Joyce is Back in Action!!!

Here are a few interesting stories Joyce found while surfing the net about homelessness.

Food insecurity and homelessness continue to plague many of the nation's largest cities, according to a new report released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Across 22 of the cities surveyed — including Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Philadelphia; and San Francisco — the amount of emergency food assistance increased by 3 percent between Sept. 1, 2014, and Aug. 31, 2015. In addition, homelessness increased across all of the cities by an average 1.6 percent over the same period. 

Many community college students, who often balance jobs, families and studies, struggle with paying for food and housing, according to a new study. A survey of more than 4,000 undergraduates at 10 community colleges determined that half of all community college students are struggling with food and/or housing insecurity, said researchers at the Wisconsin HOPE Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Hidden behind the government district in downtown Phoenix sits a cluster of homeless shelters, food banks and clinics. Of the services offered, few help those participate in one of the most basic civil rights of American citizens — the right to vote. Both local and national election processes present the difficult tasks of finding a ballot, getting to a voting place, accessing election information and acquiring the necessary identification to register and cast a vote. 

A 24-year-old homeless woman who cops said had been living in her car with her 3-year-old daughter in Las Vegas for about a week was charged Monday in the automobile rampage that killed one and wounded at least 35 others Sunday night.  (For members we have a short piece about could this happen in Cleveland in the Member Hub by logging into the website.)

Students in the College of Health and Human Development often find careers in fields that serve the homeless. Whether they are administrators of health care facilities, managers of social services, physicians, counselors, or any number of other service-related careers, students will likely, at some point in their career, work with people wrestling with homelessness.  For this reason, the college is committed to helping students prepare to serve those who are homeless with care and compassion.  

Front Street Community Health Center in Juneau has a new permanent nurse practitioner after a year of temporary medical providers. The health clinic, which caters primarily to people who are homeless, has gone through a lot of growing pains since it separated from Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium two years ago.  

Homelessness in Hawaii has grown in recent years, leaving the state with 487 homeless per 100,000 people, the nation's highest rate per capita, ahead of New York and Nevada, according to federal statistics. The increase, driven by years of rising costs in the island chain, low wages and limited land, thrust the image of people sleeping on beaches alongside the state's famed one of a relaxing tropical paradise.

Though it has made much progress, the Department of Veterans Affairs is likely to miss its target on two ambitious goals: ending veteran homelessness in 2015 and ending the backlog in disability claims.  The latest count available showed about 50,000 homeless veterans on a single night in January 2014.

To address the crisis of homeless families in Central Florida — where one of every 17 children spent at least part of last year living in a motel, shelter, the family car or someone else's home — leaders called Tuesday for a major increase in affordable housing and support from politicians in Tallahassee. "While some of those kids do have a roof over their heads, the fact that they may be doubled up with family members or living in a one-room hotel with their entire family — that's not sufficient to create the kind of self-esteem and security they need," Jacobs said.

November was National Youth Runaway Prevention Month, and one local man was going to do all that he can to raise awareness. Kyle Wales was approached by Youth Services and Chiselbox to help spread the word for the upcoming Wheeling Sleep Out, an annual event to raise community support and funds for Homeless Youth in the Ohio Valley. 

More than 500,000 people  a quarter of them children  were homeless in the United States this year amid scarce affordable housing across much of the nation, according to a study released on Thursday. Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Oregon and Hawaii have all recently declared emergencies over the rise of homelessness, and on Thursday Seattle's mayor toured a new encampment for his city's dispossessed.

The Incarcerated Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 732 has created care packages for the local homeless population and those who have lost their homes, complete with a sleeping bag, garment bag, mittens, toiletries and a mat woven from nonbiodegradable plastic shopping bags to keep them from sleeping on wet ground.  

By Joyce Robinson

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