South Carolina city makes being homeless illegal

South Carolina’s capital city is dishing out some southern discomfort following a controversial decision to criminalize its homeless.

On Aug. 13, the Columbia City Council approved a plan that effectively makes homelessness illegal in parts of the city. The proposal forces those who sleep outdoors to be sent to a shelter on the outskirts of town. Those who don’t comply will be rounded up and forced to leave or sent to the slammer.

“It’s basically a choice between two kinds of jail,” Jake Maguire, spokesman for Community Solutions’ 100,000 Homes Campaign, told Fox News. “There’s jail and then there’s the shelter.”

He added, “Once you get there, you can’t come and go. You are basically brought to a place where you are expected to stay. If you want to go back downtown, you have to get approval for them to shuttle you back.”

But Councilman Cameron Runyan, the man behind the proposal, believes moving Columbia’s homeless shelter 15 miles from the city’s downtown area can cut crime and draw in more businesses and opportunities.

“If we don’t take care of this big piece of our community and our society, it will erode the entire foundation of what we’re trying to build in this city,” Runyan told the council. “What I see is a giant risk to business.” Read more >>

New York's Homelessness Worst Since The Great Depression

State and local governments nationwide have struggled to accommodate a homeless population that has changed in recent years - now including large numbers of families with young children. As the WSJ reports, more than 21,000 children - an unprecedented 1% of the city's youth - slept each night in a city shelter in January, an increase of 22% in the past year; as homeless families now spend more than a year in a shelter, on average, for the first time since 1987.

New York City has seen one of the steepest increases in homeless families in the past decade, advocates said, growing 73% since 2002, and "is facing a homeless crisis worse than any time since the Great Depression."

Homeless advocates said the Obama administration has focused on more visible problems, such as those sleeping on the streets, taking resources away from families. The steep rise has reignited questions about whether New York's economic turnaround of the past two decades has helped the city's poorest residents as they note (despite today's Dow record highs), "the economy is nowhere near where it was." Read more >>

Shelters seeing more elderly homeless

On the afternoon of Jan. 17, when the temperature dipped below freezing, a family from Kingman drove to Wichita, dumped a 78-year-old relative at the Inter-Faith Inn homeless shelter and quickly drove away.

They left her on the sidewalk with her wheelchair and a few suitcases.

“She wasn’t crying,” case manager Amanda Merritt recalled. “But she was upset about the situation. She said they were kicking her out.”

They left so quickly that no one from the shelter was able to talk to them, Merritt said. They didn’t even knock on the shelter door to make sure there was room at the inn.

“That’s unbelievable that someone would do that,” said Janis Cox, co-chairwoman of Advocates to End Chronic Homelessness, an area faith-based volunteer group.

Shelter staff took the woman, who was in poor health, inside. To accommodate her frailties, the staff hustled to set her up with a room on the ground floor. Read more >>

Family Homelessness Is On The Rise

WASHINGTON - In a region with seven of the 10 most affluent counties in the country, family homelessness is on the rise — straining services, filling shelters and forcing parents and their children to sleep in cars, parks, and bus and train stations. One mother recently bought $14 bus tickets to and from New York so she and her 2-year-old son would have a safe place to sleep — on the bus.

As cold weather descends on the region, the need will become increasingly acute, advocates say. That will be especially true in the District, where continued fallout from the recession and lack of affordable housing has contributed to an 18 percent increase in family homelessness this year over last.

The city has recently come under fire for turning away families seeking help as 118 overflow beds that were added last winter at D.C. General — the city’s main family homeless shelter — sit empty. A few places have recently opened up, but 500 families — some of whom are living with relatives or friends — are on a waiting list for housing. Read more >>

Panhandlers now line NY city streets

New York City has a rising homeless population; it is up nearly 18 percent since 2011. Panhandlers now line city streets, including in Union Square. "I was married, had a wife, house, car, the whole nine yards, middle class," Paul Santo said, "and lost everything."

Santo said he now lives just off 14th Street. Every day he puts up a sign asking for cash. "I've got appointments to try and better my life," he said. "Just getting on a train is $2.25." Amy Moreno, a panhandler, said: "I ask for donations. I want to rent a room to get off the street before winter."

Moreno said she sleeps in Union Square twice a week. The other nights, she stays with friends. She makes bracelets for those who give her donations. "It goes towards the beads, it goes towards my daily food intake," she said.

Patrick Markee, of the Coalition for the Homeless, said: "A lot of times those folks are a couple of paychecks away from becoming homeless. You might see people panhandling who are still in a precarious housing situation, they might just need those few extra dollars to get by." Read more >>

19,000 kids in NY City's homeless shelters

In the past year alone, the total shelter population has risen by 17% and the number of children has risen by 18%, city stats show. Mayor Bloomberg said recently that the number of homeless children was increasing because of the recession.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a mayoral hopeful, has supported using public housing apartments and federal housing vouchers to move people out of shelters. The city, meanwhile, has opened at least nine new shelters this summer.

“Since just May, more than 2,000 children have become homeless,” said Ralph da Costa Nunez, CEO of the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness. “If the trend continues, we will surely see more than 20,000 children living in shelters by Christmas — a gift that nobody wants.” Read more >>

Hard Times Generation: Families living in cars

This bus is a retired unit that has been customized. 

Never has unemployment been so high for so long. And as a result, more than 16 million kids are living in poverty -- that's the most since 1962. It's worst where the construction industry collapsed. And one of those places is central Florida.

We went there 16 months ago to meet families who'd become homeless for the first time in their lives. So many were living day-to-day that school buses had to change their routes to pick up all the kids living in cheap motels. We called the story "Hard Times Generation."

Then eight months ago, we went back to see how things had changed. We found that some families are losing their grip on the motels and discovering that the homeless shelters are full. Where do they go then? Well, they keep up appearances by day and try to stay out of sight at night -- holding on to one another in a hidden America, a place you wouldn't notice unless you ran into the people that we met in the moments before dawn. Read more >>

Cities Criminalize Being Homeless Across Country

Philadelphia recently banned outdoor feeding of people in city parks. Denver has begun enforcing a ban on eating and sleeping on property without permission. And this month, lawmakers in Ashland, Ore., will consider strengthening the town's ban on camping and making noise in public.

And the list goes on: Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, Oklahoma City and more than 50 other cities have previously adopted some kind of anti-camping or anti-food-sharing laws, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

The ordinances are pitting city officials against homeless advocates. City leaders say they want to improve the lives of homeless people and ensure public safety, while supporters of the homeless argue that such regulations criminalize homelessness and make it harder to live on the nation's streets. Read more >>

13,000 Greeks Homeless in Athens

Press TV
A new report says around 13,000 Greek people are homeless in the capital Athens and the number of the poor in the recession-hit country is on the rise.

The report by the charity organization, Praksis, which was published on Thursday says in the Greek capital of over four million, around 11,500 Greeks are living in abandoned buildings, while 1500 others live on the streets.

Ten Survival Tips for Life on the Street

With more than 650,000 Americans exhausting all their unemployment benefits by September, America's streets will begin to swell with even greater numbers of the homeless and destitute. Learn what you -- or someone you may know -- need to do to survive on the street.

Picture the Homeless, a social justice organization founded and led by homeless people in New York City, has joined The Nation to come up with a list of things you need to know to live on the street--and ways we can all build movements to challenge the stigma of homelessness and put forward an alternative vision of community.

 1 Be prepared to be blamed for your circumstances, no matter how much they may be beyond your control. Think of ways to disabuse the public of common misconceptions. Don't internalize cruelty or condescension. Let go of your pride--but hold on to your dignity.

 2 There is no private space to which you may retreat. You are on display 24/7. Learn to travel light. Store valuables in a safe place, only carrying around what you really need: ID and documents for accessing services, a pen, etc. You can check e-mail and read at the library. You can get a post office box for a fee or use general delivery (free).

 3 Learn the best bathroom options, where you won't be rushed, turned away or harassed. Find restrooms where it's clean enough to put your stuff down, the stalls are big enough to change in and there's hot water so you can wash up. If you're in New York City go to Restrooms in New York.

 4 It's difficult to have much control over when, where and what you eat, so learn soup kitchen schedules and menus. Carry with you nuts, peanut butter or other foods high in protein. Click here to find a list of soup kitchens by state.

 5 Food and clothing are easier to find than a safe place to sleep--the first truth of homelessness is sleep deprivation. Always have a blanket. Whenever possible, sleep in groups with staggered schedules, so you can look out for one another, prioritizing children's needs over those of adults.

 6 Know your rights! Knowing constitutional amendments, legal precedents and human rights provisions can help you, even if they're routinely violated. In New York, for example, a 2003 court-ordered settlement strictly forbids selective enforcement of the law against the homeless. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement offers another resource, and the ACLU has cards, brochures, fact sheets and films.

 7 Learn police patterns and practices. Be polite and calm to cops, even when they don't give the same respect. Support initiatives demanding independent police accountability. Link with groups from overlapping populations of nonhomeless and homeless people (i.e., black, Latino, LGBT groups) that are fighting police brutality and building nonpolice safety projects, like the Audre Lorde Project's Safe OUTside the System in Brooklyn. Organize your own CopWatch--and photograph, videotape and publicize instances of police abuse. Consider and support models like the Los Angeles Community Action Network or the People's Self Defense Campaign of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in Brooklyn.

 8 The First Amendment protects your right to solicit aid (panhandling), especially if your pitch or sign is a statement rather than a request. To succeed, be creative, funny, engaging ("I didn't get a bailout!"). Find good, high-traffic spots where the police won't bother you.

 9 Housing is a human right! Squat. Forge coalitions with nonhomeless but potentially displaced people in this era of mass foreclosures. Support United Workers in Baltimore, the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco, the Nashville Homeless Power Project. Learn about campaigns against homelessness in other nations, including the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil and the Anti-Eviction Campaign in South Africa.

10 Don't go it alone! Always be part of an informal network of trust and mutual aid. Start your own organization, with homeless people themselves shaping the fight for a better life and world. Check out the Picture the Homeless Blog for news, updates and reports on homelessness in NY.

CONCEIVED by WALTER MOSLEY with research by Rae Gomes

Foreclosed on Families Live in Hotels

According to a joint report by four of the largest U.S. homeless advocacy groups, almost 80 percent of homeless service providers report foreclosures have rendered many families homeless in cities across the nation, and because homeless shelters are at full capacity, families are forced to live in hotels, paid for by vouchers from states and non profits. Jason Szep with Reuters reports that in Massachusetts, homeless shelters are at capacity. State law requires temporary accommodation for those without shelter, leading authorities to place 830 families, including 1,125 children, in 39 motels -- an unprecedented number.

"This truly is the highest we have ever seen it," said Nancy Paladino, director of the family team for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless. "The hotel owners will tell you it has increased. The homeless service providers and the school officials will say we know there are more people living in hotels and putting their kids in school because that is the address they are giving us."

In Phoenix, writes Szep, demand for emergency accommodation is swamping available services as the recession and spiraling foreclosures turn even more families out of their homes. One nonprofit bought two former hotels -- a Days Inn and a Super 8 -- in a gritty downtown neighborhood to provide emergency accommodation for homeless and low income families. When the $23 million project is finished in September, it will be able to house 156 families, up from 112 now.

"We've seen a whole new subset of homeless families due to job loss and foreclosures, and our waiting list has doubled in the past year," said Nichole Barnes, chief fund development officer of the UMOM New Day Centers. "Some were previous homeowners. Due to the housing market out here, they'd got into a mortgage with a flexible interest rate. Some were working full time, but lost their jobs, went through their savings trying to save their home, and then found themselves without a home due to foreclosure," she said.