Affordable housing advocates scored a win this legislative session after lawmakers voted to reverse a decade-long trend of capping the state Housing Trust Fund’s budget.

Jodi Liggett has taken on the challenging task of representing Planned Parenthood's interests in Arizona, but her experience in tackling poverty, domestic violence, homelessness, and women’s reproductive health and rights runs deep.

The new Mission Possible Cafe is owned and operated by Phoenix Rescue Mission, which is using the restaurant to give clients who are transitioning from addiction or homelessness essential job experience in food service.

Arizona advocates say eliminating veteran homelessness is within reach, and Phoenix has already reached “functional zero” veteran homelessness.

The number of homeless people fell nearly 30 percent in Arizona in the last six years, outpacing the decrease nationwide in the same period, according to report Thursday from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Arizona saw a “significant” drop in its poverty rate last year, but that rate still hovered well above the national average, according to numbers released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

The tens of thousands of homeless Arizonans can have a hard time forming an official identity. Often with no address, minimal records and spotty memory of family or personal history, it borders on impossible for these individuals to find a job or a residence.

The overflow homeless shelter near the Capitol will remain open at least until February 2017, despite an earlier plan to begin phasing it out this month.

Tribes in Arizona and New Mexico are sharing in more than $1.1 million in federal funding to help address homelessness among veterans.

Sister Adele O’Sullivan said Mr. 280 was a homeless man with chronic mental illness whose trips in and out of the hospital racked up bills of more than $358,000 over several years.