- Shelters try ‘housing first’ protocol to help homeless people, By Bill Laitner, December 29, 2010, Detroit Free Press: “An innovative way to help homeless people, called housing first, has dramatically shortened their stays in the South Oakland Shelter system based in Royal Oak and could make shelter programs statewide more effective, experts said. By making permanent housing the first priority at the South Oakland Shelter and addressing other needs — such as job training — later, average stays dropped from four months to 28 days since summer, Executive Director Ryan Hertz said. The organization houses an average of 30 men, women and children at a time, rotating them through 67 churches and synagogues, where volunteers set up cots and serve meals. ‘We’re turning over our beds much faster, so we can help more people,’ Hertz said. But the housing-first approach has taken more than a decade to gain wide acceptance across Michigan because it requires homeless people, shelters’ clients, to have incomes, and there must be safe housing available that they can afford, Wayne State University psychologist and homelessness expert Paul Toro said…”
- New face of homelessness is a family, Dallas-area agencies say, By Kim Horner, January 7, 2011, Dallas Morning News: “First, they stayed with family. Then, they rented a trailer. Finally, they went to a shelter. Katrina Stephens, Alan Charles Walker and their three young children became homeless after Walker’s construction work dried up. Now, the family lives in a modest East Dallas apartment as part of Family Gateway’s transitional housing program. Stephens plans to finish school to become a medical assistant this spring. ‘We’re back on track,’ she said. The economy has taken a similar toll on thousands of families nationwide – and the numbers are rising. About 80,000 families – typically a single woman with young children – are homeless on any given night, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Families are the fastest-growing homeless population, according to Family Gateway and other local agencies…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty