In the 1990‘s, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) created the Continuum of Care (CoC) program, which funds programs for people experiencing homelessness. Under the CoC program, geographic communities organize themselves into a CoC and each CoC annually submits an application to HUD to fund projects within the CoC.

In New Mexico, there is an Albuquerque CoC and a Balance of State CoC, which covers all parts of New Mexico except for Albuquerque. All applicants must apply as part of one of these CoCs. The Albuquerque and Balance of State CoCs are both coordinated by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness under contracts with the City of Albuquerque and the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority.

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HUD‘s concept for the Continuum of Care is that each CoC should have a continuum of services available to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness, including prevention, street outreach, emergency shelter, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing.

CoC grant funds are targeted to projects that provide permanent supportive housing for homeless people with disabilities or rapid rehousing projects that help homeless people of all types attain permanent housing quickly.

Funding is awarded on an annual basis and can be renewed every year. A typical CoC grant includes rental assistance for housing, supportive services funding for case management and administrative funds including data collection. Rental assistance can be either scattered site or assigned to a particular building.