On Monday, May 2 at 2 p.m. ET, the Alliance will co-host a webinar to officially kick off the fiscal year (FY) 2012 appropriations effort for the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) programs. The webinar is being co-hosted by the National Network for Youth (NN4Y) and the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY).

The webinar will review the basics of RHYA programs and their role in community efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness. Presenters will focus on the importance of securing additional resources for RHYA and ways in which advocates can get involved in the effort to expand resources for this valuable program Presenters will include Bob Reeg with NN4Y, Barbara Duffield with NAEHCY, and Amanda Krusemark and Kate Seif with the Alliance.

Click here to register for the webinar.

Introduction to Medicaid 

On Wednesday, May 4 at 2 p.m. ET, the Alliance will host a webinar to provide a basic introduction to the Medicaid program. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as health care reform, made significant changes to Medicaid that could change its role in funding health care in supportive housing programs.  

In order to help advocates and providers in the homelessness assistance field better understand the implications of ACA, the Alliance is launching a series of webinars around the legislation. The first webinar, "Talking Medicaid: First Steps in Building Effective Homelessness - Health Care Partnerships," will offer a very basic overview of the Medicaid program. Participants can expect to become more versed in Medicaid terms, as well as to understand some of the limitations affecting community health partners. There will be plenty of time to share questions and success stories.  

Click here to register for the webinar.  

On Friday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the 2010 point-in-time (PIT) count data. The report was also released in conjunction with the Housing Inventory Data. State-specific data is available here. The data shows that homelessness in 2010 was largely unchanged from 2009. These are the first PIT counts to reflect the impact of the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP).

The Alliance strongly encourages you to make your own statements about the data, using local information to tailor the announcement for local press. This is a good opportunity to highlight homelessness and housing issues in the community and engage reporters on a prospective story. The Alliance's press release and advocacy toolkit on Engaging the Media can serve as helpful resources for working with the press. If you have questions on how to frame the data for your community, please contact Amanda Krusemark at akrusemark@naeh.org.

If you would like to join any of these working groups, please contact Kate Seif at cseif@naeh.org and let her know which group(s) you would like to join.