Archive for the ‘Affordable Housing’ Category

Homelessness Ends With A Home Report Back

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

house-keys-bannerA Change Is Gonna Come

On January 20th, WRAP members and our allies from Portland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, San Jose, Eureka, Philadelphia, and all over the Bay Area came together in San Francisco to weave together the freedom dreams of our diverse communities fighting for survival.

The weather forecast was “continued heavy rain and gale force winds.” We knew this would impact the size of the crowd for our first public event, but it didn’t matter. The stormy weather seemed fitting for the tumultuous times we’re in. It was a sharp reminder that people live and die in these conditions all winter long. This doubled our resolve.

Around ten in the morning the rain mellowed and by the time the rally began the clouds had parted to reveal bits of blue sky that had been hidden for over a week. The plaza crowded with people and banners, energy and anticipation filled the air. There were a lot of smiles going around. Eyes shone with determination and recognition that this was the time to take the next step together in this nascent West Coast movement. (more…)

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Demand overwhelms program to prevent homelessness

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

expendituresWASHINGTON — In rural communities and urban areas alike, one of the least expensive and most unheralded new initiatives of the stimulus bill is quietly saving hundreds of thousands of Americans from homelessness.

Now housing advocates want Congress to boost the program’s $1.5 billion funding as the vast need for more assistance becomes evident nationwide. (more…)

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House Divided: Portland housing activists head to S.F. for mega-protest of Obama’s policies on homelessness

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

house-keysWhen Barack Obama took office one year ago, he pledged to devote at least $50 billion to combat homelessness by creating jobs and distributing federal money to affordable housing programs nationwide.

One year into Obama’s presidency, Sisters of the Road, Street Roots, Community Alliance of Tenants and hundreds of housing activists from about a dozen other Portland organizations plan to highlight what they say has been the president’s broken promise.

Timed to the Jan. 20 anniversary of Obama’s inauguration, they’re planning to travel in vans for a mega-protest planned in San Francisco at the federal building. (more…)

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Hobos to Street People Exhibit Opens in Bakersfield

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

hobosbakersfieldThe Bakersfield Museum of Art is hosting the exhibition Hobos to Street People from December 10, 2009 to February 21, 2010. It is an important and a rare thing for museums to address issues of poverty. Here we are in the worst recession since the Depression, and the majority of museums (at least in the San Francisco Bay Area) are doing fashion shows. If art is to have any connection to society, it must demonstrate that connection in exhibitions like this. For the issue of homelessness this is particularly true because the primary reaction to homelessness, is to pretend it doesn’t exist, or to make it disappear by criminalizing it. And here a museum is holding it up and saying, look this is a serious issue that needs to be understood and effectively addressed. (more…)

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The Homeless Are Wherever Jobs Vanish

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

orlinskyHACKENSACK, N.J. - While she was married and raising two daughters in the New Jersey suburbs, Penny Banach was steadily employed, her income providing ballast for the family. After a divorce in which her husband, who owned an automotive business, gained custody of the girls, Ms. Banach moved in with her father, taking care of him and living rent-free so she could pay child support.

But after her father died, which hit her hard, she said, and she lost her job as an administrative assistant at a software company a year ago, she entered a steep decline. Struggling with mounting bills and depression, by February she was homeless, bunking in an ostensibly temporary shelter, a dingy, trailer-like structure that has stood in the shadow of the county government complex in Hackensack for 25 years. (more…)

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