Department of Housing and Urban Development

More than $140 million in competitive federal grants will help combat youth homelessness in 33 communities across the United States.

No issue dominates big city politics right now like homelessness. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio have come in for the harshest criticism of their tenures over proliferating tent villages and visible human suffering on their sidewalks.

High housing costs and long hours at a minimum wage job came down hard on Claudia.* She tried to make it work, to keep her family of four children sheltered and cared for in a room behind her father’s repair shop in the San Fernando Valley, a vast suburb of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) submitted an application to the federal government on September 12 for $104,949,390 million for projects to provide housing and services to L.A.’s homeless population, including almost $5 million specifically for transitional housing for youth.