Homelessness affects is no easy effort. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking a new approach to the problem and they're following a 10 year plan to accomplish it.
Michael German is the national team leader for HUD's Interagency Council on Homelessness and says the remedy is long term housing rather than shelters.
German works with more than 850 state and local leaders, to achieve a 30 percent reduction rate.
No wonder he is one of the finalist for the Service to America Medals, or SAMMIES. We spoke with him earlier as part of FederalNewsRadio's
"Sammies Tracker" series to learn more about what he does.