HUD's Family Unification Program

Click HERE for the 2009 FUP NOFA

Applications for the 2009 NOFA are due on December 3, 2009.

FUP Overview and History

Signed into law in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush, the Family Unification Program (FUP) works through local level partnerships between public housing authorities and child welfare agencies. FUP provides homeless and precariously housed families involved with the child welfare system with affordable housing and supportive services in order to safely reunite them with their children. The more than 39,000 FUP Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers HUD has awarded since FUP's inception have enabled over 200,000 children to reunite with their families from foster care or avoid foster care placement altogether.

Furthermore, at the urging of Senator Bond, Congress added youth as an eligible population for FUP in October 2000. As a result, over 500 young people aging out of foster care have received the vital housing resources they needed to avoid homelessness and make successful transitions to adulthood.

Being that the federal government is rightly aiming its sights on controlling spending on unnecessary use of social programs, it is important to point out that placing children in the foster care system in lieu of a prudent investment in affordable housing is a poor use of federal money.

In the absence of an adequate supply of FUP vouchers to intervene and end youth and family homelessness, child welfare agencies are placed in the unenviable position of separating families in order to protect the children from the lingering effects of homelessness. This is a costly solution to homelessness both in terms of the emotional impact upon each child and the cost to the American taxpayer. Nationally, the average family involved in the child welfare system has 2.7 children. The cost of keeping the children of one family of this size in foster care is $47,608 annually. The average cost for a FUP voucher and supportive services (services which are paid for out of child welfare funding streams – not HUD’s budget) for a family of this size for one year would be a fraction of this cost at approximately $13,412. In fact, recent research has demonstrated that a federal investment to address the housing and social services needs of the families who are separated due to homelessness would save the U.S. $1.94 billion annually.

Read our critical issues fact sheet: click here