The National Affordable Housing Act (NAHA) of 1990 requested HUD to study the feasibility of allocating homeless assistance by formula and to submit its recommendations in a report to Congress. At the beginning of its inquiry, the Department hosted a meeting of researchers and others knowledgeable in the field of homelessness. Although very little support for a formula allocation was expressed at the meeting, the discussion did lead to an examination of four direct measures of homelessness that might be used as a basis for a formula and several other indirect measures as potential proxies for homelessness. From the four direct measures, the shelter portion of the Census Bureau's Street and Shelter (S-Night) count was chosen as the most valid basis for a formula. A formula was constructed using the S-Night shelter count, and the allocation of funds under this formula was compared with the current distribution of HUD homeless assistance funds.

This report is part of the collection of scanned historical documents available to the public.