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There is no single federal definition of homelessness. However, most federal programs for the homeless define a homeless individual as a person who lacks a fixed night-time residence or whose primary residence is a supervised public or private shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations, an institution accommodating persons intended to be institutionalized, or a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. The most recent count of the homeless, from 1996, found that between 2.3 million and 3.5 million individuals were homeless at any given time during the year. A congressionally mandated Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) to count the homeless is expected to produce annual data about the number of homeless individuals sometime in 2006. A number of federal programs, most authorized by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (P.L. 100-77), serve the homeless. The main federal programs for the homeless include the Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program; the Emergency Food and Shelter (EFS) program; the Health Care for the Homeless Program (HCH); the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) program; the Consolidated Runaway and Homeless Youth programs (the Basic Center Program and the...