States cope with rising homelessness

[my2sense]

States cope with rising homelessness
By Christine Vestal, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Nearly 700 homeless families in Massachusetts are living in hotels at state expense because emergency shelters are full. New York City saw a 40 percent rise in families seeking shelter since the recession began. School districts nationwide reported more homeless kids in the fall of 2008 than the entire year before. And tent cities have sprung up throughout Hawaii and in Sacramento, Calif., Reno, Nev., Phoenix, Portland, Ore., and other cities.

It’s one of the most alarming aspects of the economic crisis: State officials are seeing levels of homelessness they have never seen before. President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package includes $1.5 billion to address the problem, but officials say it’s not enough to cover the cost of housing for millions of families in crisis.

As many as 3.4 million Americans are likely to experience homelessness this year – a 35 percent increase since the recession started in December 2007 – and a majority will be families with children, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The predictions are based on rising levels of unemployment and poverty, plus a severe shortage of affordable housing created, in part, by the mortgage industry collapse.

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