BOSTON – In an ongoing effort to end homelessness, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro has announced $10.4 million in grants to support 38 local homeless housing and service programs in Maine.

HUD’s Continuum of Care grants will allow local providers to continue offering permanent and transitional housing to homeless persons as well as services including job training, health care, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment and child care.

“This funding is critical to local Maine programs that are on the front lines of helping those who might otherwise be living on our streets,” said Kristine Foye, HUD New England acting regional administrator.

HUD recently announced its 2014 estimate of the number of homeless persons in America.

There were 578,424 persons experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2014. Since 2010, local communities around the country reported an overall 10 percent decline in the total number of persons experiencing homelessness and a 25 percent drop in the number of those living on the streets.

In addition, these state and local planning agencies’ counts reveal a 33 percent drop in homelessness among veterans, including a 43 percent reduction in unsheltered homelessness among veterans.

Across Maine, local homelessness planning agencies called ‘Continuums of Care’ are organizing volunteers at this time of year to help count the number of persons located in emergency shelters, transitional housing programs and living unsheltered on the streets.

Continuums of Care will report these one-night “point-in-time counts” later in the year and will form the basis of HUD’s 2015 national homeless estimate.