English Eighth Hour Spring 2011

et specific sub-populations (such as veterans or women), and their inclusion or exclusion may skew the overall values in particular questions. This report does not include or purport to extrapolate about persons that are served by “victim service providers” including rape crisis centers, battered women’s shelters, domestic violence transitional housing programs, and other programs whose primary mission is to provide services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

1 Families are defined as any household that includes at least one adult over 18 years old and one child who is younger than 18 years old. All other persons, including those in multi-person households consisting of only adults or only children, are reported as single individuals.

2 Other factors, such as nightly counts that far exceeded the reported number of beds in the community, may also have caused data to have been excluded from the AHAR.

Plan to house homeless vets and chronically homeless gains wide support

L.A. County and city officials, law enforcement, social service and housing providers, philanthropists and community leaders pledge support for the five-year plan developed by a group of business leaders.

a plan that aims to get all homeless veterans and the chronically homeless off the streets of Los Angeles County within five years.

Official: LA County Can House 12,000 Homeless By 2016

At-risk population estimated at 48,000

The county’s homeless population is estimated to be 48,000, and a recent study by United Way of Los Angeles’ Business Leaders Task Force found that it was 40 percent cheaper to house the homeless, rather than to leave them the streets, where they often become ill, or become unstable and get arrested or abused.

they came. About 14 to 18 percent of homeless adults in Los Angeles County are not U.S. citizens compared with 29% of adults overall. A high percentage - as high as 20 percent - are veterans.

African Americans make up approximately half of the Los Angeles County homeless population

According to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center, an estimated 254,000 men, women and children experience homelessness in Los Angeles County during some part of the year and approximately 82,000 people are homeless on any given night. Unaccompanied youth, especially in the Hollywood area, are estimated to make up from 4,800 to 10,000 of these.

f course, simply getting people off the streets doesn't mean St. Louis has solved the problem of homelessness - a complex social ailment with a variety of dee

mplex social ailment with a variety of deep

Of course, simply getting people off the streets doesn't mean St. Louis has solved the problem of homelessness - a complex social ailment with a variety of deep-rooted causes. But the strides the city has made are remarkable. 'What's been done in St. Louis is very innovative and deserves to be replicated," says Michael Mayer, director of programs for the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

The 54 scholars involved in the January 2007 study, including us, recently identified nine indicators to measure progress on combating homelessness in the county. Here's what we found. * There is still not enough affordable housing. For instance, the city's general housing plan called for 4,000 units to be built annually between 2001 and 2006, but since 2001, the city actually has lost more than 11,000 affordable units. * Supportive housing remains scarce. Such housing provides healthcare, drug treatment, mental health services and counseling for people with special needs, such as a disability. According to the Homeless Services Authority, there is a shortage of 36,000 permanent supportive units in the county. To put it another way, for every bed that becomes available, there are 11 people who want it. * Emergency and transitional housing and services are in short supply. The county is short 5,000 emergency beds and 14,000 transitional beds in hospitals and shelters. For every emergency bed, there are 16 people who need it; for every transitional bed, nine people are waiting.

* Government health and welfare programs remain inadequate. For more than 25 years, general relief, the county's last-resort program for unemployed and disabled people, has been $221 a month -- $2,652 a year -- for a single adult, far below the federal poverty level of $10,400 for a one-person household. Not surprisingly, almost two- thirds of general-relief recipients end up homeless. Making matters worse, MediCal and Medicare payments, as well as those from CalWORKS, the state's welfare program, are reaching fewer and fewer homeless adults and children in part because of tightening eligibility standards. * More than half the homeless receive food stamps, the most important federal emergency food program. Typically, however, food stamps, which are distributed once a month, last only 2 1/2 weeks. More than half of general-relief recipients skip meals or reduce meal size because they lack money, according to a survey by Los Angeles County's Department of Public Social Services. * Although many homeless people are employed and are employable, their pay is far below what L.A. County defines as a living wage -- $11.84 an hour. Unfortunately, job-training programs cannot offset this market reality.

* L.A.'s respect for the civil liberties of homeless people remains disgraceful. In 2006, the city and the Los Angeles Police Department instituted the Safer City Initiative, which combined aggressive policing against drug dealing, prostitution and thievery on skid row with more social services for those in need. The promised services never materialized, but more than 18,000 skid row residents have been cited or arrested since the program began in September 2006, most often for petty offenses such as littering or crosswalk violations. * Most municipalities in L.A. County spend less than 1% of their operating budgets on homeless services or housing. The result is that the burden of caring for the homeless disproportionately falls on cities, such as Los Angeles, that provide services. Unfortunately, this has not changed since January 2007, and the lack of a regionwide commitment to alleviating homelessness remains an impediment to success. * Political leadership to combat homelessness has improved somewhat. A new leader at the Homeless Services Authority moved rapidly to increase the agency's effectiveness. The county's Project 50, a program that borrows from New York City's successful approaches to homelessness, pledged to put 50 chronically homeless people into supportive housing within 100 days. So far, more than 30 of the hardest-to-house people have shelter. And despite its fiscal travails, the city last year succeeded in amassing $50 million from diverse sources for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, including $8 million of its own funds. This year, however, the city will make no contribution.

Both homeless and housed poor mothers averaged 29 years old and were accompanied by two or three children. Three-fourths of both the homeless and housed families had income below the poverty level, and both groups expended almost two-thirds of their income on housing. Mothers in homeless families more commonly reported spousal abuse (35 vs 16 percent), child abuse (28 vs 10 percent), drug use (43 vs. 30 percent), or mental health problems (14 vs 6 percent) and weaker support networks. Homeless mothers more commonly came from homes where their parents abused drugs or alcohol (49 vs 34 percent) or more commonly lived outside the home or in foster care (35 vs 25 percent).

Burdens of increasing housing costs and family dysfunction among housed poor families place many at risk for homelessness.

Both homeless and housed poor mothers averaged 29 years old and were accompanied by two or three children.

Count of homeless people in L.A. County to begin Tuesday night

Count of homeless people in L.A. County to begin Tuesday night

The L.A. city-county count, which covers about 4,000 square miles, is the nation’s largest.  It begins Tuesday in the San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles, then moves to West Los Angeles and the South Bay Cities on Wednesday, and finishes Thursday in the Antelope Valley, San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, the Los Angeles metropolitan area and South Los Angeles. The 2009 census identified nearly 43,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County, excluding the cities of Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach, which conduct their own counts.  When the results were added from those cities, it was found that more than 48,000 people were homeless on any given night in the county.

Yoball, as he likes to be called, is 59 years old and lives in a small, comfortable one-bedroom apartment in a building where he also works part-time. But for many years, Yoball was homeless; during the day he could be found in a downtown Atlanta park, juggling balls and entertaining passersby with his conversation.

e of 50 in Dallas, Tex. The study concludes that "there has been a significant increase in the 50-59 years of age category. The

rise of homelessness in this age group is consistent with the overall aging of the baby boomers across our nat

HOUSING

Background: Both homelessness and problem gambling are serious public health concerns. Like problem gamblers, homeless individuals suffer more health, mental health, and substance abuse problems than those without such problems. Many problem gamblers experience adverse consequences severe enough to precipitate loss of their jobs, families, and, ultimately, housing. Despite the apparent relationship between problem gambling and homelessness, few studies have evaluated associations between problem gambling and homelessness, particularly among African-Americans.

the ranks of homeless individuals in the county increased 1 percent to 5,750, a far slower pace than one might have expected, given job losses and foreclosures in this economic downturn. About 1,850 people, or about 32 percent of the total, became homeless for the first time last year.

All data are based on unduplicated counts, such that each person is counted only once, regardless of how many different programs the person used.

Data were only included in the national AHAR if HMIS participation rates for a particular category exceeded 50 percent of total beds.

Some programs may target specific sub-populations (such as veterans or women), and their inclusion or exclusion may skew the overall values in particular questions. This report does not include or purport to extrapolate about persons that are served by “victim service providers” including rape crisis centers, battered women’s shelters, domestic violence transitional housing programs, and other programs whose primary mission is to provide services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.