metrics............................................................................................................5

Management Assurances .........................................................................................................................................6

Management Discussion and Analysis..........................................................................................................................7

Driving an Efficient and Effective Federal Response to Homelessness....................................................................7

Building a National Partnership at Every Level of Government and Among the Private Sector............................12

Providing Tools and Resources for Success............................................................................................................13

Performance Goals and Accomplishments.................................................................................................................14

Ending Homelessness among Veterans..................................................................................................................14

Ending Chronic Homelessness Among People with Disabilities.............................................................................16

Ending Homelessness among Families and Children..............................................................................................19

Ending Homelessness for Unaccompanied Youth..................................................................................................22

Ending Homelessness Among All Other Individuals...............................................................................................24

Agency Operations......................................................................................................................................................27

Financial Statements, Auditor’s Reports, and Other Requirements.......................................................................28
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Message from Executive Director Matthew Doherty

The problem of homelessness can seem daunting—it is estimated that on any given night more than 550,000 

people are experiencing homelessness in America. The good news is that states and communities, with the 

support of the federal government and the private sector, are making progress, using best practices and building 

the coordinated responses that are necessary to reduce and ultimately end homelessness in America. 

Driven by federal, state, and local actions, and by public and private partnerships, point-in-time data shows an 

estimated 13% fewer people were experiencing homelessness in 2017 compared to 2010, and there were 17% 

fewer people who were unsheltered, sleeping on our sidewalks, in our parks, and in other unsafe environments. 

For some targeted groups, communities have made even greater progress within their point-in-time data. For 

example, since 2010, there are 46% fewer Veterans and 27% fewer families with children experiencing 

homelessness. And we’ve reduced chronic homelessness—homelessness among people with disabilities who have 

been without a home for long 

or repeated periods of time—

by 18%.

In addition, since the release of 

federal criteria and benchmarks 

in 2015 to measure progress for 

ending homelessness among 

Veterans, 66 communities, 

including 3 entire states, across 

more than 30 different states 

have effectively ended Veteran 

homelessness. And three 

communities have achieved the 

federal criteria and benchmarks 

for ending chronic 

homelessness. 

These achievements show that 

ending homelessness is possible. And we know that it’s possible in all kinds of places—big cities, suburbs, small 

towns, and across entire states. 

But other data released in FY 2018 told a story of mixed progress. For example: 

• HUD’s Worst Case Housing Needs: 2017 Report to Congress, released in August 2017, found an 

inadequate availability of affordable units in all parts of the country, and the situation was worst in the 

West and South regions. For every 100 extremely low- income households in the West region, there were 

only 30 units that were affordable and available, and in the South region there were 39 such units.

• Data from HUD’s Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Part 2 of HUD's 2016 AHAR, 

released in December 2017, documented that 1.42 million people experienced homelessness in shelters 

at some point between October 2015 and September 2016 – a 4.3% decline from the previous year.
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• According to ED’s Federal Data Summary School Years 2013-2014 to 2015-16: Education for Homeless 

Children and Youth, released in December 2017, public schools reported that 1,304,803 enrolled students 

identified as experiencing homelessness at some point during the 2015-2016 school year, an increase of 

4.0% since the 2013-2014 school year.

This data indicates that there is much more work to be done to tailor and replicate lessons of progress and 

success across our nation so that every American experiencing 

homelessness has the opportunity to build the future they want 

from a safe and stable foundation.

Accelerating Progress: Home, Together

In July 2018, after a year-long consultative process with federal, 

national, state, and local stakeholders, we released Home, 

Together, the federal strategic plan to prevent and end 

homelessness adopted by the Council for fiscal years 2018-2022. 

The plan lays out the Objectives and Strategies that Council 

agencies will be implementing to drive greater progress and to 

support states and communities in addressing their most 

pressing challenges. 

To end homelessness, every community needs to be able to 

implement a systemic response that ensures homelessness is 

prevented whenever possible or, if it can’t be prevented, it is a 

rare, brief, and one-time experience. And that systemic response 

must endure for the long term. To achieve that vision, the plan’s 

objectives are:

1. Ensure Homelessness is a Rare Experience

Objective 1.1: Collaboratively Build Lasting Systems that End Homelessness

Objective 1.2: Increase Capacity and Strengthen Practices to Prevent Housing Crises and Homelessness

2. Ensure Homelessness is a Brief Experience

Objective 2.1: Identify and Engage All People Experiencing Homelessness

Objective 2.2: Provide Immediate Access to Low-Barrier Emergency Shelter or other Temporary 

Accommodations to All Who Need It

Objective 2.3: Implement Coordinated Entry to Standardize Assessment and Prioritization Processes and 

Streamline Connections to Housing and Services

Objective 2.4: Assist People to Move Swiftly into Permanent Housing with Appropriate and Person-Centered 

Services

3. Ensure Homelessness is a One-Time Experience

Objective 3.1: Prevent Returns to Homelessness through Connections to Adequate Services and 

Opportunities

4. Sustain an End to Homelessness

Objective 4.1: Sustain Practices and Systems at a Scale Necessary to Respond to Future Needs
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Home, Together has one fundamental goal, which is shared across federal, state, and local partners: to end 

homelessness in America. The plan also sets important population-specific goals that communities can use as a 

framework to set their own ambitious targets:

• To end homelessness among Veterans

• To end chronic homelessness among people with disabilities

• To end homelessness among families with children

• To end homelessness among unaccompanied youth

• To end homelessness among all other individuals

Areas of Increased Focus

The Plan also highlights the areas where we need to particularly increase our focus: 

Increasing Affordable Housing Opportunities – While the availability of affordable housing varies across the 

country, there are clearly powerful connections between people’s ability to access affordable housing and both 

their risk of homelessness and their ability to exit homelessness. We need to do everything we can across all 

levels of government and in the private sector to expand access to housing affordable to people who are at risk of 

or are experiencing homelessness.

Strengthening Prevention and Diversion Practices – In order to end homelessness, we must do a better job of 

preventing the crisis in the first place and diverting people away from the homelessness services system when 

they have safe and appropriate family or social supports available. There is still much to be learned about specific,

effective strategies in both of these areas. 

Creating Solutions for Unsheltered Homelessness – While some communities are documenting significant 

reductions in their annual Point-in-Time counts, others are faced with increasing numbers of people living 

unsheltered. Such communities need support to be able to address the immediate safety and health concerns of 

people who are unsheltered, while also working to develop more low-barrier pathways into housing.

Tailoring Strategies for Rural Communities – For rural communities, the challenges of ending homelessness are 

often exacerbated by the hidden nature of the problem, large geographic expanses, more dispersed or fewer 

resources, a shortage of transportation and quality housing, and fewer economic and employment opportunities. 

We must learn from the work happening in rural communities and intentionally adapt and tailor strategies to 

address their specific needs.

Helping People Who Exit Homelessness Find Employment Success -- For many households experiencing 

homelessness, insufficient income to meet basic living expenses is the primary cause. To help people access 

sustainable employment, federal programs and communities must address obstacles to employment, implement 

job training and apprenticeship programs that create access to career pathways, and strengthen partnerships 

between workforce programs and homelessness services and housing programs, among other strategies. 

Learning from the Expertise of People with Lived Experience – Directly consulting with and learning from people 

who have experienced homelessness is critical to our success in providing tailored, person-centered solutions to 

everyone experiencing homelessness. We must help ensure that people with lived experience are part of 

communities’ systemwide and organizational planning and decision-making through hiring practices, consultation, 

and other feedback efforts. 
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Annual Performance Measures and Metrics

In FY 2018, we also developed the following performance metrics to track and measure our activities and 

impact. The metrics are summarized here. Additional information on our activities is provided in the narrative 

below.

Driving an Efficient and Effective Federal Response to Homelessness

1. Provide expert guidance and input to federal agencies to strengthen the implementation of more than 

$5.6 billion of federal investments into targeted homelessness programs.

Result: Fully achieved. We provided guidance and input across our Council member agencies on over $5.6

billion in FY 2018 targeted resources for homelessness programs from across multiple federal agencies 

and covering multiple sub-populations and focus areas.

2. Coordinate quarterly meetings of the Council Policy Group and Interagency Council on Homelessness 

annually. Convene at least 30 Interagency Working Groups meetings annually.

Result: Partially achieved. We have convened quarterly Council meetings since December 2017, three of 

which occurred during FY 2018 (December 2017, April 2018, and July 2018). We also convened four 

Council Policy Group meetings, and 26 Interagency Working Groups meetings, during FY 2018. We will be 

determining the appropriate target for the number of Interagency Working Group meetings for FY 2019.

3. Manage the development and implementation of action plans for at least four (4) population-specific 

Interagency Working Groups and ensure that at least 75% of strategies and activities projected within 

those action plans are implemented or achieved.

Result: Fully achieved. We managed the implementation of action plans for the Working Groups on 

Ending Veteran, Chronic, Youth, and Family Homelessness. We oversaw work to ensure that 88% of 

activities projected within the plans were implemented or achieved. We will review each of the projected 

activities not yet implemented or achieved and determine with our federal partners if they will be 

implemented on a different timeframe or should be deprioritized.

Building a National Partnership at Every Level of Government and Among the Private Sector

1. Provide expert guidance, convene strategic meetings, and/or host peer-to-peer conversations to educate 

state officials and leaders in at least 15 states and local officials and leaders in at least 40 communities.

Result: Fully achieved. We provided guidance and coaching to state leaders in 28 states and community 

leaders in at least 82 communities.

2. Convene at least one workshop in each of the 10 federal regions each year to provide professional and 

technical assistance to states, local governments, and other public and private nonprofit organizations.

Result: Fully achieved. We convened at least one workshop in each federal region, ranging from smaller, 

focused conversations to larger, statewide or regional convenings.

3. Review and confirm at least 20 communities as achieving the goal of ending Veteran homelessness and 

five communities as achieving the goal of ending chronic homelessness. 

Result: Partially achieved. We confirmed 13 communities as achieving the goal of ending Veteran 

homelessness and two communities as achieving the goal of ending chronic homelessness. We will be 

implementing communications activities to expand community-level understanding of the criteria and 

benchmarks for ending homelessness for these populations and to increase awareness of the 
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confirmation process. We will also be determining the appropriate targets for number of communities 

that will be confirmed as achieving each of these goals for FY 2019.

4. During FY 2018, pilot the implementation of federal criteria and benchmarks for measuring an end to 

youth and family homelessness in at least 16 communities. 

Result: Fully achieved. We launched pilots to test the criteria and benchmarks for ending family and youth 

homelessness with 24 communities.

Providing Tools and Resources for Success

1. Publish and disseminate at least 24 educational newsletters providing information on federal programs, 

resources, and guidance regarding effective strategies and best practices, as well as increase subscribers 

20% annually. 

Result: Fully achieved. We published 24 newsletters in FY 2018, and newsletter subscribers grew by 

21.8%.

2. Publish and disseminate at least 50 new or updated tools and publications, including, in FY 2018, the new 

federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness.

Result: Fully achieved. We published or updated 70 tools and publications, including, Home, Together, the 

new federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness.

3. Deliver at least 100 presentations, workshops, and speeches via national, regional, and local conferences, 

webinars, and conference calls.

Result: Fully achieved. We delivered more than 100 presentations, workshops, and speeches via national, 

regional, and local conferences, webinars, and conference calls.

Management Assurances

Per Circular A-123, USICH management is responsible for establishing and maintaining effective internal controls 

and financial management systems that meet the objectives of the Federal Manager’s Financial Integrity Act 

(FMFIA). With respect to any and all internal and external reviews of the agency, to the best of our knowledge 

and belief, USICH provides reasonable assurance on the effectiveness of internal controls over operations, 

management systems, and financial reporting and that its internal controls over the effectiveness and efficiency 

of operations were in compliance with applicable laws and regulations as of September, 30, 2018, and no 

material weaknesses were identified in the design or operations of internal controls.

USICH relies on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the General Services Administration (GSA), both 

shared services providers, for accounting, payroll and financial services, systems and reporting requirements. 

USICH has no in-house financial systems. USICH, however, considers the USDA’s financial system, Pegasys, as well 

as any other financial systems used by USDA and GSA to support USICH financial operations to be reliable and 

effective. USICH reviewed each entity’s SSAE No. 18 audit report, to assist in assessing internal controls over 

USICH financial reporting. After a review of FY 2018 results in which both USDA and GSA received favorable

opinions on their SSAE No. 18 audits, USICH discovered no significant issues or deviations in its financial reporting 

during FY 2018, and therefore believes its internal controls over financial reporting are sufficiently strong. 
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Management Discussion and Analysis

USICH was established in 1987 by the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act and most recently 

reauthorized by the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009. 

USICH’s mission is two-fold: to drive an efficient and effective federal response to homelessness; and to build 

and foster a national partnership at every level of government and with the private sector to reduce and end

homelessness across the nation. We support all of our interagency and community work by publishing a 

robust body of guidance, tools, and resources that we disseminate through a multi-pronged communications 

strategy. 

Driving an Efficient and Effective Federal Response to Homelessness

USICH focuses on using data and performance measurement to maximize several billions of dollars in targeted 

homelessness funding, and to engage other non-targeted programs, by providing a foundation for evidenceinformed practices. USICH is a model of successful interagency collaboration, as highlighted in a 2014 GAO report

focused on strategies for enhancing collaboration in interagency efforts. USICH does not administer programs or 

have regulatory authority, nor do we duplicate the efforts of other agencies; rather, our tools for advancing good

governance are through innovative collaborations and strategic engagements that drive smart, efficient changes 

and progress across our partners and stakeholders.

Building Consensus at the Highest Levels

Through our efforts, collective action to end homelessness reaches the highest level of the federal government. 

USICH staff plan and implement quarterly meetings of our Council, which includes senior leaders of 19 member 

agencies. The full Council met three times during FY 2018, in December 2017 and in April and July of 2018. 

We utilize other interagency policy and planning structures, including convening agency senior advisors at least bimonthly to set the strategic direction for the Council and interagency activities. Through our quarterly Council

Policy Group (CPG) meetings, USICH also provided a regular forum for senior staff from member agencies to

coordinate policies and programs, collect data, develop special initiatives, and prepare recommendations for 

consideration by Council members and for Council meeting discussions. That group was convened four (4) times in 

FY 2018. 

Driving Interagency Action

To drive day-to-day progress, we also convene a variety of on-going and ad hoc interagency working groups 

comprised of high-level agency staff from key partners across our 19 member agencies. FY 2018 working groups 

included: 

• Solving Veteran Homelessness as One: We design and prioritize actions to review and confirm 

communities’ achievement of the goal of ending Veteran homelessness, to advance the transformation of 

transitional housing, and to support the effective implementation of the HUD-VASH and SSVF programs,

among other areas of focus. 

• Interagency Working Group on Ending Chronic Homelessness: We determine actions that will support 

communities as they work toward achieving the criteria and benchmark for ending chronic homelessness, 

including strategies to strengthen outreach, expand supportive housing opportunities, and strengthen 

collaborations between health and housing agencies, among many other issues.
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• Interagency Working Group on Ending Family Homelessness: We determine priority action areas to 

support communities as they work toward achieving the criteria and benchmarks for ending family 

homelessness, with an emphasis on strategies to strengthen federal and local partnerships across systems 

and sectors, connections to permanent housing, and ways to tailor housing and services supports based 

on unique family needs.

• Interagency Working Group on Ending Youth Homelessness: We determine priority action areas to 

support communities as they work toward achieving the criteria and benchmarks for ending youth 

homelessness, including building evidence for effective crisis response and housing strategies for youth, 

among other issues.

• Interagency Working Group on Preventing Homelessness Among Transitioning Service Members: We

strengthen the process of ensuring that Service members don’t separate from the military into 

homelessness. USICH submitted a report to Congress on work to strengthen these efforts in March 2018

and continues to drive improvements in data collection and sharing, capacity-building, and lessons 

learned on preventing homelessness that can translate across populations.

• Interagency Working Group on Coordinated Entry: We strengthen and support federal, state, and local 

connections across programs and systems through coordinated entry processes, to ensure that 

homelessness services programs are reaching the most vulnerable people and are providing just the right 

level of assistance to help people succeed.

• Interagency Working Group on Homelessness among American Indians and Alaska Natives: We drive

action that improves access to housing and necessary services for American Indians and Alaska Natives 

living on and off tribal lands. 

• Interagency Working Group on Ending Homelessness in Rural Communities: Established in February 

2018, the working group is initially focused on reviewing the set of federal programs that can serve rural 

communities and ways in which federal agencies can improve collaboration to better support rural 

communities in their efforts to prevent and end homelessness.

• Interagency Working Group on Employment and Homelessness: Established in August 2018, the working 

group is initially focused on reviewing the set of federal programs that can serve jobseekers who are at 

risk of, are experiencing, or have recently exited homelessness. The working group is also identifying ways 

in which federal agencies can support communities to more closely integrate employment as part of 

efforts to prevent and end homelessness. 

• The ad hoc Interagency Working Group on Addressing the Intersection of Opioids and Homelessness

also met in FY 2018. Activities related to this portfolio have now been incorporated into the other working 

groups, as applicable. 

Activities of these Working Groups are described in more detail in the Performance Goals and Accomplishments 

section below.

Building Common Regional Goals

In FY 2016, we worked with Council agencies to develop or strengthen Federal Regional Interagency Councils on 

Homelessness in all ten Federal Regions. Since then, we have been providing technical assistance to those regional 
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staff from multiple federal agencies, including HUD, HHS, VA, and DOL, to further develop their collaborative 

structures and unite behind common regional goals.

Throughout FY 2018, we provided strategic guidance to monthly conference calls and events, and co-sponsored 

four regional convenings, in Federal Regions 1, 5, 7 and 8, where USICH staff provided on-site technical assistance.

We also delivered presentations to nine Federal Regional Interagency Councils on Homelessness on the objectives 

and strategies in Home, Together, after its publication in July 2018. We also developed a quarterly update that 

highlights activities and action taken by Federal Regional Interagency Councils to promote promising and best 

practices to regional and headquarters staff. 

Gathering Input on Emerging Topics

We bring together groups of community leaders, experts, national partners, and staff from our Council member 

agencies for exploratory conversations about new strategic actions. For example, in FY 2018, we hosted or cohosted: 

• Federal Strategic Plan Input Sessions. We held 22 listening sessions around the country to solicit input 

from stakeholders on revising and strengthening the federal strategic plan to prevent and end 

homelessness, including meetings in Seattle, WA (2), Portland, OR, San Francisco, CA, Boise, ID, Las Vegas, 

NV, Denver, CO, Dallas, TX, Kansas City, KS, New Orleans, LA, Chicago, IL, and suburbs (4), Detroit, MI, 

Atlanta, GA, Orlando, FL, Augusta, ME, Boston, MA, Baltimore, MD, Washington, DC (2). Four listening 

sessions were specifically targeted to people who had experienced homelessness. 

• Preventing and Ending Homelessness through Employment: Lessons Learned and Pathways Forward.

We co-hosted a day-long convening on employment and homelessness, which included local leaders and 

partners from philanthropic organizations, government, national advocacy groups, researchers, and 

community-based organizations from across the country, to support the dissemination of key strategies 

and promising practices to increase connections to meaningful employment for people experiencing 

homelessness, including recommendations for continued federal action.

• Data Symposium on Characteristics and Homelessness Trajectories of People Who Are Unsheltered. We 

co-hosted a convening in Los Angeles, CA, with HUD and the National Alliance to End Homelessness 

(NAEH) to identify what we know about people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, and how the 

gaps in knowledge could be quickly filled. 

• Effective Unsheltered Homelessness Strategies Data Meeting. We collaborated with HUD and the NAEH

in Washington, DC, on a convening of researchers and practitioners to assess the availability of data and 

evidence regarding the effectiveness of strategies to reduce encampments and unsheltered homelessness 

in communities.

• Policy Academy on Outreach and Engagement. We co-hosted and co-facilitated with the Substance 

Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), HUD, and NAEH, a policy academy on 

strengthening outreach and engagement among people experiencing chronic homelessness in Los 

Angeles, CA.

• Convening on Law Enforcement and Homelessness Services Partnerships in Ending Homelessness. We

convened representatives from the law enforcement and homelessness services sectors from 10 

jurisdictions to discuss best and promising practices in their partnerships to meet the needs of people 

experiencing homelessness in their communities.
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• Convening on Ending Homelessness in Rural Communities: We convened in Jackson, MS, experts from 17

rural communities across 16 states and federal and national partners to discuss challenges unique to rural 

communities and innovative crisis and permanent housing interventions to address those challenges.

Mobilizing Nationwide Actions in Support of a Shared Vision

As the only agency in the federal government whose mission it is to end homelessness, our role includes building 

and sustaining a shared national vision, captured and communicated in the federal strategic plan to prevent and 

end homelessness, of progress and success and driving federal-state-local partnership and public and private 

sector collaboration and coordination. We also work to create a shared vocabulary and understanding of the data 

regarding homelessness and make sure that federal technical assistance to the field conveys both that shared 

understanding and the best practices for achieving our goals.

Revising and Strengthening the Federal Strategic Plan: We released Home, Together, the revised federal strategic 

plan to prevent and end homelessness for fiscal years 2018-2022, in July 2018. In order to ensure the plan 

addressed community-level priorities, USICH consulted with hundreds of people from across the country, 

including staff from local, state, and national agencies and organizations, community volunteers, advocates, 

people with past and current experiences of homelessness, and many others. We conducted formal listening 

sessions in more than 20 communities across the country and received hundreds of comments through an 

online portal. We highlighted some of the input we received in Rare, Brief, and One-Time: Ending 

Homelessness in America and You’ve Been Talking, We’ve Been Listening: What We’ve Learned So Far About 

Strengthening the Federal Strategic Plan. In conjunction with the plan’s release, we also released a video and 

conducted a webinar. By the end of FY 2018, the plan had been viewed by almost 7,000 unique users on the 

USICH website.

Building the Roadmap for Success Through Criteria and Benchmarks: The federal strategic plan to prevent and 

end homelessness established an operational definition for an end to homelessness that allowed communities 

across the country to understand the outcomes they were seeking. In order to guide communities in measuring 

progress toward ending homelessness, USICH and its member agencies developed specific criteria and 

benchmarks for ending homelessness among certain subpopulations. Criteria and benchmarks for Veteran and 

chronic homelessness were released in FY 2016, and criteria and benchmarks for ending family and youth 

homelessness were released in FY 2017. In the first quarter of FY 2018, we completed a series of stakeholder

input sessions on the youth criteria and benchmarks and released an updated version in February 2018. We also 

launched efforts with 24 communities to pilot the criteria and benchmarks for achieving the goals of ending family 

homelessness and youth homelessness and expect to complete those pilots in FY 2019. 

Promoting a Shared Understanding of the Data: No single source of data tells the whole story of homelessness 

and other housing needs in our country. We provide guidance and advice to help national stakeholders and 

communities understand the variety of different federal data sources that can and should be used at the local 

level to drive local planning and action, to drive resource investments, to strengthen the coordinated responses 

we need to end people’s homelessness, and to address broader housing needs. Examples include: The Challenges 

We Must Face Together: Findings and Implications from Recent Reports and Data; 2017 Point-in-Time Estimates 

Show Significant Geographical Variations in Our Progress Toward Ending Homelessness; Further Evidence of 

Worsening Affordability for Renters; and Who Accessed Shelter or Transitional Housing in 2016? HUD’s AHAR Part 

2 Report Tells Us.
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Creating a Shared Understanding about the Racial Disparities that Must be Addressed: Racial disparities in 

experiences of homelessness are clear in the data, driven by a complex array of inequities within our systems and 

social dynamics—biases and prejudices, overt discrimination, systemic and institutional racism, and many other 

related and intersectional forces—that impact our responses to homelessness. In order to explore and begin to 

address these racial disparities, we participated in the Center for Social Innovation’s SPARC (Supporting 

Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities) Initiative and attended the Racial Equity and Homelessness Summit at 

the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, WA.

We also published a series of tools and commentaries on racial equity topics, including: Emerging Strategies for 

Addressing Racial Inequities in Our Efforts to End Homelessness; Using GIS Mapping to Help Address Disparities in 

Homelessness Assistance; Responding to Racial Inequities Within our Systems of Care; Centering Youth of Color & 

LGBTQ Young People in Efforts to End Homelessness; Initiative Sparks Change in Local Organizations’ Approach to 

Racial Equity in Work to End Homelessness; Coalition Brings Together Partners to Reduce Homelessness Among 

American Indians/Alaska Natives; Systems Change: Addressing Racial Disparity by Putting Theory into Practice;

How to Start Addressing Racial Disparities in Your Community; and A Personal Reflection on the Role I Must Play 

to Help Advance Racial Equity.

Creating Avenues to Meaningfully Engage People with Lived Experience of Homelessness: Input from 

stakeholders who are directly impacted by local, state, and federal policy and funding decisions is critical in 

ensuring our efforts are relevant, responsive, and effective in ending homelessness. We continue to seek 

opportunities to partner with people who are experiencing and have experienced homelessness. For example, 

youth from the National Youth Forum on Homelessness and the National Youth Advisory Council helped us to 

refine the criteria and benchmarks on ending youth homelessness that were released in February. We also hosted 

four listening sessions with people with lived experience of homelessness, in Chicago, Washington, DC, Baltimore, 

Denver, as part of the input process for developing Home, Together. And we published The Value of Lived 

Experience in the Work to End Homelessness, which shares the perspective of an advocacy fellow at a 

Washington, DC, non-profit on the value of centering people with lived experience in the work to prevent and end 

homelessness. In September 2018, we also hosted a conversation with a group of individuals and families in 

Washington, DC, all of whom have experienced or were currently experiencing homelessness, to discuss strategies 

to prevent homelessness as we are working to build out this area of increased focus in the coming years.

Ensuring Consistent Federal Technical Assistance on Ending Homelessness: Communities across the country 

receive technical assistance from different (and sometimes multiple) federal agencies and programs that guide 

their strategic planning and implementation of best practices. We work to ensure that that technical assistance is 

as streamlined and coordinated as possible so that all communities are receiving the same guidance. In FY 2018, 

we worked closely with, and helped design the strategies under, HUD’s Vets@Home and VA’s SSVF technical 

assistance initiatives, the HUD-funded Built for Zero initiative, HUD Regional Technical Assistance and HUD’s 

Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project initiative to reduce youth homelessness.

Providing Technical Assistance to Inform Federal Disaster Response and Homelessness: In FY 2018, a series of 

hurricanes, including Hurricanes Maria and Harvey, left many Americans without homes, and cities and counties 

needing to deploy a disaster response around housing. We convened an ongoing conversation between local 

officials from New York, Florida, and Massachusetts to share information and status on efforts related to 

Hurricane Maria evacuees, and will be capturing those lessons learned regarding the effective roles for 

Continuums of Care (CoC)s in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery and for their partnerships with FEMA 

and other disaster response organizations.
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Building a National Partnership at Every Level of Government and Among the Private Sector

USICH drives national, regional, state, and local collective action through outcome-oriented partnerships with a 

wide variety of leaders and decisionmakers:

State Interagency Councils on Homelessness: We have encouraged every state to develop a State Interagency 

Council on Homelessness (SICH) to align public resources, build on innovations and best practices across the 

country, and promote cost effective strategies to strengthen coordination within state departments. In FY 2018, 

we provided technical assistance and guidance to more than 20 states to develop and strengthen structures to 

support the operations of their SICHs, set statewide goals, and utilize performance management and metrics to 

monitor progress of goals and activities.

For example, we worked with the WA State Interagency Council on Homelessness on effective practices and 

outlined key activities that they can take on this year to drive action statewide in WA. We also worked closely with 

the State of California on short and long-term goals as they convened their first State Interagency Council on 

Homelessness. And we provided guidance in the development of Minnesota’s new action plan to prevent and end 

homelessness. We published Driving Action at the State-level to End Homelessness Through State Interagency 

Councils, which explores the components and strategies for effective state interagency councils on homelessness.

Governors, Mayors, and other Elected Officials: Political leadership at the state and local level is critical to 

advancing progress. Our Executive Director and National Initiatives Team met regularly with Governors, Mayors, 

and other elected officials and local leaders to provide individualized guidance to address the unique needs of 

their jurisdiction, including the mayors of Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, 

CA, St. Louis, MO, Charleston, SC, among many others. We also worked with associations that support the efforts 

of a broad array of elected officials, such as the Council of State Governments, National League of Cities, and the 

U.S. Conference of Mayors. 

We provided technical assistance at U.S. Conference of Mayors meetings and task forces, including the 

Homelessness: Strategies that Work in Reducing Chronic and Veteran Homelessness session at the USCM Winter 

Meeting and the Best Practice Forum on Homelessness and Hunger during the Spring Meeting. We also presented 

on Home, Together and roles for mayors in driving progress at USCM’s Fall Leadership Meeting. 

In FY 2018, we also continued to facilitate monthly conference calls among staff from 14 Mayors along the west 

coast to share strategies to address common challenges in their efforts to end homelessness. We participated in 

an in-person meeting of many of those mayors in Washington, DC, in January 2018.

National Non-Profit Organizations and Associations: We partner with national organizations that drive and 

influence public agendas on homelessness, housing, and related issues, such as the NAEH, National Association of 

Housing and Redevelopment Officials, Council of Large Public Housing Agencies, and many others. For example, 

we presented at the National Council of State Housing Agencies’ Annual Conference in Denver, CO, on the role 

that state housing finance agencies can play in expanding access to affordable housing for families experiencing 

homelessness in October 2017, we met with the National Homelessness Social Work Initiative at the Society for 

Social Work Research Conference to discuss opportunities for academic institutions and federal partners to 

partner on efforts to end homelessness in January 2018, and we gave a keynote address at the Pacific Southwest 

Regional Conference of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials in May 2018.

We also host quarterly roundtable conversations that allow major national non-profit and faith-based 

organizations to provide input on federal programs and policy development and to identify opportunities for 

collaboration on important strategic objectives. We partner with national non-profits on individual initiatives, like 
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 13

Heartland Alliance’s Connections Project or the Council of State Government’s Convening on Law Enforcement 

and Homelessness Services Partnerships in Ending Homelessness.

Private Sector, Faith-Based, and Philanthropic Partners: As states and communities continue to face challenges 

due to constrained resources, the private sector and faith-based and philanthropic organizations dedicated to 

serving populations at-risk of or experiencing homelessness are playing even larger leadership roles. We work 

with a variety of stakeholders across those sectors, including a close partnership with Funders Together to End 

Homelessness, which represents more than 220 national and local philanthropic organizations. For example, we

spoke at 2018 Funders Forums on Philanthropy’s Role in Ending Family and Youth Homelessness and on Why 

Prevention and What Does It Mean?

We also routinely address the philanthropic and business communities directly at meetings and events. For 

example, we helped organize and presented at a Funders Forum hosted by the Region 1 Federal Regional 

Interagency Council on Homelessness: Moving Forward Together: A New Conversation on Ending Youth 

Homelessness in Boston. And our Director of National Initiatives met with local philanthropy in Detroit to discuss 

local progress and opportunities to strengthen work between partners.

Community Leaders: We provide a range of targeted community engagement and technical assistance to 

community leaders, including overall guidance on implementing coordinated entry, Housing First, rapid rehousing, and other best practices for ending homelessness. In FY 2018, we provided strategic guidance to 

stakeholders in all 50 states, with special emphasis on 25 prioritized communities that accounted for 41% of all 

people counted as experiencing homelessness during the 2016 PIT count. We also increased our focus on several 

communities facing significant challenges, including communities in California, Hawaii, Washington and on 

Balance of State Continua of Care, which cover rural communities and smaller towns. We traveled to local 

communities more than 85 times to convene stakeholders, deliver presentations at conferences, and provide 

technical guidance and training. And we strengthened state and local strategies through more than 125 in-person 

meetings with high-ranking and elected state and local officials, and hundreds of additional calls and virtual 

meetings with state and local leaders. 

Providing Tools and Resources for Success

Through a broad communications strategy that includes electronic newsletters, speaking engagements, 

conference presentations, social media, and media engagement, we disseminate best practices to a wide array of 

stakeholders across the country. 

• We develop and disseminate a diverse array of articles and tools to communicate federal guidance and to 

strengthen states’ and communities’ practices and support the implementation of best practices. We 

published more than 70 tools, articles, and guidance documents in FY 2018.

• We educate national audiences on new tools and resources through semi-monthly newsletters distributed to 

an audience of more than 25,000 subscribers. The growing impact of our communications is demonstrated by 

22% growth in newsletter subscribers, 12% growth in followers on Facebook, and 12% growth in followers on 

Twitter in FY 2018. 

• We deliver keynote addresses and serve on expert panels at national conferences focused on homelessness, 

housing and related issues, highlighting best practices in preventing and ending homelessness across the 

country and supporting peer learning among regions, states, and local jurisdictions. For example, we delivered 

keynote addresses at the National Conference on Ending Homelessness, the National Conference on Ending 
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 14

Family and Youth Homelessness, the national Housing First Conference, and the annual conference of the 

National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY), among many others.

• We hosted five webinars on: Making the Case for Affordable Housing; Improving Employment Outcomes for 

Veterans Exiting Homelessness; Understanding the New Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End 

Homelessness; Responding to HUD’s Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program Notice of Funding 

Availability, and Responding to HUD’s Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Availability. We co-sponsored 

and presented on many other webinars hosted by partners.

• We helped frame and clarify homelessness issues in national and local media, appearing on TV, radio, and in 

print and web publications. For example, our Executive Director participated in an hour-long public radio callin show in San Francisco on solutions to homelessness and one of our Regional Coordinators presented on an 

expert panel hosted and moderated by the Seattle Times called Homework without a Home: Helping Homeless 

Students in Seattle. Our Executive Director also joined the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and 

HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development on media calls announcing the results of 

communities’ 2017 Point-in-Time counts and announcing $2 billion in awards to 7,300 homelessness 

assistance programs across the country.

Performance Goals and Accomplishments

Accomplishing the goals of the federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness requires leadership at all 

levels of government and strong partnerships with businesses, researchers, philanthropy, and nonprofits. It also

demands a commitment to reassessment and the ability to alter course based on changing conditions and

lessons learned. In FY 2018, USICH continued to work with all these sectors to advance the implementation of 

Home, Together’s goals:

• To end homelessness among Veterans

• To end chronic homelessness among people with disabilities

• To end homelessness among families with children

• To end homelessness among unaccompanied youth

• To end homelessness among all other individuals

Ending Homelessness among Veterans

Between 2010 and 2017, we reduced Veteran homelessness 46%, including a 50% drop in unsheltered 

homelessness among Veterans. Estimated homelessness among Veterans increased by 1.5% (585 Veterans) 

between 2016 and 2017, entirely driven by significant increases in a small number of high-cost rental markets 

that more than cancelled out progress being made in many other communities. At the same time, 13 additional

communities achieved the goal of effectively ending Veteran homelessness in FY 2018, as defined by the criteria 

and benchmarks we released in FY 2015, bringing the total number up to 63 communities and 3 entire states.

Through USICH’s efforts, federal agencies have engaged in unprecedented coordination and shared responsibility, 

using data-driven decision-making to drive the deployment of resources through the HUD-VA Supportive Housing 

(HUD-VASH) program and the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program, which enable 

communities to provide a range of housing and services interventions. State and local entities, and philanthropy, 

have aligned investments with the federal resources, and communities have formed stronger partnerships to 

deploy those resources through best practices, including coordinated entry and Housing First approaches.
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Driving Progress Across Federal Agencies

USICH and Council agencies are continuing to drive progress through the Solving Veterans Homelessness as One

(SVHO) interagency decision-making body, made up of USICH, HUD, and VA officials. SVHO plans and executes

strategic actions through goal setting, policy gap identification, communication, and action. Senior leaders at 

USICH also serve as ex officio members of the VA Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans and 

inform the group on progress and work ahead for interagency strategies to end Veteran homelessness.

In FY 2018, SVHO focused on:

• Confirming Communities’ Achievement of Goal of Ending Veteran Homelessness. We continued the 

review process for communities seeking federal confirmation of their achievement of the goal of ending 

Veteran homelessness. In FY 2018, 13 new communities were confirmed, including Atlanta, Kansas City, 

Pittsburgh, and Miami. We also continued to support communities as they publicly announced their 

achievement, providing communications support, and attending events in Beckley, WV, and Miami. We 

also continued to collaborate with interagency partners and the National League of Cities to support 

elected officials and communities wishing to continue or initiate participation in the Mayors Challenge to 

End Veteran Homelessness, including sending a quarterly communication to mayors about new resources.

• Advancing the Transformation of Transitional Housing. We continued to focus on ensuring transitional 

housing programs, particularly VA’s Grant and Per Diem (GPD) program, are playing effective roles in 

ending Veteran homelessness and are aligned with Housing First principles. USICH Regional Coordinators, 

in conjunction with technical assistance providers, provided guidance to communities seeking to end 

Veteran homelessness on how to best align their transitional housing and GPD programs with the federal 

criteria and benchmarks. 

• Supporting Effective Implementation of the HUD-VASH Program. USICH, HUD, and VA continued their 

work to provide permanent housing solutions for Veterans through the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive 

Housing (HUD-VASH) program. Agencies conducted a gaps analysis and developed a formula to ultimately 

award $43 million in FY 2017 HUD-VASH funding to 325 Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) across the 

country, including 102 first-time voucher recipients, which will provide a permanent home to more than 

5,200 Veterans experiencing homelessness. Agencies also began analyzing locations with significantly 

underutilized HUD-VASH vouchers to determine strategies for increasing utilization or to potentially 

recapture vouchers and allocate them to other locations, if needed. 

• Piloting Diversion Through the Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program. USICH, HUD, and VA

worked together to develop a framework to rapidly resolve homelessness – including problem solving, 

diversion, reunification, and housing solutions -- through a pilot process with 11 communities. The pilot 

includes standardizing strong practices across funding streams and increasing knowledge of practitioners 

and other stakeholders across the country through peer to peer dialogue and partnership with federal 

leaders. We have provided technical assistance and training to all 11 communities through presentations 

and meetings at a national convening in Dallas, TX, and through regional gatherings of grantees. 

Driving Progress in Communities

Our entire team—and particularly our 5-member National Initiative Team and Executive Director—works directly 

with elected officials, stakeholders, and community decision-makers to advance progress in communities across 

America. 
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• We helped more than 26 communities with their efforts to end Veteran homelessness, including 

Lexington, KY, Little Rock, AR, Milwaukee, WI, Portland, ME, New York City, NY, Concord, NH, and the 

Central Illinois and Indiana and Ohio Balance of State Continuums of Care, among many other 

communities.

• We provided technical assistance and training during HUD-funded Built for Zero training events in Ann 

Arbor, MI, Phoenix, AZ, New Orleans, LA, and Detroit, MI, focused on providing intensive assistance to 70 

communities that have pledged to end Veteran and chronic homelessness.

• We convened monthly TA Coordination meetings with lead technical assistance providers for HUD’s 

Vets@HOME initiative, VA’s SSVF program, Department of Labor, and national partners to provide 

guidance on the criteria and benchmarks, exchange innovative practices in communities, and align 

messaging and TA activities.

• We provided technical assistance and training on topics related to ending Veteran homelessness at 

National League of Cities events, including a presentation on housing strategies at the City Summit and a 

federal round robin session and a forum on landlord recruitment at the Congressional City Conference.

• We provided technical assistance and training at the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans Annual 

Conference in Washington, DC, including a federal panel on the status of the revisions to the federal 

strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness and a presentation on the criteria and benchmarks for 

ending Veteran homelessness.

• We presented at the Homelessness: Strategies that Work in Reducing Chronic and Veteran Homelessness

session at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Winter Meeting, focusing on the roles that mayors can play in 

addressing the key challenges we face in making greater progress toward ending homelessness.

• We facilitated two state trainings focusing on landlord recruitment/retention and data sharing for the 

Florida Coalition for the Homeless.

Tools and Resources to Strengthen Practices

We developed and disseminated a diverse array of articles, guidance, and tools to communicate national 

strategies and priorities, to strengthen states’ and communities’ activities, and to support the implementation of 

best practices.

• Homelessness in America: Focus on Veterans summarizes data and research about Veterans, who make 

up 9% of adults experiencing homelessness.

• The Hometown of Independence, Philadelphia Continues the Tradition for Our Veterans discusses the 

partnership between HUD, VA, the city, and an array of nonprofit providers that helped Philadelphia 

develop strategies to sustain an end to Veteran homelessness.

• Webinar: Improving Employment Outcomes for Veterans Exiting Homelessness considers strategies for 

successful collaboration between VA’s homelessness programs and Department of Labor's Homeless 

Veterans' Reintegration Program grantees.

Ending Chronic Homelessness Among People with Disabilities

Between 2010 and 2017, chronic homelessness was reduced by 18%, including a 4% drop in unsheltered 

chronic homelessness. Between 2016 and 2017, chronic homelessness went up by 12%, or 9,476 individuals. 
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 17

That increase appears to be both driven by worsening conditions and by efforts in many communities to more 

accurately determine which people meet the definition of chronic homelessness.

This reversal of progress means we must redouble our efforts to bring to scale what works to end the 

recurring or long-term homelessness of people with disabilities: supportive housing implemented through a 

Housing First approach. By prioritizing people experiencing chronic homelessness for existing supportive 

housing, and by creating opportunities to bring new units online, communities must make many more units 

available for people experiencing chronic homelessness with the highest needs.

Driving Progress Across Federal Agencies

During FY 2018, the Interagency Working Group on Ending Chronic Homelessness continued its focus on: 

• Confirming Communities’ Achievement of Goal of Ending Chronic Homelessness. Since the release of 

the criteria and benchmarks in FY 2016, three (3) communities have been confirmed as achieving the 

goal of ending chronic homelessness: Bergen County, NJ; Rockford, IL; and Lancaster County, PA. 

Additional communities are currently going through the confirmation process. Communities interested 

in assessing their progress and the steps needed to achieve the goal, receive support through HUDfunded TA and USICH and HUD staff.

• Encouraging Ongoing Adoption of Best Practices for Ending Chronic Homelessness. We helped convene 

and co-facilitated a SAMHSA Policy Academy on Outreach and Engagement in Los Angeles, CA, where we 

brought together 19 communities with federal and national partners to discuss best practices for 

outreach to and engaging people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, including people experiencing 

chronic homelessness. This convening will result in the release of a resource document in FY 2019. We

continue to promote Housing First practices in resources, at conferences, and in other engagements. For 

example, we published The Evidence Behind Approaches that Drive an End to Homelessness, which 

highlighted evidence for the effectiveness of permanent supportive housing.

• Strengthened Partnerships for Improving Reentry Practices and Engaging with Law Enforcement. We 

partnered with the Bureau of Prisons to provide two trainings regarding Housing First implementation to 

probation offices receiving Second Chance Act grants. We also convened 10 communities in Washington, 

D.C. to discuss opportunities to strengthen partnerships between homelessness service systems and law 

enforcement.

• Strengthening Collaborations between Health and Housing Agencies. HHS, in coordination with HUD and 

USICH, completed its second round of intensive technical assistance to an additional eight states, focused 

on aligning health, behavioral health, and housing systems at the state-level in order to scale supportive 

housing. This initiative focuses on Medicaid and Housing Agency Partnerships and to date has provided

intensive program support to 16 states. A third round of technical assistance was announced in FY 2018.

We continue to work with HHS as part of the Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating 

Committee (ISMICC). ISMICC members have prioritized expanding access to supportive housing as a key 

goal, as well as addressing data sharing challenges and access to care, with work to drive progress 

expected to develop through the end of this fiscal year and into 2019. 

• Increasing Access to Permanent Supportive Housing. HHS and USICH participated on a webinar focused 

on outlining resources for addressing the opioid crisis, including permanent supportive housing for people 
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 18

with disabilities caught at the intersection of homelessness and opioid addiction. HUD, in partnership with 

USICH, continued to develop a Move On strategy to assist people currently in permanent supportive 

housing to move on to rental housing to free up these intensive supports for people experiencing chronic 

homelessness. USICH also hosted a webinar highlighting opportunities in HUD Continuum of Care 

Program Competition Notice of Funding Availability for increasing permanent housing capacity, including 

permanent supportive housing, in communities across the country. 

Driving Progress in Communities

Our entire team—and particularly our 5-member National Initiative Team and Executive Director—works directly 

with elected officials, stakeholders, and community decision makers to advance progress in communities across 

America. 

• We provided technical assistance to communities across the country on achieving the criteria and 

benchmark for ending chronic homelessness through topics like Housing First, the prioritization of people 

experiencing chronic homelessness in permanent supportive housing, outreach and engagement, working

with the criminal justice system, and systems change.

• We are supporting communities to expand their supply of affordable and supportive housing by advising 

jurisdictions that are implementing or considering significant new locally funded development programs, 

such as such as Atlanta, GA, Denver, CO, Honolulu, HI, Los Angeles, CA, Portland, OR, San Francisco, CA, 

Sam Jose/Santa Clara County, CA, San Francisco, CA, Seattle, WA, and Washington, DC, among others.

• We provided direct, onsite technical assistance to San Francisco, CA, around implementation the city’s 

new five-year plan to reduce chronic homelessness by half, including meetings with the Mayor, the San 

Francisco Interagency Council on Homelessness, members of the media, and other stakeholders around 

best practices for implementing the plan.

• We provided technical assistance and training during the national Built for Zero initiative’s training events 

in Ann Arbor, MI, Phoenix, AZ, New Orleans, LA, and Detroit, MI, focused on providing intensive assistance 

to 70 communities that have pledged to end chronic and Veteran homelessness.

• We provided training at the CSH Supportive Housing Summit, including: a town hall on opportunities to 

advance child welfare and supportive housing partnerships; a session on Addressing Rural Homelessness: 

Federal Partner Perspective and a session on Better Defining Family Needs During Re-Entry.

• We provided training at the SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery (SOAR) State Team Lead Leadership 

Academy in Atlanta, GA, emphasizing the critical role that SSI/SSDI benefits play in improving economic 

security and housing stability for people experiencing or who have formerly experienced homelessness. 

• We provided subject matter expertise in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 

meeting Recovery Housing: Establishing Best Practices That Support the Inclusion of Individuals Receiving 

Medication Assisted Treatment.

• We provided subject matter expertise on a NAEH-sponsored webinar Making the Connection: 

Homelessness and the Opioid Crisis.

• We co-facilitated a meeting with HUD in Atlanta, GA, focused on fair housing and housing opportunities 

for people experiencing homelessness who have criminal backgrounds. 
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 19

• We provided support to states, including Alaska, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, 

Utah, and Virginia, as they navigated opportunities available through the Medicaid program for 

supporting tenancy-related services.

Tools and Resources to Strengthen Practices

We developed and disseminated a diverse array of articles, guidance, and tools to communicate federal guidance 

and to strengthen states’ and communities’ activities and support the implementation of best practices.

• Homelessness in America: Focus on People with Disabilities Experiencing Chronic Homelessness

summarizes data and research about people with disabilities who experience chronic homelessness, who 

make up 24% of adults experiencing homelessness and 5% of families.

• Webinar: Understanding the Criteria and Benchmark for Ending Chronic Homelessness reviews the 

components of the criteria and benchmark for ending chronic homelessness and walks through how one

community achieved the goal.

• Housing First Must Underpin Our Work Systemwide discusses the importance of continuing to deepen our 

systemwide Housing First approach in order to end chronic homelessness. 

• SAMHSA Funding Opportunity Expands Access to Treatment for People Experiencing Homelessness

encourages communities to apply for a recently announced funding opportunity from SAMHSA designed 

to expand access to behavioral health care and substance use treatment.

• Boston’s Housing Surges: Helping Older Adults Experiencing Chronic Homelessness Find a Permanent 

Place To Call Home highlights an innovative way that Boston is addressing homelessness among older 

adults.

• Reducing Homelessness in Real Time: A Measure That Matters discusses the importance of tracking realtime data on people experiencing homelessness in order to make progress in communities.

• Restorative Policing: Enhancing Public Safety for All discusses the more holistic, coordinated approach 

between law enforcement, social service agencies, business and community leaders, and housing 

providers being used in Santa Barbara, CA, to reduce homelessness.

Ending Homelessness among Families and Children

Between 2010 and 2017, homelessness among family households was reduced by 27%, including a 70% drop in

unsheltered homelessness among family households, as documented within communities’ annual Point-in-Time 

counts. The number of family households experiencing homelessness (57,971 households) was reduced by 5% (or 

3,294 households) between 2016 and 2017. That progress has been driven by the vision of a comprehensive 

community response to family homelessness found in Family Connection, which is helping government, nonprofits, and other sectors increase their focus on evidence-based solutions and driving resources toward the gaps 

that need to be filled. Our criteria and benchmarks for ending family homelessness, published in FY 2017, are also 

strengthening the ability of communities to use their time and resources as efficiently and effectively as possible.
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 20

Driving Progress Across Federal Agencies

During FY 2018, USICH led an eight-agency Interagency Working Group on Family Homelessness to identify 

resources and key strategies needed to achieve the goal of preventing and ending homelessness among families 

with children. The working group implemented activities to advance short-term and long-term strategies:

Building a Systemic Response to Achieve the Goal of Ending Family Homelessness. Following the publication of 

revised benchmarks in July 2017, we designed and launched a process in FY18 to test the criteria and benchmarks 

through a pilot with 12 communities. The pilot will inform efforts to refine the criteria and benchmarks, as well as 

to finalize specifications that outline the data points needed for the benchmarks. This process will also help 

communities identify gaps in their data collection processes and share best practices in using data to inform 

system improvement efforts. We kicked off the process with the communities in March 2018, and the pilot is 

expected to run through the first two quarters of FY 2019. 

Mapping Interagency Efforts to Support Connections to Employment. With federal and national partners, we 

crafted the vision for a new interagency working group on employment and homelessness. In partnership with 

Heartland Alliance, we led a convening of communities and federal and national partners to explore best practices 

on building connections to employment, after which Heartland Alliance published a report that covers 

communities’ targeted recommendations for federal action to advance efforts to more closely integrate 

workforce systems and employment strategies with actions to prevent and end homelessness for all populations. 

Increasing Coordination with Domestic Violence Services. Building on work done in FY 2017, we continued to

work closely with the Domestic Violence and Housing Technical Assistance Center to ensure that best practices 

and policies support partnerships across systems. This included offering direct technical assistance to CoCs and 

domestic violence service providers on an ad hoc basis and supported the Consortium in developing guidance on 

the following topics: effective partnerships to ensure survivors are captured in the annual Point-in-Time count; 

understanding the realities of survivors in order to ensure thoughtful and safe service provision; and key 

considerations for serving survivors in rapid re-housing programs. 

Driving Progress in Communities

Our entire team—and particularly our five-member National Initiative Team and Executive Director—works 

directly with elected officials, stakeholders, and community decision makers to advance progress in communities 

across America. 

• We identified, onboarded, and provided ongoing technical assistance to the 12 communities that will pilot 

and test the Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Family Homelessness to serve as 

models for other communities for the kinds of partnerships, data strategies, and housing and services 

models that will be necessary to achieve the goal.

• In conjunction with the NAEH National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness, and 

throughout the year, we provided technical assistance to a variety of communities regarding the vision of 

a systemic response to family homelessness as described in Family Connection: Building Systems to End 

Family Homelessness.

• We provided training at the annual meeting of State Coordinators for the Education of Homeless Children 

and Youth Program for the Department of Education, highlighting the role of schools in a coordinated 

community response to prevent and end family and youth homelessness, and identifying key strategies 

for strengthening interagency data coordination at the federal and local levels.
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 21

• At the National Conference on Ending Homelessness, we facilitated sessions on Housing First Approaches 

to Meeting the Needs of Survivors of Domestic Violence and How Child Welfare Agencies Can Prevent and 

End Homelessness. 

• We facilitated training at the NAEH National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness on 

improving young children’s resiliency, health and development; partnering to address behavioral health 

concerns; and engaging local Cross Sector Leadership.

• We provided training at the annual conference of the NAEHCY in Chicago, including plenary remarks and 

two sessions focused specifically on interagency work to strengthen data collection and the federal 

strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness.

Tools and Resources to Strengthen Practices

We developed and disseminated a diverse array of articles, guidance, and tools to communicate federal guidance 

and to strengthen states’ and communities’ efforts and support the implementation of best practices.

• Homelessness in America: Focus on Families with Children summarize data and research about families 

with children experiencing homelessness.

• Case Studies: Demonstrating the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families in the Child Welfare 

System highlights the lessons learned from five communities -- Broward County, FL, Cedar Rapids, IA, 

Memphis, TN, San Francisco, CA, and the state of Connecticut -- that were awarded five-year 

demonstration grants by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to test the effectiveness of 

supportive housing for particularly vulnerable families involved in the child welfare system.

• Building Momentum for Safe and Accessible Housing for All Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence

discusses how the Domestic Violence and Housing Technical Assistance Consortium works to address the 

needs of survivors experiencing homelessness, in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

• Strengthening Partnerships Between Education and Homelessness Services discusses the role the 

education system can play in preventing and ending homelessness for youth and children.

• Ending Family Homelessness: The Road Forward reflects on the role of federal agencies in supporting 

an end to homelessness for families.

• Serving Survivors, Ending Family Homelessness: Reflections on How Far We’ve Come and the Road Ahead

offers reflections on the transformation underway to strengthen partnerships between domestic violence 

and homelessness service providers.

• Collaborating to End Homelessness for Victims of Domestic Violence in Wisconsin commemorates 

Domestic Violence Awareness Month by spotlighting how partners in Wisconsin foster statewide 

collaboration among homelessness services and domestic violence services. 

• Extending our Successes with Diversion to Help Families Quickly Exit Homelessness describes a pilot 

program in Washington State that explores ways that diversion techniques can be applied to help families 

exit homelessness quickly and safely.
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 22

Ending Homelessness for Unaccompanied Youth

Local point-in-time counts estimate that there were 40,799 unaccompanied youth under the age of 25 

experiencing homelessness in 2017. In addition, there were 9,436 parents and 12,152 children in families in 

which the parent was a youth. Data from the Department of Education and Voices of Youth Count, also show 

that there is still much work to be done to reduce and end youth homelessness in America. 

Efforts to improve our data on the scale and scope of youth homelessness are helping us to better understand 

the full range of solutions, collaborations, and investments needed to achieve and sustain an end to 

homelessness, by any federal definition, for all youth. Through strong collaboration at the national and local 

level among the public, private, non-profit, and philanthropic sectors, momentum is growing. 

Driving Progress Across Federal Agencies

The Interagency Working Group on Ending Youth Homelessness, made up of seven federal agencies, was focused 

on the following activities in FY 2018:

Releasing and Piloting Revised Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Youth Homelessness.

In FY 2018, we held a series of stakeholder input sessions with providers, national organizations, young people 

with lived experience of homelessness, Runaway and Homeless Youth Act grantees, and other key stakeholders, 

with the goal of revising and strengthening the community-level criteria and benchmarks for achieving the goal of 

ending youth homelessness. The working group achieved consensus on and published revisions to the criteria and 

benchmarks in February 2018, along with revised questions to help communities assess their progress. We also 

began testing the criteria and benchmarks with 12 pilot communities, which is expected to be complete in FY 

2019.

Improving Understanding of the Scale and Scope of Youth Experiencing Homelessness. We are working with 

partners to develop a more coordinated national estimate of the scale of youth homelessness. In January 2018, 

we published an annual summary of various data sources, including HUD’s PIT data, ED’s annual federal data 

summary on homeless children and youth, and findings from the Voices of Youth Count initiative, and how they 

can be used together to provide a more complete picture of youth homelessness. We also continued to promote 

and message the importance of interagency data-sharing and collaboration via presentations at conferences, 

webinars, and other opportunities. 

Supporting and Learning from Communities. We continue to support and learn from innovation in communities. 

In FY 2018, a second cohort of 11 communities, including five rural communities, received funding and technical 

assistance to develop and implement a coordinated community response to prevent and end youth homelessness

through the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program. We provided resources and technical assistance to 

support communities as they developed their applications for that program, while continuing to support the 10 

current YHDP communities. We also supported communities participating in 100-day challenges to end youth 

homelessness by serving as coaches during launch events, mid-point reviews, and sustainability reviews, and 

providing responsive technical assistance and guidance. 
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 23

Driving Progress in Communities

Our entire team—and particularly our five-member National Initiative Team and Executive Director—works 

directly with elected officials, stakeholders, and community decision makers to advance progress in communities 

across America. 

• We recruited, onboarded, and are providing technical assistance to an initial set of 12 communities that 

will pilot and test the Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Youth Homelessness to 

serve as models for other communities for the kinds of partnerships, data strategies, and housing and 

services models that will be necessary to achieve the goal.

• We conducted a national webinar for potential applicants of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration 

Program and we continue to coordinate with and support all technical assistance providers for the 21

HUD Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project sites. 

• We provided technical assistance to communities on the criteria and benchmarks at the Forty to None 

Summit, the NAEHCY annual conference, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Training and Technical 

Assistance Center Annual Grantees Training, the PointSource Youth National Symposium on Solutions to 

End Youth Homelessness, the NAEH Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness, the National 

Network for Youth’s National Summit on Youth Homelessness, A Way Home America’s State of the 

Movement, and Built for Zero, among others.

• We co-sponsored and provided training at SAMHSA’s Forum on Ending Youth Homelessness, specifically 

providing guidance to Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program grantees on the development of their 

community plans, discussing best practices for engaging Youth Action Boards, and providing best practices 

for the use of rapid re-housing for youth.

• We co-sponsored and provided training to three convenings of Federal Regional Interagency Councils on 

Homelessness, including the Ending Youth Homelessness in the Heartland convening in Region 7, Moving 

Forward Together: A New Conversation on Ending Youth Homelessness in Region 1, and the Utah Forum 

on Transition-Aged Youth in Region 8. 

• We provided input through the steering committee for the American Bar Association’s Commission on 

Homelessness and Poverty’s Homeless Youth Legal Network, in collaboration with A Way Home America, 

the Jim Casey Initiative and the Raikes Foundation, to inform the 2018 Convening on Improving Under 18 

System Coordination. 

• We served as coaches to the fourth cohort of communities participating in the 100-Day Challenge to 

accelerate efforts to end youth homelessness, including Gulfport, MS, Marion County, OR, Mendocino, 

CA, and Franklin County, ME. We also provided technical assistance to the 100-Day Challenge 

Sustainability Workshop after the challenges were complete. 

• We participated in the launch of A Way Home Washington’s Anchor Community Initiative to implement a 

state-wide system for preventing and ending youth homelessness aligned with the federal framework for 

a coordinated community response.

Tools and Resources to Strengthen Practices

We developed and disseminated a diverse array of articles, guidance, and tools to communicate federal guidance 

and to strengthen states’ and communities’ activities and support the implementation of best practices.
November 2018

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 24

• The revised Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Youth Homelessness updates our 

January 2017 document with feedback provided through extensive stakeholder input sessions.

• Webinar: Understanding the Criteria and Benchmarks for Ending Youth Homelessness (Parts 1 & 2)

reviews the components of the criteria and benchmarks for ending youth homelessness and provides 

answers to some common questions from communities.

• Federal Programs that Can Help Communities End Youth Homelessness provides a list of non-targeted 

federal funding that can, in conjunction with other funding sources, help communities implement the 

coordinated response they need to prevent and end youth homelessness. 

• Rural Communities and the 100-Day Challenges on Youth Homelessness: What Comes Next? discusses 

work in rural communities to sustain gains from the 100-Day Challenge to build a better coordinated 

community response.

• National Youth Outcomes Project Aims to Fill Critical Gap discusses an effort underway by MANY and 

Chapin Hall, in partnership with federal agencies and stakeholders, to develop common, reliable, and valid 

outcome measures that can be consistently applied across youth-serving homelessness programs. 

• Federal Homelessness Assistance Programs that Can Help Communities End Youth Homelessness

describes the federal programs that offer targeted funding for preventing and ending homelessness, 

including among youth. 

• Centering Youth of Color & LGBTQ Young People in Efforts to End Homelessness discusses emerging 

research showing the disparate impact of homelessness on youth of color and LBTQ youth and steps to 

address that impact.

• Webinar: HUD FY2017 YHDP NOFA: What to Expect and Strategies for Success provides background on 

the second round of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program and strategies for success in 

responding to the NOFA.

• Don’t Miss Round Two of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program encourages communities to 

apply for HUD's recently announced Notice of Funding Availability to competitively award $43 million for 

the second round of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program.

• Federal Region 7 Gathers to Advance Progress on Ending Youth Homelessness in the Heartland discusses 

the key takeaways from the Ending Youth Homelessness in the Heartland Conference, the first regionwide conference in the Heartland dedicated to ending youth homelessness.

• We also helped promote the Department of Health and Human Services’ research briefs from the 

Youth/Young Adults with Child Welfare Involvement At-Risk of Homelessness demonstration grants; the 

Department of Labor’s WIOA Youth Program Technical Assistance; and the Office of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention’s Reentry Starts Here: A Guide for Youth in Long-Term Juvenile Corrections and 

Treatment Programs.

Ending Homelessness Among All Other Individuals

Point-in-Time count data estimates that more than two in three people experiencing homelessness were 

“individuals,” that is, in households without children (369,081 people). The data shows a4% increase in the 

number of individuals experiencing homelessness between the 2016 and 2017 counts, driven entirely by a 12% 

rise in the number of unsheltered individuals. This increase follows a reduction of 7% between 2010 and 2016.
November 2018

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 25

Home, Together creates a new goal around ending homelessness for all individuals who are not included in the 

other subpopulation goals. In FY 2018, our work in this area included a strong focus on addressing unsheltered 

homelessness, addressing rural homelessness, and making stronger connections between employment and 

homelessness services. 

Driving Progress Across Federal Agencies

In order to address the growing population of individuals experiencing homelessness, and to begin to tackle the 

areas of increased focus in Home, Together, we: 

Launched a Collaborative Encampments and Unsheltered Homelessness Project. In collaboration with HUD and 

the NAEH, as well as other federal and national partners, we launched a project to help communities innovate, 

test approaches, and, ultimately, implement solutions to end unsheltered homelessness. The project includes: 1) 

Analyzing data to deepen our current knowledge about the needs of people who are unsheltered and developing 

better evidence regarding the strongest solutions; 2) Providing HUD-funded technical assistance to support 

innovation, try out new approaches, and develop stronger practices within several high-need communities; 3) 

Partnering with state and local officials to help them to develop and test strategies that will lead us to the 

strongest approaches, and 4) Developing and disseminating information and tools for communities. 

Convened an Interagency Working Group of Ending Homelessness in Rural Communities. In FY 2018, we hosted 

a convening of rural communities to begin to explore challenges and best practices for ending homelessness in 

rural communities. In February 2018, we convened a formal Interagency Working Group on Ending Homelessness 

in Rural Communities to align with the Administration’s goal, stated within the Presidential Executive Order on 

Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America, to “identify legislative, regulatory, and policy changes 

to...remove barriers to economic prosperity and quality of life in rural America,” as well as the increased focus on 

rural homelessness in Home, Together. An initial set of strategies were presented to and approved by our Council 

in July 2018. Those strategies include: 1) Develop and provide coordinated technical assistance to: a) improve data 

collection on homelessness in rural areas; and b) increase the knowledge and capacity of rural communities and 

homelessness services and housing providers to improve access to housing and services; 2) Ensure that federal 

strategies and actions to end homelessness in rural areas are informed by consultation and engagement with rural 

communities, consumers, and state and national partners who are experts in the field; 3) Elevate awareness of 

homelessness and housing instability in rural communities through coordinated federal messaging and 

communications, and 4) Provide guidance and program support to further build the capacity of rural communities 

to implement best practices for preventing and ending homelessness. In September 2018, we hosted a second 

convening of rural communities in Jackson, MI.

Convened an Interagency Working Group on Employment and Homelessness. We convened the first meeting of 

the USICH Interagency Working Group on Employment and Homelessness in August 2018. The establishment of 

the Working Group aligns with the Administration’s efforts to advance education and employment opportunities 

and promote economic mobility and reflects the increased focus on helping people who exit homelessness find 

employment success in Home, Together. We are in the initial stages of reviewing current and planned activities, 

including the set of federal programs that can serve individuals who are at risk of, are experiencing, or have 

recently exited homelessness. The Working Group is also identifying ways in which federal agencies can improve 

collaboration to better support communities to more closely integrate employment and partner with workforce 

systems as part of efforts to prevent and end homelessness. Those strategies will be presented at the October 

2018 Council meeting.
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 26

Driving Progress in Communities

Our team—and particularly our five-member National Initiative Team—works directly with elected officials, 

stakeholders, and community decision makers to advance progress in communities across America. 

• We provided direct technical assistance to a number of communities on resolving encampments, 

including Hawaii, Detroit, MI, Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, CA, 

Las Vegas, NV, Baltimore, MD, and Chicago, IL.

• We met with leadership from communities that are participating in intensive technical assistance through 

the Encampments and Unsheltered Homelessness Project, including Las Vegas/Clark County, NV, 

Oakland/Alameda County, CA, San Diego, CA, San Francisco, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Chicago, IL, Honolulu, HI, 

San Jose/Santa Clara County, CA, Phoenix/Maricopa County, AZ, and Seattle/King County, WA.

• We convened monthly meetings with key city staff from 14 communities as part of the West Coast 

Mayors Alliance.

• We facilitated sessions at the NAEH National Conference on Ending Homelessness on Resolving 

Encampments: Evaluating Different Approaches and Sanctioned Encampments: What We've Learned, and 

What We Still Need to Know.

• We provided direct, onsite technical assistance and written guidance to City and County officials in San 

Diego, CA regarding how actions taken in response to a serious Hepatitis A outbreak could be 

strengthened to drive stronger progress on unsheltered homelessness to help prevent future outbreaks.

• We traveled to Anchorage, Nome, and Savoonga, AK, in May 2018, to assess local housing conditions for 

rural Alaska Natives, meet with elected officials and community leaders, and provide technical assistance 

at the Governor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness meeting and the Alaska State Homeless and 

Housing Network meeting. We returned to Alaska with representatives from HUD in September 2018, for

three days of fact-finding and input from local governments, agencies, and non-profits.

• In conjunction with the July Council Meeting, we convened a federal listening session with presenters 

from Gulfport, MS, and Anchorage, AK, on challenges and opportunities for addressing rural 

homelessness. Challenges raised included the need for increased access to behavioral health treatment as 

a result of opioid and other substance misuse in rural and remote communities, as well as unique 

transportation needs. 

• We convened 17 rural communities in Jackson, MI, for a two-day discussion on challenges and 

opportunities for ending homelessness in rural communities. The convening emphasized discussion on 

implementing outreach and engagement strategies for single individuals living in rural areas with high 

needs, as well as addressing the intersection of the opioid crisis and homelessness. 

• We facilitated a session at the CSH Summit in Los Angeles, CA, on Addressing Rural Homelessness: Federal 

Partner Perspective and a session on rural homelessness at the 6

th Annual Iowa-Nebraska Symposium on 

Homelessness in Des Moines, IA. 

Tools and Resources to Strengthen Practices

We developed and disseminated a diverse array of articles, guidance, and tools to communicate federal guidance

and to strengthen states’ and communities’ practices and support the implementation of best practices.
November 2018

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 27

• Caution is Needed When Considering “Sanctioned Encampments” or “Safe Zones” provides guidance to 

communities that are working to address the immediate safety and living conditions of people who are 

unsheltered.

• Strengthening Systems for Ending Rural Homelessness: Promising Practices and Considerations explores 

the unique challenges of building effective rural homelessness response systems and provides an initial 

set of strategies communities can use to take advantage of their unique strengths.

• Locking Arms with States Across the Country to End Rural Homelessness reviews the key takeaways and 

next steps from our convening in Boise, ID, on ending homelessness in rural America. 

• New Report Offers Ways to Build Better Connections Between Workforce and Homelessness Services

explains how stronger linkages between workforce and homelessness services can create a better overall 

response system. 

• Employment First: A Powerful Tool for Ending Homelessness discusses a promising approach being used 

by Friendship Place in Washington, DC, to empower people experiencing homelessness and 

unemployment to find jobs and housing at the same time.

• Communities Are Crafting Employment Strategies to Help Us Prevent and End Homelessness discusses the 

key themes and takeaways from our convening on strategies to more closely integrate employment and 

pathways to economic opportunity with efforts to prevent and end homelessness.

• Webinar: Improving Employment Outcomes for Veterans Exiting Homelessness considers strategies for 

successful collaboration between VA’s homelessness programs and Department of Labor's Homeless 

Veterans' Reintegration Program grantees.

• We also promoted USDA’s Responding to the Employment and Training Needs of SNAP Participants 

Experiencing Homelessness and Housing Instability.

Agency Operations

The success of our efforts to prevent and end homelessness in this country is heavily dependent on USICH’s ability 

to attract, support, and continuously develop highly skilled staff. USICH employee performance is tied directly to 

the Agency’s mission, strategies, objectives, and overall performance. The agency’s organizational structure, 

shown below, supports USICH’s success in achieving its mission, goals and objectives as outlined in its strategic

plan, Home Together.
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United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 28

Financial Statements, Auditor’s Reports, and Other Requirements

To keep operational costs at a minimum and focus the bulk of the Agency’s budgetary resources directly

towards accomplishing the Agency’s mission, USICH outsources support for several mission support

components to other government entities via shared services agreements -- the U.S. Department of Agriculture

(USDA) and the General Services Administration (GSA). These support areas include human capital, finance,

payroll, legal counsel, and EEO processing, to name a few. USICH maintains control of the work and

approval/authorization processes, and both USDA and GSA execute transactions and perform other operations 

support work as directed by USICH. USICH also outsources website and network support to private entities. 

These and other mission support areas fall under the direct responsibility of the Agency’s Director of Finance

and Administration.

USICH utilizes USDA’s accounting system to track and report on its finances. No instances of improper 

payments occurred during FY 2018 or previous years.

Executive Director 

(Matthew Doherty)

Deputy Director 

(Jasmine Hayes)

Policy Director 

(Lindsay Knotts)

Policy & Program 

Analyst

(Katelyn Jennings)

Policy Advisor

(Vacant)

Policy & Program 

Analyst

(Rexanah Wyse)

Policy Director

(Susan Pourciau)

Director of National 

Initiatives 

Regional (Beverley Ebersold)

Coordinator

(Helene Schneider)

Regional 

Coordinator

(Robert Pulster)

Regional 

Coordinator

(Katy Miller)

Regional 

Coordinator

(Joe Savage)

Program 

Specialist 

(Noel Prue)

Chief of Staff

(Saralyn Adish)

Program 

Specialist 

(Tanya Mathis)

Director of 

Communications 

(Jennifer Rich)

Communications 

Specialist 

(Veronica Mills)

Director of Finance 

& Administration 

(Darren Franklin)

Administrative 

Specialist 

(Chrischanne Smith)
November 2018

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 29

As a Federal agency, USICH prepares annual financial statements in conformity with U.S. Generally Accepted 

Accounting Principles (GAAP) and undertakes an independent annual audit to ensure reliability in assessing the

Council’s financial health and performance. Each year, USICH prepares the following financial statements:

• Balance Sheet

• Statement of Net Cost

• Statement of Changes in Net Position

• Statement of Budgetary Resources

These statements are accompanied by corresponding notes.

For FY 2018, USICH received an unmodified opinion, the highest audit opinion available. Further, independent, 

certified auditors found: USICH’s financial statements as of and for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2018, 

and 2017, are presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting 

principles; no material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting based on the procedures 

performed; and, no reportable noncompliance for fiscal year 2018 with provisions of applicable laws, 

regulations, contracts, and grant agreements that were tested.

USICH processes its finance and payroll transactions through USDA’s Pentaho accounting system, and other

subsystems and GSA’s PAR payroll accounting system. Both of these offices operate out of Kansas City, MO.

During FY 2018, both USDA and GSA received favorable opinions on their SSAE No. 18 audits.

USICH’s financial statements and notes are presented in the format required for the current year by OMB 

guidance, such as Circular A-136, Financial Reporting Requirements, and other applicable guidance, and are

audited via the Generally Accepted Auditing Standards issued by the AICPA and the standards of financial audits 

contained in the Government Auditing Standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States, and

other applicable guidance.

Balance Sheet

The balance sheet presents the total dollar amounts available for use by USICH (assets) against the amounts owed 

(liabilities) and amounts that comprise the difference (net position). Total Assets for USICH are $1,116,394. Of 

those total assets, $1,112,188 are attributable to the Agency’s Fund Balance with the Department of Treasury, 

$1,651 are attributable to Accounts Receivable, and $2,555 are attributable to Property, Plant and Equipment. 

Fund Balance with Treasury is funding available for specific fiscal years through the Department of Treasury

accounts from which USICH is authorized to make expenditures and pay amounts due.

For depreciation purposes, a threshold of $5,000 per item is used in order to determine capitalization. Capitalized 

property, plants, and equipment is recorded at original acquisition cost. Straight line depreciation and a useful life 

of five years are used in depreciation calculations. Acquisitions not meeting these criteria are recorded as 

expenses.

Total Liabilities equal $607,603, including accounts payable, which consists of liabilities to other government 

agencies, commercial vendors, contractors and disbursements in transit. At fiscal year-end, USICH accrues the 

amount of estimated unpaid expenses. Also, at fiscal year-end, USICH accrues payroll for services rendered by 
November 2018

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 30

USICH employees and leave accrued, but not yet paid out. To the extent current and prior-year appropriations 

are not available to fund annual leave earned but not taken, funding is obtained from future appropriations.

Statement of Net Cost

This statement presents the annual cost of operating USICH. The gross cost less any offsetting revenue is used 

to arrive at the net cost of operations. All USICH’s costs incurred were directly related to the support and 

advancement of its mission and directives per the Administration and Congress. Net Cost of Operations for FY 

2018 equals $3,665,136.

Statement of Changes in Net Position

The State of Changes in Net Position presents accounting items that caused the net position section of the balance

sheet to change from the beginning to the end of the reporting period. USICH’s net position for FY 2018 is 

$508,791.

Statement of Budgetary Resources

This statement provides information on how budgetary resources were made available to USICH and the status 

of those budgetary resources at year-end. USICH is funded through congressional appropriation totaling

$3,600,000 for operations attributable to FY 2018. Unobligated balances from prior fiscal years totaled $631,990, 

giving USICH total budgetary resources of $4,231,990. Net outlays for activity during FY 2018 totaled $3,613,104

for all funds, including new obligations as well as upward adjustments of past obligations.

Limitations of the Financial Statements

As required by OMB Circular A-136, Financial Reporting Requirements, USICH discloses the following limitations 

on USICH’s FY 2018 financial statements, which are contained in this Report. The financial statements are 

prepared to report the financial position and results of operations of USICH, pursuant to the requirements of 

31 U.S.C. § 3515 (b). The statements are prepared from the books and records of USICH in accordance with 

GAAP for federal entities and the formats prescribed by OMB. These statements are in addition to the financial 

reports used to monitor and control budgetary resources, which are prepared from the same books and

records. The statements should be read with the realization that they are for a component of the U.S.

Government, a sovereign entity.

Fraud Reduction 

OMB Circular A-136 requires agencies to report on its fraud reduction efforts undertaken in FY 2018 and 4th

quarter of FY 2017. USICH reports the following actions:

• USICH has taken measurements to reduce fraud opportunities and incidents. We have in place 

controls that keep the likelihood of these events to a minimum, including the following:

o New employees are required to attend ethics training upon hire with HUD ethics attorneys.

o The Handbook details certain actions that are taken seriously, including fraud, waste and 

abuse, and associated actions that will be taken by management in the event that these 

actions occur, including an Ethics/Code of Conduct Policy. Each employee is required to sign 

an acknowledgement of/and agreement to adhere to this and other applicable policies 

upon receipt and review of the Handbook.
November 2018

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 31

o A periodic review, update, and physical count of USICH inventory and property.

o Management sets the ethical tone at the Council through its own actions and through its 

dialogue with Council staff.

o USICH contracts with the General Services Administration for posting and processing of all 

financial transactions, generation of vendor payments, generation of financial reports and 

financial statements, and processing of payroll and benefits payments and withholding for 

USICH employees. GSA employees review each transaction for accuracy, as well as validity.

Biennial Review of User Fees

OMB Circular A-136 requires agencies to review, on a biennial basis, fees, rents, royalties, and other charges 

imposed by the agency for services and things of value. For FY 2018, USICH had no items applicable to this review 

requirement.
INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT 

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Washington, D.C.

In our audits of the fiscal years 2018 and 2017 financial statements of the United States Interagency Council 

on Homelessness (USICH), we found

 USICH’s financial statements as of and for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2018, and

2017, are presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with U.S. generally accepted

accounting principles;

 no material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting based on the limited

procedures we performed; and

 no reportable noncompliance for fiscal year 2018 with provisions of applicable laws,

regulations, contracts, and grant agreements we tested.

The following sections discuss in more detail (1) our report on the financial statements, which includes 

requiredsupplementary information(RSI) andotherinformation included withthefinancialstatements;

(2) our report on internal control over financial reporting; and (3) our report on compliance with laws,

regulations, contracts, and grant agreements.

Report on the Financial Statements

In accordance with the provisions of Accountability of Tax Dollars Act of 20002 (ATDA) (Pub. L. No. 

107-289), we have audited ICH’s financial statements. USICH’s financial statements comprise the balance 

sheets as of September 30, 2018, and 2017; the related statements of net cost, changes in net position, and 

budgetary resources for the fiscal years then ended; and the related notes to the financial statements.

We conducted our audits in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards. We

believe that the audit evidence we obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit

opinions.

Management’sResponsibility

ICH’s management isresponsible for (1) the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements

in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; (2) preparing, measuring, and presenting

the RSI in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; (3) preparing and presenting

other information included in documents containing the audited financial statements and auditor’s report,

and ensuring the consistency of that information with the audited financial statements and the RSI; and (4)

maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting, including the design, implementation, and

maintenance of internal control relevant to the preparation and fair presentation offinancial statements that

are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.
Auditor’s Responsibility

Our responsibility isto express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audits. U.S. generally

accepted government auditing standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable

assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement. We are also

responsible for applying certain limited procedures to RSI and other information includedwith the financial

statements.

An audit offinancial statements involves performing proceduresto obtain audit evidence about the amounts

and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgment,

including the auditor’s assessment ofthe risks of material misstatement ofthe financial statements, whether

due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, the auditor considers internal control relevant to

the entity’s preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in order to design audit procedures

that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the

effectiveness of the entity’s internal control. Accordingly, we express no such opinion. An audit offinancial

statements also involves evaluating the appropriateness of the accounting policies used and the

reasonableness ofsignificant accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall 

presentation of the financial statements. Our audits also included performing such other procedures as we

considered necessary in the circumstances.

Opinion on Financial Statements

In our opinion, USICH’s financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, USICH’s financial

position as of September 30, 2018, and 2017, and its statement of net cost, changes in net position, and

budgetary resources for the fiscal years then ended in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting

principles.

Other Matters

RequiredSupplementary Information

U.S. generally accepted accounting principles issued by the Federal Accounting Standards

Advisory Board (FASAB) require that the RSI be presented to supplement the financial

statements. Although the RSI is not a part of the financial statements, FASAB considers this

information to be an essential part of financial reporting for placing the financial statements in

appropriate operational, economic, or historical context. We have applied certain limited

procedures to the RSI in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing

standards, which consisted of inquiries of management about the methods of preparing the RSI

and comparing the information for consistency with management’s responses to the auditor's

inquiries, the financial statements, and other knowledge we obtained during the audit of the

financial statements, in order to report omissions or material departures from FASAB

guidelines, if any, identified by these limited procedures. We did not audit and we do not

express an opinion or provide any assurance on the RSI because the limited procedures we

applied do not provide sufficient evidence to express an opinion or provide any assurance.
Other Information

USICH’s other information contains a wide range of information,some of which is not directly

related to the financial statements. This information is presented for purposes of additional

analysis and is not a required part of the financial statements or the RSI. We read the other 

information included with the financial statements in order to identify material inconsistencies,

if any, with the audited financial statements. Our audit was conducted for the purpose of

forming an opinion on ICH’s financial statements. We did not audit and do not express an

opinion or provide any assurance on the other information.

Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

In connection with our audits of USICH’sfinancial statements, we considered USICH’s internal control

over financial reporting, consistent with our auditor's responsibility discussed below. We performed

our procedures related to USICH’s internal control over financial reporting in accordance with U.S.

generally accepted government auditing standards.

Management’s Responsibility

USICH’s management isresponsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting,

including the design, implementation, and maintenance of internal control relevant to the preparation 

and fair presentation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to

fraud or error.

Auditor’s Responsibility

In planning and performing our audit of USICH’s financial statements as of and for the year ended

September 30, 2018, in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, we

considered the USICH’s internal control over financial reporting as a basis for designing audit

procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances for the purpose of expressing our opinion on the

financial statements, but notfor the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of USICH’s

internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we do not express an opinion on USICH’s

internal control over financial reporting. We are required to report all deficiencies that are considered

to be significant deficienciesor material weaknesses. We did not consider all internal controls relevant

to operating objectives, such as those controls relevant to preparing performance information and

ensuring efficient operations.

Definition and Inherent Limitations of Internal Control over Financial Reporting

An entity’s internal control over financial reporting is a process effected by those charged with

governance, management, and other personnel, the objectives of which are to provide reasonable

assurance that (1) transactions are properly recorded, processed, and summarized to permit the

preparation of financial statements in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles,

and assets are safeguarded against loss from unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition, and (2)

transactions are executed in accordance with provisions of applicable laws, including those governing

the use of budget authority, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements, noncompliance with which

could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of itsinherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent, or detect

and correct, misstatements due to fraud or error.
Results of Our Consideration of Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Our consideration of internal control was for the limited purpose described above, and was not

designed to identify all deficiencies in internal control that might be material weaknesses and

significant deficiencies or to express an opinion on the effectiveness of USICH’s internal control over

financial reporting. Given these limitations, during our audit, we did not identify any deficiencies in

internal control over financial reporting that we consider to be material weaknesses. However,

material weaknesses may exist that have not been identified.

Intended Purpose of Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

The purpose of this report is solely to describe the scope of our consideration of USICH’s internal

control over financial reporting and the results of our procedures, and not to provide an opinion on the

effectiveness of the USICH’s internal control over financial reporting. This report is an integral part

of an audit performed in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards in

considering internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, this report on internal control over

financial reporting is notsuitable for any other purpose.

Report on Compliance with Laws, Regulations, Contracts, and Grant Agreements

In connection with our audits of USICH’s financial statements, we tested compliance with selected

provisions of applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements consistent with our

auditor’s responsibility discussed below. We caution that noncompliance may occur and not be

detected by these tests. We performed our tests of compliance in accordance with U.S. generally

accepted government auditing standards.

Management’s Responsibility

USICH’s management is responsible for complying with laws, regulations, contracts, and grant 

agreements applicable to USICH.

Auditor’s Responsibility

Our responsibility is to test compliance with selected provisions of applicable laws, regulations,

contracts, and grant agreements applicable to USICH that have a direct effect on the determination of

material amounts and disclosures in USICH’s financial statements, and perform certain other limited

procedures. Accordingly, we did not test compliance with all laws, regulations, contracts, and grant

agreements applicable to USICH.

Results of Our Testsfor Compliance with Laws, Regulations, Contracts, and Grant Agreements

Our tests for compliance with selected provisions of applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and grant

agreements disclosed no instances of noncompliance for fiscal year 2018 that would be reportable

under U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards. However, the objective of our tests was

not to provide an opinion on compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements 

applicable to USICH. Accordingly, we do not express such an opinion.
Intended Purpose of Report on Compliance with Laws, Regulations, Contracts, and Grant Agreements

The purpose of this report is solely to describe the scope of our testing of compliance with selected

provisions of applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements, and the results of that

testing, and not to provide an opinion on compliance. This report is an integral part of an audit

performed in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards in considering

compliance. Accordingly, this report on compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, and grant

agreements is notsuitable for any other purpose.

Largo, Maryland

November 9, 2018
2018 2017

Assets:

 Intragovernmental:

 Fund Balance With Treasury (Note 3) $ 1,112,188.40 $ 1,126,864.37

 Total Intragovernmental 1,112,188.40 1,126,864.37

 Accounts Receivable, net (Note 4) 1,651.02 3,555.73

 General Property, Plant and Equipment, Net (Note 5) 2,554.60 4,963.85

Total Assets $ 1,116,394.02 $ 1,135,383.95

Liabilities:

 Intragovernmental:

 Accounts Payable (Note 6) $ 2,259.46 $ 1,641.94

 Other: 

 Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable (Note 6) 22,433.58 17,287.71

 714.02

 Total Intragovernmental 25,407.06 18,929.65

 Liabilities With the Public:

 Accounts Payable 341,502.39 483,362.07

 Other:

 Accrued Funded Payroll and Leave (Note 7) 78,361.60 59,809.60

 Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable (Note 7) 3,448.45 2,272.40

 Unfunded Leave (Note 7) 158,883.41 119,219.69

Total Liabilities $ 607,602.91 $ 683,593.41

Net Position:

$ 693,201.35 $ 591,509.08

 (184,410.24) (139,718.54)

 508,791.11 451,790.54

 Total Net Position 508,791.11 451,790.54

Total Liabilities and Net Position $ 1,116,394.02 $ 1,135,383.95

 Unexpended Appropriations - All Other Funds (Consolidated

 Totals)

 Cumulative Results of Operations - All Other Funds

 (Consolidated Totals)

 Total Net Position - All Other Funds (Consolidated

 Totals)

 Liability for Non-Entity Assets Not Reported on

 the Statement of Custodial Activity (Note 6)

U.S. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS

BALANCE SHEET

As of September 30, 2018 and 2017
2018 2017

Program Costs:

 USICH:

 Gross Costs $ 3,665,136.43 $ 3,547,230.87

 Net Program Costs 3,665,136.43 3,547,230.87

Net Cost of Operations (Note 12) (Note 8) $ 3,665,136.43 $ 3,547,230.87

U.S. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS

STATEMENT OF NET COST

As of And For The Years Ended September 30, 2018 and 2017
Funds From Dedicated 

Collections (Consolidated 

Totals)

All Other Funds 

(Consolidated Totals) Eliminations Consolidated Total

Unexpended Appropriations:

Beginning Balance 591,509.08 591,509.08

Budgetary Financing Sources:

Appropriations received 3,600,000.00 3,600,000.00

Other adjustments (1,572.19) (1,572.19)

Appropriations used (3,496,735.54) (3,496,735.54)

Total Budgetary Financing Sources 101,692.27 101,692.27

Total Unexpended Appropriations 693,201.35 693,201.35

Cumulative Results from Operations:

Beginning Balances $ (139,718.54) $ (139,718.54)

Budgetary Financing Sources:

Appropriations used 3,496,735.54 3,496,735.54

Other Financing Sources (Non-Exchange):

Imputed financing 123,709.19 123,709.19

Total Financing Sources 3,620,444.73 3,620,444.73

Net Cost of Operations 3,665,136.43 3,665,136.43

Net Change (44,691.70) (44,691.70)

Cumulative Results of Operations (184,410.24) (184,410.24)

Net Position $ 508,791.11 $ 508,791.11

U.S. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS

STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN NET POSITION

As of And For The Years Ended September 30, 2018 and 2017

FY 2018 (CY)
Funds From Dedicated 

Collections (Consolidated 

Totals)

All Other Funds 

(Consolidated Totals) Eliminations Consolidated Total

Unexpended Appropriations:

Beginning Balance 497,949.04 497,949.04

Budgetary Financing Sources:

Appropriations received 3,600,000.00 3,600,000.00

Other adjustments (45,880.78) (45,880.78)

Appropriations used (3,460,559.18) (3,460,559.18)

Total Budgetary Financing Sources 93,560.04 93,560.04

Total Unexpended Appropriations 591,509.08 591,509.08

Cumulative Results from Operations:

Beginning Balances $ (137,798.09) $ (137,798.09)

Budgetary Financing Sources:

Appropriations used 3,460,559.18 3,460,559.18

Other Financing Sources (Non-Exchange):

Imputed financing 84,751.24 84,751.24

Total Financing Sources 3,545,310.42 3,545,310.42

Net Cost of Operations 3,547,230.87 3,547,230.87

Net Change (1,920.45) (1,920.45)

Cumulative Results of Operations (139,718.54) (139,718.54)

Net Position $ 451,790.54 $ 451,790.54

U.S. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS

STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN NET POSITION

As of And For The Years Ended September 30, 2018 and 2017

FY 2017 (PY)
2018 2017

Budgetary Budgetary

BUDGETARY RESOURCES

Unobligated balance from prior year budget authority, net $ 631,990.24 $ 537,048.15

Appropriations (discrectionary and mandatory) 3,600,000.00 3,600,000.00

Total budgetary resources $ 4,231,990.24 $ 4,137,048.15

STATUS OF BUDGETARY RESOURCES

New obligations and upward adjustments (total) (Note 9) $ 3,617,936.86 $ 3,604,682.45

Unobligated balance, end of year:

Apportioned, unexpired account 33,423.02 38,576.89

Unapportioned, unexpired accounts - 178.19

Unexpired unobligated balance, end of year 33,423.02 38,755.08

Expired unobligated balance, end of year 580,630.36 493,610.62

Unobligated balance, end of year (total) 614,053.38 532,365.70

Total budgetary resources $ 4,231,990.24 $ 4,137,048.15

OUTLAYS, NET

Outlays, net (discretionary and mandatory) $ 3,613,103.78 $ 3,236,563.37

Agency outlays, net (discretionary and mandatory) $ 3,613,103.78 $ 3,236,563.37

U.S. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS

STATEMENT OF BUDGETARY RESOURCES

As of And For The Years Ended September 30, 2018 and 2017
U.S. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS

GENERAL FUND

Note 1 – Significant Accounting Policies

Reporting Entity

Congress established the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness in 1987 with the passage of 

the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act. The mission of the United States Interagency 

Council on Homelessness (USICH) is to coordinate the federal response to homelessness and to 

create a national partnership at every level of government and with the private sector to reduce 

and end homelessness in the nation while maximizing the effectiveness of the Federal 

Government in contributing to the end of homelessness.

USICH financial statements include Fund types as described below.

General Funds are accounts used to record financial transactions arising under congressional 

appropriations or other authorizations to spend general revenues. USICH has six general funds 

as outlined in Note 2.

Miscellaneous Receipt Funds are considered non-entity accounts since USICH management 

does not exercise control over how the monies in these accounts can be used. Miscellaneous 

Receipt Fund accounts hold receipts and accounts receivable resulting from miscellaneious 

activities of USICH where, by law, such monies may not be deposited into funds under USICH 

management control. The U.S. Department of the Treasury (U.S. Treasury) automatically 

transfers all cash balances in these receipt accounts to the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury at 

the end of the fiscal year.

The miscellaneous receipt funds consist of the following:

• Fines, Penalties, and Forfeitures, Not Otherwise Classified

• General Fund Proprietary Interest, Not Otherwise Classified

• General Fund Proprietary Receipts, Not Otherwise Classified

Basis of Presentation 

These financial statements have been prepared from the accounting records of the U.S. 

Interagency Council on Homelessness in accordance with generally accepted accounting 

principles (GAAP) as promulgated by the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board 

(FASAB), and OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Circular A-136, “Financial Reporting 

Requirements.” GAAP for Federal entities is the Hierarchy of accounting principles prescribed in 

the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant’s (AICPA) Statement on Auditing 

Standards No. 91, Federal GAAP Hierarchy. 

OMB Circular A-136 requires agencies to prepare principal statements, which include a Balance 

Sheet, a Statement of Net Cost, a Statement of Changes in Net Position, and a Statement of 

Budgetary Resources. The balance sheet presents, as of September 30, 2018, amounts of future 

economic benefits owned or managed by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (assets), 

amounts owed by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (liabilities), and amounts, which 
comprise the difference (net position). The Statement of Net Cost reports the full cost of the 

program, both direct and indirect costs of the output, and the costs of identifiable supporting 

services provided by other segments within the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and 

other reporting entities. The Statement of Budgetary Resources reports an agency’s budgetary 

activity.

Basis of Accounting

Transactions are recorded on the accrual accounting basis in accordance with general government 

practice. Under the accrual basis of accounting, revenues are recognized when earned, and 

expenses are recognized when a liability is incurred, without regard to receipt or payment of cash. 

The preparation of financial statements requires management to make estimates and assumptions 

that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, the disclosure of contingent assets and 

liabilities at the date of the financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and 

expenses during the reporting period. Actual results may differ from those estimates.

Revenues and Other Financing Sources

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is an appropriated fund and receives 

appropriations. Other financing sources for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness 

consist of imputed financing sources which are costs financed by other Federal entities on behalf 

of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, as required by Statement of Federal Financial 

Accounting Standard (SFFAS) No. 5, Accounting for Liabilities of the Federal Government.

Note 2 – Non-Entity Assets

As of September 30, 2018, certain amounts reported on the Balance Sheet are elements of 

Miscellaneous Receipt Funds, which are not available to management for use in ongoing 

operations and are classified as Non-entity assets (see Note 1- Reporting Entity). The only nonentity asset balances were as follows.

FY 2018 FY 2017

Interest Receivable $94 $0

Penalties and Fines Receivable $378 $0

Administrative Fees Receivable $242 $0

Total $714 $0
Note 3 – Fund Balance With Treasury

All of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness fund balance with treasury comes from 

appropriations. This fund balance with treasury is a consolidated balance of five annual funds 

(910: FY 2014, FY 2015, FY 2016, FY 2017, and FY 2018). The annual FY 2013 fund and no 

year fund were cancelled and the remaining fund balances of $1,394 and $178.19, respectively,

were given back to the U.S. Treasury during fiscal year 2018.

FY 2018 FY 2017

A. Fund Balance with Treasury

General Fund $1,112,188.40 $1,126,864.37 

B. Status of Fund Balance with Treasury

1) Unobligated Balance

a) Available $33,423.02 $38,576.89 

b) Unavailable 580,630.36 493,788.81 

2) Obligated Balance not yet Disbursed 498,135.02 594,498.67 

Total $1,112,188.40 $1,126,864.37 

Note 4 – Accounts Receivable, Net

The line item represents the Account Receivable Claims from Associates. It is showing a debit 

balance. The direct write-off method is used for uncollectible receivables. The U.S. Interagency 

Council on Homelessness has historically collected any receivables due and thus has not 

established an allowance for uncollectible accounts. 

FY 2018 FY 2017

A/R Claims- Non- Federal $1,651.02 $3,555.73

Total $1,651.02 $3,555.73

Note 5 - General Property, Plant and Equipment, Net 

As of September 30, 2018 the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness shows Equipment –

Administrative total cost of $34,250.94 and a net book value of $2,554.60. The Accumulated 

Depreciation to date shows a balance of $31,696.34. The depreciation calculation method used is 

Straight Line with a useful life of 5 years. However, for the items that were obligated in FY 2003 

and received in FY 2005, the useful life is 3 years. A $5,000 threshold is used to determine 

whether items are capitalized.
Note 5 - General Property, Plant and Equipment, Net (Continued) 

FY 2018 Equipment

Furniture & 

Fixtures Software Total

Cost $34,250.94 $34,250.94

Accum. Depr. ($31,696.34) ($31,696.34)

Net Book Value $2,554.60 $0.00 $0.00 $2,554.60

FY 2017 Equipment

Furniture & 

Fixtures Software Total

Cost $34,250.94 $34,250.94

Accum. Depr. ($29,287.09) ($29,287.09)

Net Book Value $4,963.85 $0.00 $0.00 $4,963.85

Note 6 – Liabilities Not Covered by Budgetary Resources

Liabilities of U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness are classified as liabilities covered or 

not covered by budgetary resources. As of September 30, 2018, U.S. Interagency Council on 

Homelessness showed liabilities covered by budgetary resources of $448,719.50 and liabilities 

not covered by budgetary resources of $158,883.41. 

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness’s liabilities are as follows:

2018 2017

Intragovernmental

Accounts Payable $ 2,259.46 $ 1,641.94

Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable 22,433.58 17,287.71

 714.02

Total Intragovernmental 25,407.06 18,929.65

With the Public

Accounts Payable 341,502.39 483,362.07

Accrued Funded Payroll and Leave 78,361.60 59,809.60

Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable 3,448.45 2,272.40

Unfunded Leave 158,883.41 119,219.69

Total With the Public 582,195.85 664,663.76

Total Liabilities $ 607,602.91 $ 683,593.41

Total liabilities not covered by budgetary resources $ 158,883.41 $ 119,219.69

Total liabilities covered by budgetary resources 448,719.50 564,373.72

Total Liabilities $ 607,602.91 $ 683,593.41

Liability for Non-Entity Assets Not Reported on 

the Statement of Custodial Activity
Note 7 – Other Liabilities 

Other liabilities with the public for the year ended September 30, 2018 and 2017 consist of 

Accrued Funded Payroll and Leave, Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable and 

Unfunded Leave in the amounts shown below. Other Intragovernmental liabilities consist of 

Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable.

Non-Current Current Total

Intragovernmental

Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable - 22,433.58 22,433.58 

Liability for Non-Entity Assets Not Reported on the 

Statement of Custodial Activity 714.02 714.02 

Liabilities with the Public

Accrued Funded Payroll & Leave - 78,361.60 78,361.60 

Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable - 3,448.45 3,448.45 

Unfunded Leave 158,883.41 - 158,883.41 

Total Liabilities with the Public 158,883.41 81,810.05 240,693.46 

Total Other Liabilities 159,597.43 104,243.63 263,841.06 

Total Intragovernmental 714.02 22,433.58 23,147.60 

FY 2018

Non-Current Current Total

Intragovernmental

Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable - 17,287.71 17,287.71 

Liabilities with the Public

Accrued Funded Payroll & Leave - 59,809.60 59,809.60 

Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable - 2,272.40 2,272.40 

Unfunded Leave 119,219.69 - 119,219.69 

Total Liabilities with the Public 119,219.69 62,082.00 181,301.69 

Total Other Liabilities 119,219.69 79,369.71 198,589.40 

Total Intragovernmental - 17,287.71 17,287.71 

FY 2017

Note 8 – Operating Lease and Future Lease Payments

USICH occupies office space under a lease agreement that is accounted for as an operating 

lease. The current office lease term began on October 2, 2017 and expires on June 30, 2020. 

Lease payments are increased annually based on the USICH’s proportionate share of the 

building's operating expenses and real estate taxes. The total operating lease expenses as of 

September 30, 2018 and 2017 were $259,188 and $226,509, respectively. 

Below is a schedule of estimated future payments for the term of the lease.

Fiscal Year Office Space Cost Estimates

2018 $259,188

2019-2020 (current lease expires 6/30/2020) $194,400

Total future payments $453,588
Note 9 – Apportionment Categories of New Obligations and Upward Adjustments: Direct 

vs. Reimbursable Obligations

All obligations for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, is the amount of direct 

obligations incurred against amounts apportioned under category B on the latest SF 132.

Total Total 

FY 2018 FY 2017

Direct

Category B 3,617,936.86 3,604,682.45

Total Obligations 3,617,936.86 3,604,682.45

Note 10 – Undelivered Orders at the End of the Period

Undelivered orders represent the value of goods and services ordered and obligated that have not 

been received. This amount includes any orders for which advance payment has been made but 

for which delivery or performance has not yet occurred. 

The amount of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness’ budgetary resources obligated for 

undelivered orders was $79,147.97 and $59,143.38 as of September 30, 2018 and 2017, 

respectively.

Unpaid

Undelivered

Orders

Paid

Undelivered

Orders

Total

Undelivered

Orders

2018 79,147.97 0.00 $79,147.97

2017 59,143.38 0.00 $59,143.38

Note 11 – Explanation of Difference between the SBR and the Budget of the US 

Government 

SFFAS No. 7, Accounting for Revenue and Other Financing Sources and Concepts for 

Reconciling Budgetary and Financial Accounting, requires an explanation of material differences 

between budgetary resources available, the status of those resources and outlays as presented in 

the Statement of Budgetary Resources to the related actual balances published in the Budget of 

the United States Government (Budget). The Budget that will include FY 2018 actual budgetary 

execution information is scheduled for publication in February 2019, which will be available 

through OMB’s website at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb. Accordingly, information required 

for such disclosure is not available at the time of publication of these financial statements.

Balances reported in the FY 2017 SBR and the related President’s Budget reflected the following:
Note 11 – Explanation of Difference between the SBR and the Budget of the US 

Government (Continued)

FY2017

Budgetary 

Resources

New Obligations 

& Upward 

Adjustments 

(Total)

Distributed 

Offsetting 

Receipts Net Outlays

Statement of Budgetary Resources $ 4,137,048.15 $ 3,604,682.45 $ - $ 3,236,563.37

Budget of the U.S. Government 4,000,000.00 4,000,000.00 $ - 3,000,000.00

Difference $ 137,048.15 $ (395,317.55) $ - $ 236,563.37

The difference between the Statement of Budgetary Resources and the Budget of the 

United States Government for budgetary resources, obligations incurred and net outlays are 

primarily due to rounding. A portion of the difference in the budgetary resources is due to 

expired unobligated balances being reported in the Statement of Budgetary Resources but not in 

the Budget of the United States Government.

Note 12 – Reconciliation of Net Cost of Operations to Budget

Liabilities not covered by budgetary resources total $158,883.41 and the change in components 

requiring or generating resources in future period shows $39,663.72. The $39,663.72 is the net 

increase of future funded expenses – leave between appropriations of annual fund 2017 and 

annual fund 2018. Accrued funded payroll liability is covered by budgetary resources and is 

included in the net cost of operations. Whereas, the unfunded leave liability includes the expense 

related to the increase in annual leave liability for which the budgetary resources will be provided 

in a subsequent period.

FY 2018 FY 2017

Liabilities not covered by budgetary resources $ 158,883.41 $ 119,219.69

Change in components requiring/generating resources $ 39,663.72 $ (4,152.21)
Note 12 – Reconciliation of Net Cost of Operations to Budget (Continued)

FY 2018 FY 2017

Budgetary Resources Obligated $ 3,617,936.86 $ 3,604,682.45

Spending Authority from Recoveries and Offsetting 

Collections (101,196.73) (270,185.32)

Imputed Financing from Costs Absorbed by Others 123,709.19 84,751.24

Changes in Budgetary Resources Obligated for Goods, 

Services, and Benefits Ordered but Not Yet Provided (20,004.59) 126,062.05

Resources that Finance the Acquisition of Assets 2,618.73 3,663.42

Financing Sources Yet to be Provided 39,663.72 (4,152.21)

Components Not Requiring or Generating Resources 2,409.25 2,409.24

Net Cost of Operations $ 3,665,136.43 $ 3,547,230.87