Out In The Cold: US Homless

I prevaricated about the bush on running this story, in spite of this and the picture post above appearing within a day or two of each other on the HuffPo.

In fact, if the photo featured here hadn't caught my eye, there wouldn't have been a post at all. But as you might, after seeing the photographs in the previous post, give a little shiver and think, poor bugger.

And in truth,the only reason either post managed to get featured, was due to the Hugo Chavez post below. Now I'm not for a minute trying to compare the US and the Venezuelan situations, that would hardly be fair. Nevertheless it does make you think a little. And perhaps a little more so when US can manage to spend, $1,149,034,217,295 on a war, an illegal one at that, but shows as much regard for the welfare of its own citizens as it does for the citizens of the rest of the world.

$1,149,034,217,295 is the figure according to ICH, and I think that is, one trillion, one hundred and forty nine billion, thirty four million dollars and change.

Federal Homelessness Program Runs Out Of Money As Need Rises

WASHINGTON -- Homelessness has significantly risen in the U.S. as a result of surging foreclosures and joblessness caused by the recession, but a new federal program designed to nudge people back from the brink of life without shelter is on the brink itself.

A new report, released by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty on Jan. 26, found that a homelessness prevention and re-housing program funded by the 2009 stimulus bill needs more money to meet rising need. Instead, the program will likely be left out of the new federal budget.

In response to the 20 percent increase in foreclosures that occurred from 2008 to 2009, the Department of Housing and Urban Development used $1.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to create the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP), which helps keep people in their apartments by subsidizing their rent.

The program is quickly running out of money, however, and having a number of administrative difficulties trying to keep up with demand. In Detroit, for instance, about 50,000 people filled out applications for only 3,500 grants on the first day the money was available, and a number of major U.S. cities have already used up more than 80 percent of their allotted funds, which were supposed to last until 2012.

When the NLCHP report surveyed local service providers and legal assistance organizations to determine the overall effectiveness of the program, about 61 percent said that "program bureaucracy" resulted in over half of people applying for HPRP not receiving assistance. About half of the respondents said there was no clear appeals process to give people a second chance when their initial application was denied, and in many communities, eligible families were not even aware of the program because of a lack of outreach efforts.

Sheila Crowley, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told HuffPost she is not surprised the program is having difficulties meeting demand because it was only supposed to be an emergency band-aid for victims of the recession.

"The program was basically created fairly quickly, and the idea was to put some cash into the hands of the service providers in communities who are there when people knock on the door and say, 'I'm about to be evicted,'" she said. "It's a program that was seen as a one-shot deal in response to what, in 2009, people hoped was a short-term crisis. Here we are two years later, and unemployment is still high, and foreclosures continue, so it's sort of the story of what happens when you do programs like that." more

Now check out the story below.