Federal officials this week awarded more than $2.6 million to a local nonprofit agency that oversees various programs aimed at reducing homelessness.

The money, allocated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), was given to Strategies to End Homelessness, which was formerly known as the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Continuum of Care.

In total, HUD awarded nearly $201 million to 731 programs focused on addressing homelessness. The funding will help provide critically needed rapid re-housing, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing for homeless individuals and families.

Locally, Strategies to End Homelessness coordinates such federal funding. It will divide the money as follows:

** Center for Independent Living Options (permanent housing) —  $854,432

** Salvation Army (rapid re-housing for homeless families) — $526,797

** Prospect House (homeless housing and treatment) — $126,000

** Freestore Foodbank (rapid re-housing for homeless individuals) — $739,858

** Lighthouse Youth Services (permanent supportive housing) — $409,122

HUD awards such funding based on outcomes achieved by the local homeless services system.

“Our community received this funding because we have been successful at doing two things: helping homeless people move into housing, and also increase their income, specifically through employment,” said Kevin Finn, Strategies’ executive director, in a prepared statement.

According to the latest data reported by more than 3,000 cities and counties throughout the United States, homelessness declined 2.1 percent between 2010 and 2011 and dropped 12 percent among military veterans.

Founded in 2007, Strategies to End Homelessness coordinates services and funding toward the goal of ending homelessness. The organization works to prevent at-risk households from becoming homeless, assist people who are homeless back into housing, and to reduce the recurrence of homelessness.

The organization has created a single, coordinated system that includes the use of homelessness prevention services, street outreach, emergency shelter, rapid re-housing, transitional and permanent supportive housing, and services-only programs.   

An organization of retired labor union workers is praising the failure of Congress' so-called “super committee” to agree on a deficit reduction deal as a good development for elderly Americans.

The Ohio chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans said many politicians, especially Republicans, are unfairly blaming the deficit on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They are using the budget battle as an excuse to dismantle programs they dislike, the group added.

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Bryan Fischer, radio host and Christian group American Family Association affiliate, has been trying to prove a point since last month: that gay activists are the “number one perpetrators of hate crimes in America.”

Today a video was posted of Fischer pooping out of his mouth something about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Fischer said “You’re going to have the homosexual lobby committing one hate crime after another against servicemen. This is going to be virtual genocide … for people of faith.”

Sarah Palin, who is undecided about running for president, will accidentally collide with Mitt Romney when she wheels her “One Nation” tour into New Hampshire today. Romney, who has announced his intention to run for president, is scheduled to deliver a speech in Stratham, N.H., and Palin said, “Maybe we’ll run into him.” Palin, in an interview with CNN said that New Hampshire voters aren’t particularly special and that it’s a coincidence that she and Romney are in New Hampshire at the same time. "I guess that’s that nonpolitician in me not looking at a New Hampshire voter any differently just because they have, you know, an earlier primary than somebody else,” Palin said.

Left-leaning blog cannonfire.com reports that the Weinergate scandal has been closed because the format of the pee pee picture Anthony Weiner allegedly sent to coed Gennette Cordova was resized and reformatted, meaning the New York congressman sent the photo.

“Don’t act like you’re not impressed.”

Eileen Heuwetter is pissed her late aunt left the majority of her estate — around $300,000 — to Family Radio, the group that predicted the world would end on May 21. Though she knew her aunt Doris Schmitt loved the radio station and its batshit crazy owner, Harold Camping, she never guessed that she’d be one of the poor souls to contribute so much to Family Radio, which made $18 million in 2009 alone.

"This was not a woman who had anything. She literally had Family Radio on day and night — she went to bed with it and woke up to it," said Heuwetter. "That was all she had." That and about $300,000. "She would have been devastated," Heuwetter said. "Listening to him say things would be better in paradise made her feel better — she totally believed she would leave this world on May 21, and she needed to believe that." Unfortunately, Scmitt died alone at the age of 78 on May 2, 2010 in her small home in Queens, New York.

Camping, who forgot to mention that his prediction that the world would end extends to October —factoring in leap year and all that — assures everyone who gave him money that they will die happy deaths later this year and anyone who hasn’t given him money can still make a donation to the Family Radio website.

But please don’t actually do that.

Holy shit. Reagan? Really?