New importance for homelessness council?

Interesting statement from HUD noting Secretary Jackson's election yesterday to chair the Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH). Interesting because ICH has hitherto focused pretty strongly on "chronic homelessness." Now the HUD announcement says this:

Jackson pledged to fully commit himself to the Administration’s goal of ending chronic homelessness for the hardest-to-serve homeless individuals who may also be living with a disability, mental illness or an addiction. He also pointed to those individuals and families made homeless for the first time in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Jackson called on member agencies to continue their close collaboration to assist the chronically homelessness as well as those evacuees from the Gulf region.

So is there a chance ICH might be part of the agencies' answer to calls such as NLIHC's for a coordinating authority to handle the housing side of the disaster recovery?

The ICH summary of yesterday's meeting also notes some important news for housing developers:

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that, in response to both to the Administration’s goal of ending chronic homelessness and the needs of communities, it will in the future consider permanent supportive housing as an eligible use for federal surplus property under the McKinney-Vento Title V program.

Previously, housing on such sites was only allowed if the residents were expected to leave after a specified time. The announcement says formal regulatory publications on the subject will be forthcoming. This is great news for the nonprofits and others who have been frustrated by the restrictions surrounding those offers of "free" government surplus property that appear every Friday in the HUD section of the Federal Register.