Las Vegas shortchanged in federal funding for homeless, By By Joe Schoenmann, August 18, 2010, Las Vegas Sun: “Homeless numbers in greater Las Vegas have topped 13,000, with the recession leaving people jobless, then pushing parents and children out of their homes and onto the street. It’s happening all around the country, but the human toll here could be compounded because federal formulas lead to uneven homeless funding, giving cities such as Pittsburgh more than $10,000 to serve each homeless person while the Las Vegas area receives about $500 per individual. Southern Nevada has 2 percent of the country’s homeless, but gets just 0.4 percent of $1.7 billion in funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Funding over the years has fluctuated, providing $5.8 million in 2005, $7 million in 2007 and $6.8 million in 2009…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty