Sea to shining sea cares less, cements homelessness

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett for Today’s Insight News

“Around the world more than 2.5 billion children, women and men  live in grinding poverty on less than $2 a day, the UN reports. “Such extreme poverty results in chronic hunger and malnutrition, preventable diseases, environmental degradation, low literacy rates and countless other social, public health, economic and political problems.”

National Coalition for the Homeless tallies U. S. homeless/poverty at

• • 1.35 million children annually estimated homeless
• • 200,000 children daily homeless
• • 150,000 veterans homeless
• • 600,000 veterans annually will experience homelessness
• • Families with children one of the fastest growing segments of the homeless
• • Families’ requests for emergency assistance in some cities spiked in one year by 15 percent

 “Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked.

• • In 2007, 12.5 percent of the U.S. population (37,300,000 million people) lived in poverty.
• • The official poverty rate in 2007 was statistically undifferentiated from 2006 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2007).
• • Children are overrepresented: 24.8 percent of the total population but 35.7 percent of people in poverty

CARIBBEAN  COMING RAINS  POST-EARTHQUAKE
Private owners hold and hoard the lion’s share of Haiti’s land while Haitians are homeless.

Most of the homeless people are in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, which “has neither appropriate nor available space for massive relocation. The government has identified several sites totaling 6 million square meters (some 1,500 acres) for relocating people to the perimeters of the capital but most of the land is under private ownership, not the government. Success of negotiations between private and public sources will determine whether enough land will be available for use by currently homeless people.”

Haiti’s government currently “needs 40,000 dwellings for 200,000 people currently homeless in flood- or mudslide-prone areas or in the most congested tent cities,” correspondent Kathie Klarreich reports for the Christian Science Monitor; and the critical question is whether the government can obtain for the people the necessary housing before the start of the rainy season in early April.

U.S. West coast with homes want the homeless out of sight, out of mind.

Homeless camps have grown “larger and more visible particularly along Washington’s Woodland and Chehalis Western hike and bicycle trails. “Many of the camps are on private property.” Owners called on the public sector to act in their behalf. The Seattle Times and wire services report Olympia Police Lieutenant Bill Wilson saying a process has been put in force “to address homeless encampments in our parks.” Invited to enforce government action against the homeless are the departments of law enforcement, parks, community planning and development, and public works. What they are doing, a Bread & Roses volunteer told the press, is “reshuffling the problem.”

Wall Street East counts but shirks cause/cure of homelessness

New York City’s Department of Homeless Services on Friday announced the results of its survey on New York City’s “street homeless.”

• • 3,111 people were estimated in January 2010 to be homeless living on New York City streets
• • 783 more than the homeless on New York City streets in 2009
• • 1 in 2,688 of documented population in the home of Wall Street are estimated to be homeless

 Sea to shining sea, we see and are smart enough to cure homelessness. We just don't care.

Sources

End poverty ─ MDGs 2015, The UN works for people and the planet, http://www.un.org/works/sub2.asp?lang=en&s=17
National Coalition for the Homeless released a new report in March Tent Cities in America Pacific Coast Report, http://www.nationalhomeless.org/
National Coalition for the homeless, July 2009 report, htttp://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html
Haiti races to house post-quake homeless before the rainy season (Correspondent Kathie Klarreich) Christian Science Monitor, March 21, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0321/Haiti-races-to-house-post-quake-homeless-before-the-rainy-season
“Olympia homeless on notice to clear out” (The Olympian, Matt Batcheldor) The Seattle Times.  March 21, 2010, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011406775_homeless22.html
“Olympia readies to clean out homeless camps,” March 21, 2010 (AP), http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_olympia_homeless_camps.html
The Olympian, http://www.theolympian.com
NYC Department of Homeless Services Announces Results Of Annual Street Homeless Survey, March 19, 2010, detailed information on methodology and results of survey: DHS website, www.nyc.gov/dhs; http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/html/press/pr031910.shtml