The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) plays an integral role in Virginia’s response to homelessness. DHCD continues to be a crucial resource to communities across the commonwealth allowing persons who are homeless to access resources with the goal of obtaining permanent housing as quickly as possible.

During FY23, DHCD continued working with and providing resources to Continua of Care (CoCs) to address needs related to COVID-19 as well as re-establishing normal protocols for post-COVID-19. DHCD continued to manage federal COVID relief funds and it is expected these funds will be spent by the end of FY24. With these additional resources, more people have been able to access the Crisis Homeless Response System; however, these funds have been spent in many communities and the need continues to increase. Virginia saw a 4% increase in overall number of people experiencing homelessness in the Point-in-Time count (based on preliminary reporting) between 2022-2023(*1).

Based on evidence from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, access to affordable housing is the most significant reason for homelessness. The reason for homelessness becomes a supply and demand issue in the national housing market that is also evident in Virginia.

Across the commonwealth, 254,821 (24%) renter households are extremely low income (ELI), meaning they have incomes under $30,280 for a household of four. This represents a shortage of 174,187 rental units affordable and available for extremely low-income renters. Seventy-eight percent of all ELI renters were cost-burdened, and of these ELI renters, 38% were in the labor force, 27% were seniors, 18% had disabilities, 5% were enrolled in school full-time, and 3% were single caregivers(*2).

DHCD administers the Commonwealth of Virginia’s homeless assistance resources. These resources include approximately $17 million annually in state and federal funding as well as the State Housing Trust Fund Homeless Reduction Grant and the remainder of the COVID Relief Funds.

In the spring of 2022, DHCD held a competitive application process for the Virginia Homeless Solutions Program (VHSP). The grant application combined state and federal funding sources (HUD’s Emergency Solutions Grant and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS/HIV along with State General Funds for homeless assistance and homeless prevention). To apply and receive these funds, communities were required to complete a community-based application that demonstrated an effective crisis response system designed to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. These applications were scored according to need, outcomes, approach/use of best practices, local coordination, and capacity.
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(*1) Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will not release the official Point-in-Time count until later in 2023 or early 2024.
(*2) https://nlihc.org/housing-needs-by-state/virginia