WASHINGTON — 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…)
CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.
Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps.
With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income. (more…)
The man who led the nation’s homelessness policy for seven years and trumpeted groundbreaking initiatives in San Francisco stood on a street corner the other day confronting the evidence, in the flesh, that the problem is far from solved.
Philip Mangano was walking at Fifth and Mission streets when he came upon Jeffrey Younger, 54, who was selling the homeless-penned Street Sheet newspaper. Younger had a few ragged stubs for teeth. His left foot, clad in a sock, bore a raw gash so infected the foot had turned black. (more…)
MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.
It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.
Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare. (more…)
Connecticut has received nearly $17 million to participate in a national experiment to try to stop homelessness in its tracks.
The federal money is designed to help people before they become homeless — a major shift from the nation’s decadeslong reliance on shelters. The new approach, experts say, spares people from the trauma of uprooting their families and moving into shelters, which often triggers a domino effect that makes it difficult for them to regain their independence.
The state’s allotment — $10.8 million for the state Department of Social Services and $6 million for Hartford, New Britain, Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury — is part of a $1.5 billion Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing program approved as part of the federal stimulus package in February. (more…)