May 2, 2024

Earlier this week, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) released new guidance, 19 Strategies for Communities to Address Encampments Humanely and Effectively, which is intended to help public leaders and communities develop best practices for responding to encampments on public land using All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.

This guidance serves as an update and expansion of the 2022 USICH guidance, “7 Principles for Addressing Encampments.” The new guidance provides 19 strategies, each with examples of action, federal funding opportunities, and technical assistance resources for implementing the strategies. The strategies are broken up into six categories: Equity, Collaboration, Data & Evidence, Crisis Response, Housing & Support, and Prevention. In addition to the full guidance document, USICH has also released a one-page summary.