- Chronic homelessness down 42 percent, new Utah report says, By Marjorie Cortez, October 13, 2010, Deseret News: “Utah has experienced a 42 percent downturn in chronic homelessness from the previous year, a new report shows. Researchers and human services providers attribute the decline to a 10-year initiative that places the homeless in housing sooner and connects them to an array of services and case management to deal with issues that contribute to homelessness…”
- Number of homeless Utah kids skyrockets, By Julia Lyon, October 14, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune: “The lingering recession has taken a toll on Utah’s youngest residents, leading to a 48 percent increase in the number of homeless school-age children since 2008, according to state data released Wednesday. Nearly 12,000 children were homeless in January 2010, meaning their families had lost their homes and were typically staying with friends or relatives, officials said at the annual Homeless Summit in downtown Salt Lake City. In the Salt Lake City School District this fall, one girl was staying with friends after her mother was deported. Another teenager stayed with relatives, finishing high school in Utah after his family left the state for work in Montana. Statewide, the numbers of homeless children jumped from 8,016 in 2008 to 10,388 in 2009 and 11,883 in 2010…”
- D.C. still lacks enough shelter for homeless families, By Nathan Rott, October 13, 2010, Washington Post: “With cold weather just weeks away, the District has shelved a plan to expand its already packed shelter for homeless families at the former D.C. General Hospital, a decision that advocates fear could leave vulnerable families even worse off than last winter. A month after pledging to do a better job of sheltering the city’s homeless this winter, District leaders haven’t figured out how best to meet that promise. Meanwhile, the Family Emergency Shelter, which can house 135 families, is nearly full. And last week, 67 more families were waiting for emergency housing, with no place else to go, according to Omega Butler, chief of operations at the Virginia Williams Resource Center, which helps find housing for homeless families…”
- R.I. homeless shelters to reach record number of visits in 2010, By Chris Barrett, October 14, 2010, Providence Business News: “Visits to homeless shelters will reach record levels in 2010, the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless predicted Thursday. The advocacy group expects 4,340 people will visit shelters by the Dec. 31, the highest number since records started 25 years ago. Last year, 3,371 people visited shelters…”
Tag: Washington DC
Microlending in the US
Micro-lender bringing his vision of helping the poor to D.C., By Jonathan O’Connell, April 19, 2010, Washington Post: “In 1976, Muhammad Yunus began making loans of a dollar or less to poor farmers and textile makers in his native Bangladesh. Thirty years later, he and the nonprofit micro-lender he founded, Grameen Bank, shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. To date, Grameen has lent more than $9 billion to more than 8 million borrowers, almost all in Bangladesh. Now Yunus plans to bring low-interest credit to the poor and unemployed in Washington. Grameen America, a U.S. offshoot, is already lending in Queens and Brooklyn, N.Y., and Omaha and has lent to more than 2,500 American borrowers. Yunus says that although the United States is one of the wealthiest places in the world, the need for small, low-cost loans is evident in the number of Americans coming to Grameen to borrow money…”
Poverty Rate – Washington, DC
Report finds rise in D.C. poverty to nearly 1 in 5 residents, By Tim Craig, March 25, 2010, Washington Post: “Nearly one out of five District residents lives at or below the poverty line, a statistic that helps expose a widening gap between the rich and the poor in the nation’s capital, according to a study released Tuesday by social justice organizations gearing up for the 2010 elections. The study, undertaken by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute on behalf of a coalition of more than 40 local organizations, concludes that last year the District experienced its biggest single-year increase in poverty since 1995. Based on unemployment rates and other data, the coalition estimates that the city has 106,500 residents — up 11,000 in a year — living at or below the poverty rate, which in 2009 was $21,800 for a family of four…”