The Great Recession has steadily eaten away at the economic security of many Americans. Facing stagnant wages, growing unemployment, and rising health care costs, nearly 50 percent of Americans are slipping from the shrinking middle-class into low-income status or even poverty. In 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in order to bolster job creation and fend off an even more severe downturn. The ARRA passed without a single House Republican vote, with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) calling it a “woefully inadequate” response.

However, a new report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness reveals that the Recovery Act was vital in keeping Americans off the street. An estimated $1.5 billion of Recovery Act funds were directed towards “rental assistance and programs steering recently evicted people toward new housing.” According to Alliance President Nan Roman, those funds were instrumental in keeping the number of homeless down “even as the U.S. economy saw its worst downturn since the 1930s”:

The Homelessness Research Institute, the educational arm of Roman’s organization, put the number of Americans living on the streets or in shelters at just over 636,000 in 2011. That’s down about 6,000 from the group’s 2009 estimate. The figure is based on reports and street counts from state and local agencies that receive federal housing funds.

Roman said the stimulus money, coupled with pre-recession federal programs aimed at veterans and the chronically ill, have kept that figure down even as the U.S. economy saw its worst downturn since the 1930s. But that money is drying up now that the Obama administration, Congress and the states are grappling with budget issues fueled by the recession.

In fact, the Homelessness Prevention Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP) program alone, which was directly funded by the Recovery Act, helped 94 percent of the program’s participants who were homeless or a step away from homelessness find permanent housing. The Recovery Act also kept 6 million Americans out of poverty and created at least 3.3 million jobs.

But ARRA funds are running out and, as the report notes, the number of Americans facing the prospect of homelessness is continuing to rise. More than 4 million homes were foreclosed upon since 2007 and the New York Federal Reserve estimates that 3.6 million more will be lost to foreclosure in the next two years. If Republicans continue to slash these housing programs, thousands of vulnerable Americans will face the exact situation the Recovery Act helped successfully prevent.

Photo Credit: Naples News

In a state that is near the top of the national chart in food insecurity, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) took time this holiday to pass out Thanksgiving dinner to about 1,000 families at a shelter in East Naples. The shelter’s program fed about 7,000 families last week, with roughly 200 volunteers packing and distributing meals.

“I care completely about all these programs,” said Scott while handing out food. However, he possesses a singular way of showing it, as his sweeping budget cuts this year “slashed funding to some veteran and farm surplus programs that helped the homeless.” To justify those cuts, Scott simply explained, “all the programs are very important, but nobody wants their taxes to go up”:

“I care completely about all these programs,” said Scott, whose budget cuts earlier this year slashed funding to some veteran and farm surplus programs that helped the homeless.

“All the programs are very important, but nobody wants their taxes to go up,” Scott explained, noting that businesses also can help spur the economy. “They’ve got to grow. We’ve got to make this a place people can do well.”

One Jacksonville homeless shelter official noted that Scott “zeroed out all homeless funding” — $7 million worth — in his budget proposal. That funding supported programs dedicated to homelessness prevention, housing initiatives, and programs that “re-house” people once they’re on the street. “Not only that, he took out the line items so it can never be funded again,” said the official.

To show how much he cares about the homeless, Scott went further by vetoing $12 million in funding that state legislature had passed to support homeless veterans. There are an estimated 17,000 homeless veterans in Florida — the second highest in the nation. Overall, a record 17.2 million Americans went hungry last year.

Today is Veterans Day, a day to honor the men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces. Sadly, this year’s Veterans Day falls on the same week as the release of a new study showing that veterans not only make up a disproportionate percentage of the homeless population, but also stay homeless for longer. In fact, “on average, veterans were homeless for 5.7 years while others reported that they were homeless for 3.9 years.”

The Center for American Progress has put together this list showing the unfortunate facts behind veterans’ homelessness, illustrating the struggle that the men and women of the armed forces face when they return home:

50 percent: Rate at which veterans are more likely than other Americans to become homeless. The Obama administration has set a goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015.

About 75,000: Number of veterans who are homeless on any given night, according to estimates from the Veterans Administration.

About 20,000: Number of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were homeless in the past five years according to the Veterans Administration.

5.5 percent: Percentage of homeless vets who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan in the overall homeless population, according to the Veterans Administration.

This Veteran’s Day, spare a though for those vets who served their country and yet still spend the night out on the streets. See here for more numbers illustrating “the challenges that confront our service members and veterans before, during, and after deployments, from combat stress injuries to unemployment.”