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Stories tagged with “Homelessness

Economy

Mitt Romney Tells Rich Donors His Secret Plan To Cut Housing Assistance

During comments overheard by an NBC news reporter, Mitt Romney told a crowd at a private fundraiser last night that he might eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development, scale back the Department of Education, and eliminate some specific tax provisions. There are all details that he has refused to divulge on the campaign trail:

Romney went into a level of detail not usually seen by the public in the speech, which was overheard by reporters on a sidewalk below. One possibility floated by Romney included the elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Cabinet-level agency once led by Romney’s father, George.

“I’m going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I’m probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go,” Romney said. “Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that might not be around later.

Regarding taxes, Romney said, “I’m going to probably eliminate for high income people the second home mortgage deduction.” He also said that he would “likely eliminate deductions for state income and property taxes.” The campaign is already attempting to walk the comments back, with a Romney adviser telling CNN, “He was tossing ideas out, not unveiling policy.”

For starters, Romney’s tax ideas, while reasonable, would raise nowhere near enough money to offset the huge tax cuts that he has in mind. Those tax cuts would increase the deficit by $900 billion in 2015 alone. Meanwhile, eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes, one of the largest tax expenditures for the government, for everyone saves $72 billion per year, and saves far less if the elimination is limited to upper-income Americans.

Romney’s plan to eliminate HUD, assuming he didn’t shuffle its programs to other departments, would bring an end to critical programs like Section 8 housing vouchers and community development block grants. Eliminating housing assistance is even more problematic given the disproportionate percentage of veterans in the homeless population.

So while he’s happy to hand out tax breaks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the very richest Americans, Romney would at least contemplate eliminating housing subsidies for the very lowest income Americans, giving them little hope of putting a roof over their heads.

LGBT

Catholic Diocese Abandons Homeless Agency Over Director’s Support For Marriage Equality

The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento has cut all of its support for Francis House, one of the largest shelters serving homeless people in Sacramento, because its new director supports marriage equality. Despite having started as a Catholic-run charity, Francis House is now run by Rev. Faith Whitmore, a United Methodist minister who openly defied church law by marrying same-sex couples in 2008 and who also supports a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. According to spokesman Kevin Eckery, the Diocese argues it is unfair to spend parishioners money — up to $10,000 a year — on an organization whose leader does not represent Catholic values:

Eckery said he was unsure whether the diocese had received complaints about its donations to Whitmore’s agency. “But if we haven’t had one yet, we would get one,” he said. “We like to get out in front of these things.

“Francis House is a great charity, and we respect the fact that the director’s views are different from the diocese’s. But money collected during the annual appeal is very much Catholic parishioner money,” said Eckery.

Why would we ask someone to contribute money to an organization and ask them to overlook all of those things that undermine the church’s teachings?

This is only the latest decision that reflects an effort by the hierarchy of the Church to wipe its hands of anything that promotes LGBT equality or recognizes same-sex relationships. This particular example clearly demonstrates the bishops’ hypocrisy and expectation for special treatment. They claim that the government should support them like it does other charities, even though they pick and choose which organizations to support based on their values. They then justify their decisions by claiming they have to represent their parishioners who contribute money, but they have no consideration for the government’s interest in respecting its LGBT taxpayers.

The Catholic Church wants to have its cake and discriminate too. Don’t expect food or shelter if you’re not prepared to discriminate as well.

LGBT

Local News Investigates The ‘Hidden Crisis’: Kids Put Out ‘Like Trash’ Just For Being Gay

There are approximately 1.6 million to 2.8 million homeless young people in the United States and a disproportionate number — 20 to 40 percent — are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. LGBT youth often run away from home because of family conflict and then “face overt discrimination when seeking alternative housing, which is compounded by institutionalized discrimination in federally funded programs.”

Last night, a local CBS affiliate in Miami, Florida offered an in-depth look into the crisis of LGBT youth homelessness and the children who are put out “like trash” by parents who refuse to accept them:

Studies show that 320,000 to 400,000 gay and transgender youth face homelessness each year and that many lose their homes at the young age of 13 or 14, as they come out to their parents. Fortunately, the Department of Health and Human Services is already providing “training and technical assistance to States and Indian Tribes on a wide variety of LGBTQ-related issues” and the Obama administration has released recommendations for providing the best possible care in shelters for homeless LGBT youth.

But still, more must be done. There are currently no federal programs specifically designed to meet the needs of gay and transgender homeless youth and federal grant awards for homeless youth services “are being awarded to providers without mandating that they not discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity. As the Center for American Progress has recommended, President Obama should issue an executive order “recognizing both lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender homeless youth and homeless youth in general as special-needs populations, and protecting them from discrimination by federal grantees” and the federal government must begin developing programs “that help families from all communities support and nurture their gay and transgender children.”

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has also introduced the Reconnecting Youth to Prevent Homelessness Act, a bill “designed to help homeless youth rejoin their families and escape life on the streets.” The measure calls for a “demonstration project for improving family relationships and reducing homelessness for LGBT youth” and the development of programs “that improve family relationships and reduce homelessness for LGBT youth.”

NEWS FLASH

Number Of Homeless Women Veterans Doubled Between 2006 And 2010 | A new report from the Government Accountability Office shows that the number of homeless women veterans doubled between 2006 and 2010, with 3,328 women veterans unable to access shelter. Of these women, “almost two-thirds were between 40 and 59 years old and over one-third had disabilities.” Many also have children.

Overall, about 636,000 Americans were living on the streets or in shelters last year. (HT: Kay Steiger)

Economy

Report: The Recovery Act Saved Thousands Of Americans From Homelessness

The Great Recession has steadily eaten away at the economic security of many Americans. Facing stagnant wages, growing unemployment, and rising health care costs, nearly 50 percent of Americans are slipping from the shrinking middle-class into low-income status or even poverty. In 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in order to bolster job creation and fend off an even more severe downturn. The ARRA passed without a single House Republican vote, with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) calling it a “woefully inadequate” response.

However, a new report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness reveals that the Recovery Act was vital in keeping Americans off the street. An estimated $1.5 billion of Recovery Act funds were directed towards “rental assistance and programs steering recently evicted people toward new housing.” According to Alliance President Nan Roman, those funds were instrumental in keeping the number of homeless down “even as the U.S. economy saw its worst downturn since the 1930s”:

The Homelessness Research Institute, the educational arm of Roman’s organization, put the number of Americans living on the streets or in shelters at just over 636,000 in 2011. That’s down about 6,000 from the group’s 2009 estimate. The figure is based on reports and street counts from state and local agencies that receive federal housing funds.

Roman said the stimulus money, coupled with pre-recession federal programs aimed at veterans and the chronically ill, have kept that figure down even as the U.S. economy saw its worst downturn since the 1930s. But that money is drying up now that the Obama administration, Congress and the states are grappling with budget issues fueled by the recession.

In fact, the Homelessness Prevention Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP) program alone, which was directly funded by the Recovery Act, helped 94 percent of the program’s participants who were homeless or a step away from homelessness find permanent housing. The Recovery Act also kept 6 million Americans out of poverty and created at least 3.3 million jobs.

But ARRA funds are running out and, as the report notes, the number of Americans facing the prospect of homelessness is continuing to rise. More than 4 million homes were foreclosed upon since 2007 and the New York Federal Reserve estimates that 3.6 million more will be lost to foreclosure in the next two years. If Republicans continue to slash these housing programs, thousands of vulnerable Americans will face the exact situation the Recovery Act helped successfully prevent.

NEWS FLASH

Homeless Teen Who Is A Semifinalist For Science Prize Will Be At The State Of The Union | Samantha Garvey, a New York high school senior who has been living in a homeless shelter and recently named a semifinalist in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search competition, will be Rep. Steve Israel’s (D-NY) guest at President Obama’s State of the Union address next Tuesday. Garvey found out she was a seminfinalist after her family had been living in a homeless shelter for several days, and donations have poured in to help the family as news of Garvey’s story spread. She wants to be a marine biologist and has applied to college at Brown and Yale. Israel told Newsday he was moved by Garvey’s story. “The State of the Union attracts the most powerful people on Earth, but I really think Samantha can teach them all a lesson in perseverance,” Israel said.

LGBT

Interagency Homelessness Council Commits To Addressing Needs Of LGBT Youth

Our guest blogger is Jerome Hunt, a Research Associate for LGBT Progress at the Center for American Progress.

Youth homeless was one of the main focuses last week as the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) held their final meeting for the year. The USICH was briefed on the work being done by the Interagency Group on Youth, a collation of representatives from a variety of government agencies including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor, Justice, and the White House Domestic Policy Council. The group presented findings from its series of meetings with federal and state experts from the education, child welfare, housing, and juvenile justice sectors.

The Interagency Group on Youth acknowledged that certain sub-populations of youth — LGBT youth and youth exiting child welfare or the juvenile justice system — are at much higher risk for homelessness and pledged to collaboratively work together and “with service providers currently serving this vulnerable population to ensure that we have a better understanding of the size of the problem, the needs of different sub-groups, that successful strategies are implemented and progress is made.”

Indeed, a recent report by the National Center on Family Homelessness estimated that 1.6 million children lived on the street, in homeless shelters, with other families or in motels last year and that youth homelessness has risen 38 percent during the economic recession. Considering that an estimated 20 to 40 percent of homeless youth population is LGBT, this commitment by the USICH to work collaboratively across government and with the non-profit sector to help these sub-populations is definitely welcomed — particularly in the wake of a survey conducted by the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates (DCAYA) of close to 500 homelessness youth that resulted in 6 percent (or 19 people) of the respondents identifying as LGBT. (DCAYA believes this was due to the low number of participating sites that provide specific services to LGBT youth.)

Much work needs to be done to address the issues of youth homelessness, particularly LGBT youth homeless in this country. More programs need to provide specific services to the LGBT community, train staffs who may encounter LGBT youth, and collect more data about this population. Nevertheless, USICH acknowledgment that LGBT youth are a population at high risk for homelessness and commitment to addressing the issue is a major step in the right direction. Hopefully in 2012, the Interagency Group on Youth will bring some specific plans to the USICH that will help thousands of LGBT youth to no longer call the streets home.

NEWS FLASH

New Report Shows 12 Percent Reduction In Homeless Vets | The number of homeless veterans declined by nearly 12 percent between January 2010 and January 2011, according to new figures released by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The reduction puts the Obama administration on schedule to meet their goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015. “Our progress in the fight against homelessness has been significant, but our work is not complete until no veteran has to sleep on the street,” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said in a statement.

Economy

Rick Scott Says ‘I Care Completely’ About Homelessness After He Proposed Cutting All Funding For Homeless Programs

Photo Credit: Naples News

In a state that is near the top of the national chart in food insecurity, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) took time this holiday to pass out Thanksgiving dinner to about 1,000 families at a shelter in East Naples. The shelter’s program fed about 7,000 families last week, with roughly 200 volunteers packing and distributing meals.

I care completely about all these programs,” said Scott while handing out food. However, he possesses a singular way of showing it, as his sweeping budget cuts this year “slashed funding to some veteran and farm surplus programs that helped the homeless.” To justify those cuts, Scott simply explained, “all the programs are very important, but nobody wants their taxes to go up”:

“I care completely about all these programs,” said Scott, whose budget cuts earlier this year slashed funding to some veteran and farm surplus programs that helped the homeless.

“All the programs are very important, but nobody wants their taxes to go up,” Scott explained, noting that businesses also can help spur the economy. “They’ve got to grow. We’ve got to make this a place people can do well.”

One Jacksonville homeless shelter official noted that Scott “zeroed out all homeless funding” — $7 million worth — in his budget proposal. That funding supported programs dedicated to homelessness prevention, housing initiatives, and programs that “re-house” people once they’re on the street. “Not only that, he took out the line items so it can never be funded again,” said the official.

To show how much he cares about the homeless, Scott went further by vetoing $12 million in funding that state legislature had passed to support homeless veterans. There are an estimated 17,000 homeless veterans in Florida — the second highest in the nation. Overall, a record 17.2 million Americans went hungry last year.

Economy

Homeless Veterans, By The Numbers

Today is Veterans Day, a day to honor the men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces. Sadly, this year’s Veterans Day falls on the same week as the release of a new study showing that veterans not only make up a disproportionate percentage of the homeless population, but also stay homeless for longer. In fact, “on average, veterans were homeless for 5.7 years while others reported that they were homeless for 3.9 years.”

The Center for American Progress has put together this list showing the unfortunate facts behind veterans’ homelessness, illustrating the struggle that the men and women of the armed forces face when they return home:

50 percent: Rate at which veterans are more likely than other Americans to become homeless. The Obama administration has set a goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015.

About 75,000: Number of veterans who are homeless on any given night, according to estimates from the Veterans Administration.

About 20,000: Number of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were homeless in the past five years according to the Veterans Administration.

5.5 percent: Percentage of homeless vets who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan in the overall homeless population, according to the Veterans Administration.

This Veteran’s Day, spare a though for those vets who served their country and yet still spend the night out on the streets. See here for more numbers illustrating “the challenges that confront our service members and veterans before, during, and after deployments, from combat stress injuries to unemployment.”

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