U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson told a gathering of real estate editors that there is no housing bubble, and denied that homelessness rose in the initial years of the Bush administration. Jackson addressed the editors at the group's national conference last week. Real estate editors picked up the "Bubble Story" and left the Secretary unscathed regarding his claims about homelessness.
In fact, over the past year, more than 3 million men, women, and children were homeless. In 2004, the demand for shelter rose 14%, according to a survey released in December 2004 by the U.S. Conference of Mayors on hunger and homelessness.
And even more Americans are at risk of homelessness. A January 2001 report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that 4.9 million low-income American households had worst case housing needs, paying more than 50% of their income on rent, while HUD estimates that this figure should be no more than 30%.
A report issued in December, 2004, titled UNUSED BUT STILL USEFUL: ACQUIRING FEDERAL PROPERTY TO SERVE HOMELESS PEOPLE: A Report by the Housing Program of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty:
"This nation continues to struggle with the ever-growing problem of homelessness. Between 2.5 and 3.5 million men, women, and children experience homelessness over the course of a year. On any given night, more than 800,000 Americans are homeless. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ 2003 report, requests for emergency shelter in the 25 cities studied rose by an average of 13 percent over 2002. On average, 30 percent of requests for emergency shelter went unmet during the same period."
The U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed 25 major cities in 2003 and issued findings that included:
During the past year requests for emergency shelter increased in the survey cities by an average of 13 percent, with 80 percent of the cities registering an increase. Requests for shelter by homeless families alone increased by15 percent, with 88 percent of the cities reporting an increase.
An average of 30 percent of the requests for emergency shelter by homeless people overall and 33 percent of the requests by homeless families alone are estimated to have gone unmet during the last year. In 84 percent of the cities, emergency shelters may have to turn away homeless families due to lack of resources; in72 percent they may also have to turn away other homeless people.
People remain homeless an average of 5 months in the survey cities. Sixty percent of the cities said that the length of time people are homeless increased during the last year.
Odd that during Republican administrations, homelessness articles abound. But during a Democrat's stewardship, nary a peep. Hmmm.
Posted by: Herb | June 07, 2005 at 11:20 AM
What's odder is that during this administration all of the online statistical resources regarding homelessness have been deactivated at Health & Human Services AND HUD. Do this: Google the topic and click on those HHS links...they're all dead!
All other qualified sources of information point to a marked increase in homelessness, and a Secretary of HUD is flatly denying it. Considering the behaviour of the administration, it's probably not that odd, after all.
Where do homeless articles abound? There was a group of real estate editors from all across the nation who met last week, and nary a one had anything to offer on the subject that I could find after Googling my brains out.
During Clinton's term there was actually a lot of outreach, especially in NYC, thanks to Mayor Giuliani, who made an unprecendented commitment to the homeless.
Posted by: Frances Flynn Thorsen | June 07, 2005 at 02:07 PM
A good resource apart from the NLCHP is the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The San Francisco Chronicle has covered homelessness in significant detail -- though often treating homelessness as an individual behavior problem rather than a symptom of the impersonally overpriced local housing market. This search should bring out some of the recent coverage.
The Chronicle's searchable online archive goes back to 1995 so it should be possible to read the paper's homelessness coverage from the latter years of the Clinton Administration.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam | June 09, 2005 at 12:12 AM
I've been looking up HHS sites on homelessness.
The report, "Homelessness: Programs and the People they Serve," is still available linked from this HHS site, as are several other reports giving statistics about homelessness as of the late Clinton Administration. The January 2000 report titled "America's Homeless II" is no longer at HHS, but HHS suggests searching at the Urban Institute and the report is available there.
At a quick glance the HHS "Home Page on Homelessness" does not otherwise seem to have much data for the years since 2000 but I don't see dead links either.
What Google search are you using?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam | June 10, 2005 at 07:25 PM