What piece of federal legislation in the 1920s was a significant shift from historic American practice?

Until the late 19th century, the problem of homelessness was in the hands of local and state authorities (Bostic et al., 2012). Urban slums in many cities, plagued with overcrowding, poor hygiene, and rudimentary sanitation, became a frequent source of outbreaks of major infectious diseases (Neiderud, 2015; Eisenstein, 2016). To address the growing problem of urban slums, in 1892 Congress allocated $20,000 to the Department of Labor (DOL) to investigate urban slums in cities with at least 200,000 residents (Congressional Research Service, 2004). In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt formed a formal housing commission to continue these investigations, but these efforts were halted with the stock market crash of 1929.

Consequent to the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was a significant increase in the number of persons experiencing homelessness in America and a greater need to address poverty and to improve the quality and affordability of housing. In response, a number of federal policies and pieces of legislation were enacted to improve the overall quantity and affordability of housing. For example, the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932 authorized the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to lend public funds to corporations to build housing for low-income families (Congressional Research Service, 2004).

Another relevant federal legislative act from this era included the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which allowed the Public Works Administration (a government-sponsored work program) to use federal funds for slum clearance, the construction of low-cost housing, and subsistence homesteads; close to 40,000 housing units were produced that year.

Decades of economic distress, followed by 5 years of World War II mobilization, resulted in severe housing shortages and led the federal government to lay the cornerstones for today's affordable housing system. For example, in response to the severe housing shortage after the war, Congress passed the Housing Act of 1949. Its goal was to offer “a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family” (HUD, nd, p. 3). Unfortunately, the urban renewal programs it authorized often destroyed more housing than was created (Lipsitz, 2008). Its use of public housing to serve the displaced households, who were generally minorities, and creation of a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage program to finance suburban housing available only to whites helped to entrench poverty and segregation in America's cities, particularly for people of color. The Housing Act of 1954 continued and broadened slum clearance and urban redevelopment in inner cities. It was not until the Housing Act of 1956 (P.L. 84-1020) that relocation payments were authorized to those individuals and families who were displaced by the process of urban renewal (HUD, 2014).

The Housing and Urban Renewal Act of 1965 (P.L. 89-117) was enacted as a rent supplement for low-income, disabled, and elderly individuals. Legislation in 1965 also formally created the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Finally, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Fair Housing Act, established fair housing provisions to prohibit discrimination in access to housing. This act covers discrimination based on disability status or family status. Discrimination based on age was added in 1995 through the Housing for Older Persons Act. Enforcement of Title VIII is vested with HUD's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (HUD, 2007b). The HUD Rule on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, authorized in 1968, was not published until 2016. Perhaps not surprising insofar as it took 50 years to issue the rule, enforcement of its provisions has been lackluster and inconsistent.

The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (P.L. 97-35) merged several urban development programs into the broader Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. This legislation also created the Housing Choice Voucher program, also known as the Section 8 program, to provide low-income housing through rental subsidies paid to the private sector. The “tenant-based” form of these rent subsidies, whereby families with a voucher choose and lease safe, decent, and affordable privately owned rental housing, is the mainstay of today's federal housing assistance programs for homeless and low-income individuals and families. The program serves more than 2.1 million households (Congressional Budget Office, 2015).

The first federal legislation enacted to explicitly address homelessness was the 1977 Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (PL 100-77). In addition to defining homelessness (see Box B-1), which is important for allocating federal resources, it also made provisions for using federal money to support shelters for persons experiencing homelessness. The McKinney Act also created a targeted Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) primary care funding stream, with a distinct broad definition of homelessness, which now exists within the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) program.

Definition of Homeless Person, according to Public Law 111-22, the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, as amended by The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009.

The 1997 Stewart B. McKinney Act also authorized the creation of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH). USICH is an independent executive branch body established to better coordinate homelessness programs across government agencies. The USICH includes representative membership from all major federal agencies whose mission touches upon homelessness, including, among others, HHS, HUD, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).1 The council is charged with assessing the effectiveness of federal activities and programs for people experiencing homelessness, and to apprise state and local governments, public agencies, and private organizations about the availability of relevant federal programs and funding opportunities (USICH, 2016).

In 2002, the USICH spearheaded the Chronic Homelessness Initiative, asking states and local jurisdictions to create 10-year plans to end chronic homelessness. Another change in federal policy occurred in 2003, bringing a focus on “ending chronic homelessness” through low-threshold and permanent supportive housing programs (HUD, 2007a). At that time, through a collaborative process overseen by the USICH, the federal government formally defined chronic homelessness as “an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or more or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years” (HUD, 2007a, p. 3).

The next reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Act, called the HEARTH Act, was signed into law in 2009. The reauthorization consolidated several existing programs for individuals experiencing homelessness, created a federal goal that individuals and families experiencing homelessness be permanently housed within 30 days, and codified the planning processes used by communities to organize into Continuums of Care in order to apply for homeless assistance funding through HUD.2 New definitions of “homeless,” “homeless person,” and “homeless individual” were expanded. These changes were based on Congress identifying (1) a lack of affordable housing and limited housing assistance programs, and (2) an assertion that homelessness is an issue that affects every community.

In 2010, under President Obama's administration, a federal strategic plan to end homelessness was released (USICH, 2017). The federal strategic plan established four key goals: (1) Prevent and end homelessness among Veterans in 5 years; (2) Finish the job of ending chronic homelessness in 7 years; (3) Prevent and end homelessness for families, youth, and children in 10 years; and (4) Set a path to ending all types of homelessness.

Home Politics, Law & Government Law, Crime & Punishment

New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate economic relief as well as reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labour, and housing, vastly increasing the scope of the federal government’s activities. The term was taken from Roosevelt’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency on July 2, 1932. Reacting to the ineffectiveness of the administration of Pres. Herbert Hoover in meeting the ravages of the Great Depression, American voters the following November overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Democratic promise of a “new deal” for the “forgotten man.” Opposed to the traditional American political philosophy of laissez-faire, the New Deal generally embraced the concept of a government-regulated economy aimed at achieving a balance between conflicting economic interests.

Much of the New Deal legislation was enacted within the first three months of Roosevelt’s presidency (March 9–June 16, 1933), which became known as the Hundred Days. The new administration’s first objective was to alleviate the suffering of the nation’s huge number of unemployed workers. Such agencies as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were established to dispense emergency and short-term governmental aid and to provide temporary jobs, employment on construction projects, and youth work in the national forests. The WPA gave some 8.5 million people jobs. Its construction projects produced more than 650,000 miles of roads, 125,000 public buildings, 75,000 bridges, and 8,000 parks. Also under its aegis were the Federal Art Project, Federal Writers’ Project, and Federal Theatre Project. The CCC provided national conservation work primarily for young unmarried men. Projects included planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting forest fires, and maintaining forest roads and trails.

Before 1935 the New Deal focused on revitalizing the country’s stricken business and agricultural communities. To revive industrial activity, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was granted authority to help shape industrial codes governing trade practices, wages, hours, child labour, and collective bargaining. The New Deal also tried to regulate the nation’s financial hierarchy in order to avoid a repetition of the stock market crash of 1929 and the massive bank failures that followed. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) granted government insurance for bank deposits in member banks of the Federal Reserve System, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established in 1934 to restore investor confidence in the stock market by ending the misleading sales practices and stock manipulations that had led to the stock market crash. The farm program was centred in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which attempted to raise prices by controlling the production of staple crops through cash subsidies to farmers. In addition, the arm of the federal government reached into the area of electric power, establishing in 1933 the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which was to cover a seven-state area and supply cheap electricity, prevent floods, improve navigation, and produce nitrates.