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| Changing Faces of the Homeless |
Rosalind Thomas said it best when she said, "...The programs and people are out there. It's just a matter of bringing them all together." That is one of my goals for The Attleboro Zone, to be that one place online where people can find any and every program, business, church, event, organization or resource there is to find in the Attleboros and surrounding areas. This article is by KATE MANBERG FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE
Homelessness is on the rise in Massachusetts, and no longer reflects long-held stereotypes, pointing to a desperate need for affordable housing as rents keep soaring.
"I think the face of homelessness is changing. People aren't showing up in rags anymore," said Dawn Chabot, enrichment coordinator for the Family Resource Center in Attleboro.
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The Family Resource Center, a division of Community Care Services, is one of few family homeless shelters in Southeastern Massachusetts.
The residential-style home houses seven families and takes in only families referred from the Department of Transitional Assistance. Those passing through its doors are families or pregnant women down on their luck and unable to go anywhere else.
Other shelters in the state, such as Father Bill's MainSpring in Brockton, take anyone, including individuals, with or without a referral.
"People you least expect come through those doors," said Rosalind Thomas, who became homeless after moving to Massachusetts from Virginia, and finding she could not afford housing here.
"It can happen to any one of us," she said.
In any given year, 420,000 families, including 924,000 children, can find themselves homelessness in the United States, according to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients.
But last year, the Annual Homeless Census found a 13 percent increase in the number of families who were homeless, compared with 2005.
The changing ratio of homeless men to homeless women and children is said by the 2006-2007 Homeless Census to be a direct result of state and federal agency failure to help make affordable public housing accessible.
"When the economy is good for everyone, it's not actually good for everyone," said George Watson, a caseworker for Father Bills MainSpring.
People in the margins who need that extra help are forgotten because everyone assumes there are no homeless people when the economy is good, he said.
But rents are soaring, putting housing out of reach for many lower income Americans, according to the Homeless Census.
The growing shortage of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous rise in poverty are two trends largely responsible for the rise in homelessness over the past 20 to 25 years, the national coalition says.
Couple that with rising unemployment and stagnant wages, and its a recipe for misery.
A recent U.S. Conference of Mayors report found that in every state, far more than the minimum wage is required to afford a one or two-bedroom apartment at 30 percent of a worker's income, the federal definition of affordable housing.
Homeless shelters across the state are seeing the connection between sputtering wages and rising rents because many of the newly homeless are fully employed.
Forty-eight percent of all poor families have at least one adult in the household working, according to the mahomeless Web site (www.mahomeless.org).
"Having a job does not guarantee having enough money to pay rent for many of these people," Chabot said.
Adding to the problem, federal support for low-income housing fell 49 percent from 1980 to 2003, according to a 2005 National Low Income Housing Coalition.
However, programs such as the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless (MCH) work to address the broad economic and social issues that lead to homelessness.
Father Bill's MainSpring and other homeless shelters throughout the state run programs similar to the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless to help get people out of the streets and into permanent housing.
They run a program designed specifically for those facing chronic homelessness, no matter what the reasons, Watson said.
Housing First is a program targeting homelessness of people who have been without permanent shelter for one to three years
"We try to end homelessness, one person at a time," Watson said.
In the Attleboro area, the Homes with Heart program is being run by the Attleboro Area Council of Churches with funding from a federal grant.
The program seeks to get the chronically homeless into apartments and programs to address addictions and to prepare them for independence.
Through the hard work of people at the shelters, some Americans are getting the assistance they need.
Programs such as Housing First, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless and others are helping to move people off the streets and into housing of their own.
"The program worked for me," Rosalind Thomas said. "Now I try to give back what someone gave me by helping those who are currently homeless through Meals on Wheels and Feed America. The programs and people are out there. It's just a matter of bringing them all together."
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Posted on Mar 14, 2008 11:38am by admin
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