Homeless Families Increasing, U.S. Finds

7-11-2009 National:

WASHINGTON — Several years of progress in reducing the number of chronically homeless people ended last year, a study released Thursday by the Department of Housing and Urban Development shows.

While the numbers of individual homeless people remained relatively flat, the number of people in families that were homeless rose by 9 percent from Oct. 1, 2007, to Sept. 30, 2008, the report found.

Last year, the Bush administration reported a decrease of nearly 30 percent in the number of chronically homeless from 2005 to 2007, in part because of financing intended to provide housing for homeless people with addictions and disabilities. Family homelessness also decreased almost 20 percent during that time.

The report released Thursday showed that 1.6 million people lived in transitional housing or in a shelter in 2008, slightly more than in the previous year. But families now make up about one-third of that number.

“So I guess the good news is that homelessness didn’t go way up,” said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a nonprofit group. “The bad news is that since it had been going down, this is a change in the wrong direction.”

In a news conference on Thursday, the housing secretary, Shaun Donovan, emphasized the need to continue to focus on chronic homelessness. “But I do think we also need to advance strategies around homeless families and to increase funding for homeless families,” Mr. Donovan said.

The department released $1.2 billion of stimulus money on Thursday to be used for services like rent relief and housing relocation for the homeless.

The report also found that the percentage of homeless people who used residential programs in suburban areas increased to 32 percent in 2008 from 23 percent in 2007.

“I think that the stimulus money is coming at the right time,” said Michael Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit group. “Our homeless infrastructure is really overwhelmed right now. Our shelters are full. We’re not set up to take many more people, and that’s why keeping people in their homes is the ultimate solution.”

Mr. Donovan said that the full effects of the economic crisis on homelessness were yet to be determined. “This data, given the timing of it, does not reflect the full brunt of the economic crisis and the housing crisis that we’ve been through,” he said.

Ms. Roman said homelessness tended to be a lagging indicator of an economic crisis.

“We wouldn’t necessarily have expected to be seeing any significant impacts from the recession until next year, and the next year,” she said. “So it’s a little disturbing to see the trends are already starting to reverse.” ..Source.. by ANDREA FULLER