US Senators Introduce Bill to Help More Homeless Apply for Federal Housing

US Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Rob Portman of Ohio introduced the Homeless Children and Youth Act, a bill to allow more than 1 million homeless children and families nationwide to access federal housing assistance.

WASHINGTON, January 28 (Sputnik) — US Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Rob Portman of Ohio introduced legislation that will allow more US homeless children to qualify for federal housing programs, according to Senator Feinstein’s press office statement.

“Senators Dianne Feinstein and Rob Portman today introduced the Homeless Children and Youth Act, a bill to expand the definition of homelessness used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The change would allow more than 1 million homeless children and families nationwide to access federal housing assistance programs,” the press release issued Tuesday said.

According to the statement, new definition will be similar to the one used by the Department of Education and other federal agencies. Under the new bill, children, living in motels or not with relatives, will be recognized as homeless. Children currently forced to live with traffickers will become eligible for federal housing assistance too, the act says.

“Only one in 10 homeless children in this country is eligible for federal housing assistance, and that’s shameful. Under the narrow HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development] definition, even children living with traffickers because they have nowhere else to go would be ineligible for help,” Feinstein said in the statement.

According to the 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, currently there are almost 580 thousand homeless people in the United States. Nearly one-quarter of all homeless are children under the age of 18, and 10 percent are between ages of 18 and 24, statistics showed.