- Utah temporary homeless numbers reach all-time high, By Brooke Adams, April 30, 2012, Salt Lake Tribune: “A statewide effort to get chronically homeless people off the streets and into supported housing continues to make progress, but officials on Mondayannounced the number of Utahns who experienced periodic homelessness reached an all-time high this winter. Volunteers and outreach workers counted 3,052 people in shelters and another 475 on the streets in the statewide Point In Time annual survey that began Jan. 26 and extended over five days to ensure as complete a tally as possible. On an annualized basis, state officials project that 16,642 people experienced an episode of homelessness between January 2011 and January 2012, an increase of 13 percent. Gordon Walker, director of the Division of Housing and Community Development, said Monday during a press conference that the increase was directly related to the weak economy and the end of a federal stimulus housing fund aimed at getting people out of shelters and into their own homes as quickly as possible…”
- Goal of ending chronic homelessness by 2015 ‘achievable,’ advocates say, By Marjorie Cortez, April 30 2012, Deseret News: “Mike Shannon has designs on one of the first meals he will cook in his new apartment at Sunrise Metro Apartments. ‘I want a Velveeta grilled cheese sandwich and a can of tomato soup,’ Shannon said. Shannon, a Vietnam War veteran who has been living in The Road Home homeless shelter for nine months, will have a place to call his own Tuesday in a 100-unit facility that provides housing and intensive case management for people who are chronically homeless. A place of his own – a restroom he doesn’t have to share with others – represents ‘freedom’ and ‘a life’ for the 61-year-old man…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty