The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) claims that Obama's economic stimulus bill helped contain the number of homeless people in 2009 and 2010.
Other leading economic indicators like Wall Street, GDP, unemployment rate, and CPI notwithstanding, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) "does appear to have unambiguously succeeded [because] it kept the number of homeless people from soaring," reports Shawn Zeller.
With $1.5 billion direct funding from the stimulus bill, "the states were able to find housing for 531,000 people at risk of becoming homeless, while 159,000 were moved from the streets into homes."
"[H]ad it not been for President Obama's Recovery Act, many hundreds of thousands of persons may have fallen into homelessness," says HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan in the article.
The rest of $787 billion ARRA money went to rescue too-big-to-fail institutions in order to prevent a systematic collapse of the U.S. financial system.
FULL STORY: A Stimulus Success Story
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Camping Bans, but Challenges of Addressing Homelessness Remain
In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court upheld an Oregon city’s ban on camping in public places, paving the way for similar bans in cities across the country but doing nothing to solve the cause of homelessness.
Sweeps Aren’t Outreach: Policing Homelessness Still Doesn’t Work
A new study shines a light on the connection between homeless outreach teams and policing, and examines why so many cities still use resident complaints to guide their response to the homelessness crisis.
Los Angeles Tightens Restrictions on Encampments
During a city council meeting that had to pause while police cleared the room of activists opposing the measure, the council voted to ban public sleeping within 500 feet of schools, making one-fifth of city sidewalks off-limits to unhoused people.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
Canada vs. Kamala: Whose Liberal Housing Platform Comes Out on Top?
As Canada votes for a new Prime Minister, what can America learn from the leading liberal candidate of its neighbor to the north?
The Five Most-Changed American Cities
A ranking of population change, home values, and jobs highlights the nation’s most dynamic and most stagnant regions.
San Diego Adopts First Mobility Master Plan
The plan provides a comprehensive framework for making San Diego’s transportation network more multimodal, accessible, and sustainable.
Housing, Supportive Service Providers Brace for Federal Cuts
Organizations that provide housing assistance are tightening their purse strings and making plans for maintaining operations if federal funding dries up.
Op-Ed: Why an Effective Passenger Rail Network Needs Government Involvement
An outdated rail network that privileges freight won’t be fixed by privatizing Amtrak.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions