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Housing and Homelessness
Legislation to Watch
Long Bill restores funds for affordable housing
On May 1 the Governor signed into law the State Appropriations Bill (known as the “Long Bill” because it contains appropriations for nearly all State services and programs). The bill contains $1 million to help private developers build more affordable housing.
While this might appear to be a significant increase from recent years, it only restores this budget line to 24% of the $4,570,000 state investment reached in 2002.
In the News
Cities Try New Approach to Solving Homelessness
In the fight to eradicate homelessness, several American cities are using a concept called Housing First. The idea is to get people into permanent housing before dealing with other problems, such as substance abuse and mental illness. Monica Brady-Myerov of member station WBUR reports.
(You will need RealPlayer or Windows Media Player in order to listen to this story.)
Survey: 11% decline in Denver homeless
By: Myung Oak Kim - The Rocky Mountain News - 5/9/06
Tom Luehrs, chairman of the board of directors of the homeless initiative, stressed the need to show the homeless the same compassion given to the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "They are, in fact, people first, who have met with a disaster in their lives that they have no means of overcoming," he said. "We can change the circumstances of these 9,091 people. We can do that if we believe that no one deserves to be homeless."
Understanding poverty and homelessness in America - How needy families get excluded from assistance programs
By: Gerry Roll - The Christian Science Monitor - 5/22/06
According to the United States Conference of Mayors, requests for shelter by families with children went unmet 32 percent of the time in 2004 - and families with children make up the fastest-growing segment among the homeless. Fifty-six percent of the reporting cities say that homeless families have to break up in order to find shelter. At least 3.5 million persons are likely to experience homelessness during a year in the United States and 40 percent of them will be children.