Free Republic

Homelessness increased in the last year in the city and county of Los Angeles, leaving nearly 47,000 people in the streets and shelters despite an intensive federal push that slashed the ranks of homeless veterans by nearly a third, according to figures released Wednesday by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Nearly two-thirds of the homeless people tallied countywide, or 28,000, were in the city of Los Angeles, representing an 11% jump in January from a year earlier, a report from the agency stated. The county's homeless population grew 5.7%. The mayor's proposed budget earmarks $138 million for services as...

Things were looking up for Roy Burress. After a few years living on the streets, he moved into a Santa Rosa motel converted to homeless and veteran housing where he started volunteering with an eye toward full-time employment. Then financial disaster struck. Burress was pulled over by the CHP for driving in the carpool lane on Highway 101. He was slapped with a $500 ticket. Fearing he would never be able to pay it and could lose his license, Burress turned to Sonoma County’s new homeless court, where Commissioner Anthony Wheeldin allowed him to work off the steep fine with...

For over a decade, architecture students at Rural Studio, Auburn University's design-build program in a tiny town in West Alabama, have worked on a nearly impossible problem. How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford, but that anyone would want—while also providing a living wage for the local construction team that builds it? In January, after years of building prototypes, the team finished their first pilot project in the real world. Partnering with a commercial developer outside Atlanta, in a tiny community called Serenbe, they built two one-bedroom houses, with materials that cost...

A 17-year-old homeless "runaway" was arrested on a murder charge in connection with the killing of a University of Texas freshman this week, Austin police said Friday. The suspect — identified as Meechaiel Criner — was arrested Thursday and booked in the Travis County Jail, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a news conference. Student Haruka Weiser, an 18-year-old dance and theater major, was last seen alive on the Austin campus Sunday night before she was reported missing the following morning. Her body was discovered near a creek on Tuesday, and investigators declared her death a homicide — setting...

Rotterdam studio Kraaijvanger has designed a modular kitchen and bathroom unit that can be inserted into an empty building to turn it into a residence (+ slideshow). Called the Hub, the boxy 15-square-metre unit is designed by Kraaijvanger to be installed into almost any type of building, from disused office blocks to warehouses, as long as the structure has electricity and water connections. Each module contains a kitchen, bathroom and toilet, as well as facilities including heating, a sound system and a Wi-Fi connection – providing residents with almost everything they need to live comfortably. It is also possible to...

The city of Portland, Oregon, has set aside $30,000 to pay for bus fares for homeless individuals to leave town. The program, called Homeward Bound, is similar to programs offered in other cities. It is intended to help solve the homelessness problem in the city, which is so serious a state of emergency was declared last fall....

Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed closing the family homeless shelter at DC General due to its inadequate conditions, and replacing them with smaller shelters in 7 of the City's 8 wards. While many agree with closing DC General in its current form, the Mayor's plan to relocate the 260 affected families is irresponsible. The Mayor's proposal is unacceptably expensive, lacks oversight and transparency, and most importantly does little to serve the very people it is meant to help. We deserve answers now. Not after the plan is in place and tax dollars are being spent. Ignoring Financial Consequences The cost...

Despite the onslaught of radio and television commercials you consume from supposedly benevolent entities who are doing this for veterans or that for veterans, but the reality appears to be a whole lot different and those who claim to be helping vets (of course, with your charitable donation) don't really want to solve the problem because that would eat into their bottom line.

After making progress in reducing homelessness among veterans, the Obama administration is turning to the larger and more complicated challenge of homelessness among families with young children. In his 2017 budget, to be presented on Tuesday, President Obama will propose spending $11 billion over the next 10 years to fight family homelessness, a phenomenon that is closely linked to the dearth of affordable housing in New York and other big cities. Of that amount, $8.8 billion would go to housing vouchers and $2.2 billion to more short-term assistance. In addition to the $11 billion plan, Mr. Obama is proposing discretionary...

'...Visitors may wonder why one of the wealthiest cities in the world can’t cough up enough money to alleviate homelessness, but, in fact, San Francisco spends tremendous amounts of money on the problem. The city is allocating a record $241 million this fiscal year on homeless services, $84 million more than when Mayor Ed Lee took office in January 2011. But the city struggles to track exactly how all that money is being spent and whether it’s producing results. Eight city departments oversee at least 400 contracts to 76 private organizations, most of them nonprofits, that deal with homelessness. No...

“Just because you live on the street doesn’t mean you don’t have value.” – Ka Lani If you walk into the Coddingtown Starbucks, don’t be surprised to see a man with headphones quietly strumming an electric guitar and jotting down chords in a notebook. Meet Ka Lani, a homeless musician and Santa Rosa Junior College student. With 35 years’ experience playing the guitar, he earns money as a street musician while studying to become a substance abuse counselor. He wasn’t always homeless. In the 1980s he played guitar for The Crypts, a Marin punk rock band who opened for Black...

Three teenagers who were arrested Monday in the shooting deaths of two people at a Seattle homeless encampment called the Jungle are homeless brothers who live in another camp under an overpass. On Tuesday, a King County Juvenile Court judge ordered that the three, ages 13, 16 and 17, remain in custody while prosecutors decide on charges against them. The brothers were each being held on investigation of two counts of felony murder, three counts of first-degree assault and several firearms violations, the county prosecutor’s office said. Jeannine L. Zapata, 45, and James Q. Tran, 33, were killed and three...

Update 10:35 P.M. 1/19/2016 Without warning, dozens of public works employees raided Tent City. "They just coming in and taking all their personal stuff. People's life is in that box that they're throwing in that garbage can. Might mean nothing to nobody else, but it does to them," said Tim Walker. Walker lived in Tent City for years but was recently able to get an apartment through Covenant House. Tuesday, about 30 homeless were camped out on a strip of land which legally belongs to Waste Management. "Who knows what might be in there, your baby pictures, pictures of your...

A Texas woman, wanting to give a homeless guy some reprieve from the cold and a warm place to rest, invited him in to stay the night in her spare bedroom. -snip The 66-year-old woman, whose name was not released, lives alone with her two granddaughters in Houston. With a spare bedroom and a big heart, she offered the space to Thomas Smith, who had no place else to go. Everyone in the house had turned in for the night, or so the woman thought, when she was woken up by what Smith was doing, just after 1:30 a.m. According...

Why must we relegate the homeless, the unemployed, and the poor to ePodments, to tiny homes, to mini-homes, to dwellings made of junkyard scrap and other cheap materials, to dwellings the size of closets? The mark of a civilized society is how well the most helpless are treated—animals, children, the elderly, and those who are homeless. There is always room for improvement. We are plenty generous with people from other countries, but we miss the mark when it comes to helping our own chronic homeless, the veterans, babies in the womb, the elderly, and others who cannot protect themselves. It...

ALBANY, N.Y., Jan. 3 (UPI) -- On Sunday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order require all homeless people to seek shelter when temperatures drop below freezing. The order directs state agencies -- including police, social services and others -- to take "all necessary steps to identify individuals reasonably believed to be homeless and unwilling or unable to find the shelter necessary for safety and health in inclement winter weather, and move such individuals to the appropriate sheltered facilities." The directive goes into effect Tuesday. A 2015 count tallied 88,250 homeless people in New York, statewide -- the...

DENVER (KMGH) - A local nonprofit hit the streets of downtown Denver on Christmas Eve and gave away a thousand free, pre-rolled marijuana joints to the homeless and anyone else who wanted one. "Merry Christmas and a puff puff, New Year's," said one woman who accepted a joint. Nick Dicenzo, the founder of Cannabis Can and the one responsible for handing out the free weed, said they're trying to raise awareness about homelessness and encourage people to donate to their cause. The cause? To raise money to buy several RV's and provide restrooms and showers for those in need. Dicenzo...

..... Holloway's child, who was unhurt in the incident, is in protective custody, Lombardo said. The sheriff said investigators were trying to piece together Holloway's background. In the spring of 2012 Holloway received an award from a career-mentoring nonprofit in Portland for being a role model for high school students, according to The Skanner, a community website and newspaper published in the Pacific Northwest. The story recounts Holloway describing her mother as having "turned to alcohol, leaving Lakeisha to fend for herself." Holloway was homeless during her freshman year in high school, according to the newspaper, but had since graduated....

Vice President Joe Biden once compared it to a "Third World country" - but LaGuardia Airport has become so riddled with homeless that it could now even make some of those nations look good. The number of derelicts living at the airport has increased dramatically in the past year, turning the main terminal into the city's most popular de facto flophouse, where they sleep, eat and wash up while competing for space with passengers, according to Port Authority sources.

Elvis Summers has made it a full time job to put a roof over the head of some of Los Angeles’ homeless people by building tiny homes for them. He is helping people in need before the holidays so that they can have a home before the temperatures drop. Summers expressed fear that without shelter, people who were living on the streets would die...