The changing face of homelessness

  • Share

Print this page

Archived in Housing, Poverty and welfare

Tags


Translate this page

HomelessPeople who work with the homeless say they’re seeing more families, more women and children, and more people who were knocked down by a job loss, divorce or domestic violence – or by jobs that paid too little and medical bills or housing that cost too much. They are also seeing more people who have jobs that pay minimum wage or less and can’t afford housing.

Shelters are teeming with veterans and teenagers, people struggling with mental illness and substance abuse, people who have been homeless for years, and new arrivals who never imagined they would be homeless.

The factors contributing to homelessness are complicated, but so is the public response to it. Some cities, fed up by complaints about panhandling and loitering, are passing ordinances that restrict where charitable groups can feed and aid the homeless. Some, disturbed by violent attacks on the homeless, are trying to add protections to hate-crime legislation.

Religious groups are a primary source of food and shelter for homeless people. But now more religious groups are turning their attention to public advocacy on root causes of homelessness – issues such as access to affordable housing and mental health services. In other words, rather than working to “catch the falling families,” as one researcher put it, they’re pushing lawmakers to change policies so people are less likely to fall.

Why it matters

Most religious traditions teach the importance of caring for the least and the lost. The suffering of men, women and children who have no place to live presents significant questions of public policy – for the schools that must educate homeless children, for the military, for health care institutions, for determining what’s fair in setting wages and housing policy, and much more. <!– Created using the Imagination Image Map Editor (http://www.mmaus.com/imagination.html)–>



Regional sources
Northwest Northeast Northwest West Southwest Midwest South Southeast East Northwest Northeast Northwest West Southwest Midwest South Southeast East




Jump to:
Angles for reporters
National sources
Government
Organizations
Individuals
Legislation
Background
Data & research
Articles

Angles for reporters

  • Many advocates for the homeless say the population is changing. They’re seeing more women and children, and sometimes teenagers on their own. How are service providers – and public policy efforts – responding to this changing population?
  • Twenty years ago, in July 1987, Congress passed the The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (now known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act). It was the first coordinated federal response to homelessness; see a Web site about the act from 28 advocacy organizations that are pushing for Congress to reauthorize the act this year.
  • Some people of faith are getting involved not just in providing direct services – giving food and warm clothing to the homeless, offering shelter – but also in public policy advocacy, trying to influence legislation involving affordable housing and the payment of a living wage, for example. The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless is helping day laborers trying to improve working conditions and wages. Read a Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News story posted by Beliefnet about a Florida group, Concerned Clergy for Compassion, that opposes a city ordinance that blocks the feeding of the homeless in Orlando’s downtown parks.
  • Some faith communities are making outreach to the homeless a direct part of their ministry – look around for examples of creativity.
  • St. Boniface Catholic Church in San Francisco has allowed people to sleep in its pews on weekdays – read a March 27, 2005, story from the San Francisco Chronicle.
  • The Church of the Homeless in Washington, D.C., holds a daily Bible study in Union Station.
  • In Northern Virginia, a coalition of churches created the Hypothermia Response Program, taking turns opening their doors when the weather got cold to try to make sure homeless people didn’t freeze to death. Read a Dec. 7, 2006, story from The Washington Post.
  • Some homeless people refuse to stay in shelters because they consider them unclean, unsafe, too crowded or too restrictive. Find out what conditions are like in your community. And sometimes congregations get involved in trying to minister to those outside the shelter system – cruising known sleeping spots with warm blankets, for example, when the weather gets particularly frigid.
  • In 2002, a federal judge in New York ruled that Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church could allow homeless people to sleep on its steps, but not the sidewalk. City police had tried repeatedly to remove the homeless sleepers, but Fifth Avenue church argued that helping the homeless who didn’t want to come inside was an expression of religious belief. Read the transcript of a March 29, 2002, piece from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.
  • Talk to local librarians. In many cities, homeless people pack the libraries each morning after shelters close their doors. On TomDispatch.com, read an essay by Chip Ward, a former assistant director of the Salt Lake City library system, describing how librarians are learning to cope with medical emergencies, body odor, patrons who hear voices, and their growing recognition that the homeless need help they cannot provide.
  • Find out how shelters are dealing with concerns about sexual orientation. Some studies estimate that as many as one in five homeless youth may be gay or lesbian, and some teenagers leave home because of conflicts over their sexuality.
  • Read a July 11, 2007, blog from Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear about a lesbian who accused a homeless shelter of discriminating against her on the basis of sexual orientation.
  • Read a May 17, 2007, story from The New York Times about specialized shelters for gay and lesbian teenagers.

National sources

GOVERNMENT

ORGANIZATIONS

INDIVIDUALS

  • Frank Alexander is a law professor at Emory University school of law and founding director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is an expert on homelessness and housing policy. Contact 404-727-6982, falexander@law.emory.edu.
  • Richard Axtell is an associate professor of religion and college chaplain at Centre College in Danville, Ky. In his teaching and ministry, he invites students to learn about hunger and homelessness and has had his students sleep in homeless shelters. Contact 859-238-5342, rick.axtell@centre.edu.
  • Martha Burt is principal research associate in the Center on Labor, Human Services and Population at the Urban Institute. Homelessness and housing are among her areas of expertise. She gave testimony about homeless youth to a congressional committee on June 19, 2007. Contact through the office of public affairs, 202-261-5709, paffairs@ui.urban.org.
  • Ram A. Cnaan is a leading expert on faith-based social services. Cnaan is a professor, the associate dean for research, and chairman of the doctoral program in social welfare at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also director of the Program for Religion and Social Policy Research and co-author of The Invisible Caring Hand: American Congregations and the Provision of Welfare. Contact 215-898-5523, cnaan@sp2.upenn.edu.
  • Pamela D. Couture is vice president for academic affairs and dean of St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo., and author of Child Poverty: Love, Justice and Social Responsibility and Seeing Children, Seeing God: A Practical Theology of Children and Poverty. Contact 816-245-4828.
  • Dennis Culhane, professor of social welfare policy at the University of Pennsylvania, studies homelessness and housing policy. Contact 215-349-8705, culhane@mail.med.upenn.edu.
  • Benedict Giamo is associate professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the co-author of Beyond Homelessness: Frames of Reference (with Jeffrey Grunberg); and author of On the Bowery: Confronting Homelessness in American Society. Contact 574-631-7316, giamo.1@nd.edu.
  • Michael Herkov, a psychology professor at the University of North Florida, sued the city of Jacksonville after he received a ticket for feeding the homeless on church property; he is trying to get the law changed. Read a Feb. 20, 2007, News4Jax.com article. Contact 904-620-1613, mherkov@unf.edu.
  • David Snow is a sociology professor at the University of California at Irvine. Contact 949-824-9323, dsnow@uci.edu.
  • Yvonne M. Vissing is a sociology professor at Salem State College in Salem, Mass., and author of the book Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Homeless Children and Families in Small-Town America, as well as numerous articles on homeless youth. Contact 603-868-6449, yvonne.vissing@salemstate.edu.

Legislation

FEDERAL
• Twenty years ago, in July 1987, Congress passed the the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (now known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act). It was the first coordinated federal response to homelessness; see a Web site about the act from 28 advocacy organizations that are pushing for Congress to reauthorize the act this year.

STATE AND LOCAL

  • Some U.S. cities, including Dallas, Las Vegas, Fort Myers and Orlando, have passed ordinances that prohibit or restrict charitable organizations and groups from operating feeding programs for the homeless.
  • Orlando, for example, passed an ordinance in July 2006 prohibiting charitable groups from feeding large groups of people in downtown parks without a permit. Proponents of the legislation said business owners and residents had complained that the homeless were causing problems in the parks. Read a Feb. 3, 2007, Associated Press story, published in The Washington Post, describing ordinances Orlando and other cities are passing to respond to concerns about a growing public presence of the homeless.
  • Read the transcript of a June 1, 2007, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly story about a Las Vegas ordinance that prohibits feeding the homeless in public parks. It’s posted by The Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare Policy.
  • A January 2006 report from the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty describes “the criminalization of homelessness,” reporting that many cities are cracking down on such things as sleeping in public or panhandling.
  • Responding to reports of attacks on homeless people, some states are considering adding violence against the homeless to state hate crime legislation. A 2006 study from the National Coalition for the Homeless reported 614 violent attacks against homeless people in the previous eight years – some of them fatal. See a March 26, 2007, report on proposed legislation from Stateline.org.

Background

DATA & RESEARCH

  • Accurate statistics on how many people are homeless can be hard to come by – estimates vary considerably.
  • The National Alliance to End Homelessness – in what it says is the first national estimate of the homeless population in a decade – said in a January 2007 report that 744,313 people were homeless on a single night in January 2005. Of those, 56 percent were living in shelters; 44 percent were not. About 6 in 10 were single adults; 4 in 10 were in families. Close to a quarter – 23 percent – were considered chronically homeless.
  • Read an interview with Martha Burt, principal research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services and Population. She describes two national studies, from 1987 and 1996, that give national estimates on the number of homeless.
  • The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on a given night, nearly all of them men, and that in a given year 400,000 veterans will be homeless.
  • Another group to consider is what the National Coalition for the Homeless describes as “couch-homeless” – people who are staying with friends or relatives because they don’t have a place to live. Some estimate that 1 to 2 percent of the U.S. population fits this category – perhaps 4.7 million people. Read a report on the couch homeless from the coalition. See estimates of the couch homeless population by county.
  • Some local statistics are available. Read, for example, statistics on the homeless population in Chicago and New York. Check with community advocates for the homeless to see what local reports exist.

ARTICLES

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

  • Center City Churches is a ministry supported by congregations in downtown Hartford. It emphasizes “programs that change lives.” The MANNA program offers advocacy, shelter and support for those most in need, including providing meals daily for 3,000 homeless and low-income people. Contact executive director Paul Christie, 860-728-3201 ext. 2006, pchristie@centercitychurches.org.
  • The New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness is a nonprofit group which estimates that more than 3,000 people a day already are homeless in the state, as housing costs in the region continue to rise dramatically. A quarter of those in New Hampshire shelters serving the homeless are children. Contact executive director Keith Kuenning, 603-774-5195, keithkuenning@comcast.net.
  • Christopher Jencks is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the author of The Homeless and has written about poverty, welfare reform and changes in American family structure. Contact 617-495-0546, Christopher_jencks@harvard.edu.

IN THE EAST

  • Dr. James Withers, a physician, started Operation Safety Net, a health care outreach program that’s based at Mercy Hospital and provides medical care to homeless people living on the streets of Pittsburgh. He’s also working to develop an international network to improve “street medicine.” Read a story on Withers’ work on the Association of American Medical Colleges Web site. Contact 412-232-5739 or 888-492-8950, jwithers@mercy.pmhs.org.
  • Project ORE is a homeless outreach program of The Educational Alliance, one of the first settlement houses in New York’s Lower East Side. Project ORE, located at Congregation Emunath Israel, works with people ages 45 and older – providing kosher meals, programs in art and wellness, and opportunities to learn about Judaism and celebrate Jewish holidays. Read a March 5, 2004, story from the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California about five people who held their b’nai mitzvah ceremonies through the program. Contact Pinchos Kurinsky, 212-780-5436, info@edalliance.org.
  • Heather Larkin is an assistant professor in the school of social welfare at the State University of New York in Albany. She is doing research on the impact that childhood neglect and abuse has had on homeless people in Albany and Petaluma, Calif. Contact 518-591-8779, hlarkin@albany.edu.
  • The Coalition for the Homeless provides services to more than 3,500 homeless people in New York each day, and monitors the conditions in municipal shelters. It’s involved in the “NY Kids Need Housing!” campaign, in which religious leaders and others are encouraging New York’s mayor to provide more affordable housing for children and their families. Contact 212-776-2000, info@cfthomeless.org.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

IN THE SOUTH

  • Through the Room in the Inn program in Nashville, congregations take turns hosting as many as 225 homeless people each night during the winter months, from November through March. More than 150 congregations participate, providing shelter and meals. Read a Nov. 29, 2005, story from Tennessean.com. Room in the Inn has become a model for similar programs in Charlotte; Murfreesboro and Clarksville, Tenn.; Lexington, Ky., and elsewhere. Contact Campus for Human Development founding director Charles F. Strobel or Room in the Inn executive director Rachel Hester, 615-251-9791, charlestrobel@chd-nashville.org, or rachelhester@chd-nashville.org.
  • UNITY of Greater New Orleans is working to end homelessness in that city – both for people who were homeless before Hurricane Katrina and those who lost their homes as a result of the storm. Read a March 28, 2007, story from The Christian Science Monitor, reporting the number of homeless needing shelter each night has doubled in the city, while emergency shelters have closed down. Contact UNITY executive director Martha Kegel, 504-821-4496, admin@unitygno.org.
  • The Coalition for the Homeless in Louisville, in its homeless census, says that nearly 11,000 people used services for the homeless in the metropolitan area in 2006, including 652 youths not accompanied by an adult. Watch a video from the coalition’s Web site called “Our Forgotten Community.” Contact executive director Marlene Gordon, 502-589-0190, mogordon@bellsouth.net.

IN THE MIDWEST

  • The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless works to empower homeless people in the Cleveland area. It’s involved in public advocacy on issues such as affordable housing and living wage legislation. It provides a free voice-mail service through which homeless people can retrieve phone messages from landlords, doctors, employers or loved ones. And it helps publish The Homeless Grapevine, a street newspaper distributed and written by people who are currently or formerly homeless (along with a blog on homelessness in the area). Contact coalition executive director Brian Davis, 216-432-0540, neoch@neoch.org.
  • Vicki L. Dercher is executive director of the Johnson County Interfaith Hospitality Network in Olathe, Kan. This suburban county, part of the Kansas City metropolitan area, is considered one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S., according to the 2000 census, but the number of people living in poverty there is growing. Through the Hospitality Network, more than 30 congregations – from Seventh-day Adventist to Catholic – take turns providing overnight accommodations and meals to homeless families. Read a June 8, 2007, story from The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle about Jewish congregations getting involved. Contact 913-345-2121, JoCoIHN-Vicki@sbcglobal.net.
  • Diane Nilan of Naperville, Ill., is a former shelter director who founded the nonprofit group Hear Us, to allow the voices of homeless children and youth to be heard. In 2005, Nilan sold her home and set off across the country to interview more than 70 homeless children and teenagers in 16 states, mostly in small towns and rural areas, and used those interviews to create the documentary video My Own Four Walls. She is the author of the 2006 book Crossing the Line: Taking Steps to End Homelessness. Contact 630-225-5012, diane@hearus.us.
  • Interfaith Council for the Homeless in Chicago is working to break the cycle of homelessness. The council is involved in advocacy and providing resources to educate and empower homeless individuals and families. Contact executive director Bill Johnson, 773-265-1207, bill@ichchicago.org. A Chicago faith community can commit to sponsor a homeless family for a year through one program and work to move the family toward permanent housing. Contact the Rev. Mark W. Wendorf, 773-265-1207, mark@ichchicago.org.
  • Susan Grettenberger is an assistant professor of social work at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Mich. She has done research for the Aspen Institute on the involvement of religious groups in providing social services. She also has done research for the for The Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare Policy comparing secular and faith-based providers of housing for the homeless in Michigan. Contact 989-774-3591, grett1se@cmich.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST

  • The Mental Health Chaplaincy is a Seattle program that has trained chaplains walking the city streets looking for vulnerable, mentally ill people who may need assistance. Chaplain Craig Rennebohm, a United Church of Christ minister and author of A Ministry of Presence, also visits patients in the mental health units of a local hospital. Contact craig@mentalhealthchaplain.org.
  • Jana Drakka, a seniorZen Buddhist priest, calligrapher and community activist, provides meditation,memorials andharm reduction groups for marginally housed people and those who work with them. She also advocates for the rights of those living in poverty. Read a Jan. 3, 2007, profileof her work with the homeless in the San Francisco Chronicle. She now has her own nonprofit, Jana Drakka Community Services. Contact 415-816-7065, jana@janadrakka.com.
  • Temple Beth Am in Seattle, through its Repairing the World program, has become involved in advocacy and outreach on behalf of the homeless. It has hosted Tent City, a traveling community of people lacking permanent homes, and supports the Homeless To Renter (H2R) program, which helps homeless families move into affordable rental housing. Temple Beth Am also has sponsored educational forums exploring factors that contribute to people becoming homeless, including economic justice and health care issues. Contact Rabbis Jonathan Singer or Beth Singer, 206-525-0915, rabbijonathan@templebetham.org or rabbibeth@templebetham.org.
  • Nancy Atchley is founder and executive director of Powerhouse Ministries in Folsom, Calif. With support from local churches, this interfaith group opened the Powerhouse Transition Shelter, the only homeless shelter in Folsom, in 2004, providing lodging, food and services to try to transition homeless individuals and families into long-term housing. Contact 916-983-0658, phoffice@powerhouse-ministries.org or nancy.atchley@powerhouse-ministries.org.

Copyright © 2012 ReligionLink. Log in
Icons by Wefunction. Designed by Woo Themes

Creative Commons License
Stories on ReligionLink are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.