From Staff Reports RALEIGH -- With as many as 85 homeless families on a waiting list for shelter in Wake County, county commissioners took a new Salvation Army facility for "fragile families" a step closer to reality Monday. Commissioners agreed unanimously to provide $500,000 in federal community development block grant money to the $4 million redevelopment of a 40,000-square-foot building inside the Beltline on Capital Boulevard. The charity operates a homeless shelter near Moore Square in downtown Raleigh but wants a larger facility to give more services to families. The city of Raleigh is considering a separate $500,000 request; it is expected to come before a Sept. 7 council meeting. Construction on the building - supplied with everything from a computer center to play centers to a full-service commercial kitchen - is expected to start in October and …
On March 10, 2010, WUNC's "The State of Things" aired a program about prisoner re-entry. There are more than 40,000 prisoners inside North Carolina’s correctional facilities. Every year close to half of them are released into probation or parole. And while the infrastructure of incarceration is long standing and sturdy, the systems for ensuring a successful transition from prison to citizen are relatively new and arguably unsupported. The program discusses the obstacles to re-entry with: Christy Visher, professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware; Mark McDaniel, senior research associate at the Center for Community Capital at UNC-Chapel Hill; Tony Reggi, correctional planner with the N.C. Department of Corrections; Bob Crouch from the Executive Steering Committee of NCREAP; Cynthia Laws Davis, the program director of Passage Home in Raleigh; and Elizabeth Jaime, a graduate of Harriet’s House, …
Housing advocates worry 26% increase could offset progress By Ray Gronberg, The Herald-Sun DURHAM -- A single-day count in late January found 140 more homeless people in Durham County than did a companion assessment in 2009. The annual point-in-time count, orchestrated by the Durham Affordable Housing Coalition and conducted the night of Jan. 27-28, found 675 people who met the federal government's definition of being homeless. Of those, 607 were in some sort of emergency or transition shelter, according to figures advocates have relayed to local officials and a statewide nonprofit. The rest were staying in places the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development deems "unfit for human habitation," like cars, abandoned buildings, makeshift campsites or the streets. A similar count last year found 535 homeless people in Durham County. Housing advocates were expecting an increase, …
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 by Jennifer FernandezStaff Writer GREENSBORO — Every year, volunteers comb shelters, wooded areas and abandoned buildings as part of the annual “point-in-time” count of the homeless. The survey, which takes place today, will include for the first time a count of those who are considered “precariously housed” or “imminently homeless” in Greensboro. Officials handling High Point’s count said they are not adding the optional category to their survey this year. Housing experts suspect a growing number of families straddle a fine line between stability and homelessness. They hope the survey will provide a better picture of what is happening. “Part of it is with the economic situation getting worse, we know that there are a lot more people losing their housing than there used to be or about to lose housing,” said Beth McKee-Huger, executive director of …
by Erik Eckholm The New York Times Published: September 5, 2009 ASHEVILLE, N.C. - In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C's she got last spring — a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends’ houses and a motel. Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the …
WUNC's "The State of Things" aired a program about women in poverty, both now and in the past. Topics discussed included TANF, healthcare, and childcare. Ann Burke, executive director of Urban Ministries of Wake County, spoke during the second half of the program. Listen to the archived program on The State of Things website (scroll to August 19, 2009).
Nan Roman, the president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, spoke on NPR's Weekend Edition about the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing program. Listen to the story on the NPR website.
By Tonya Jameson tjameson@charlotteobserver.com Posted: Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009 When school starts on Tuesday, Sierra will be a senior. This is her time to tour colleges, giggle about prom and stress about graduation. But Sierra's senior year wasn't supposed to start like this: Living in an emergency shelter. Sharing one room with her mom and sister. Worried about whether she can afford college – any college. “I know I should be happy because it's my last year,” said Sierra, sitting in the day care room of the shelter. “I've been struggling.” Sierra and her family live at Charlotte Emergency Housing. She is one of nearly 3,000 students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools who are considered homeless. When these students go to school Tuesday some might catch the bus in front of a cheap …
People in Greensboro, N.C. could tell early on it was going to be a hard winter for the city's homeless population. With the recession and the housing crisis, the city's shelters and overflow spaces were already full - and this winter promised to be a cold one. Alice Bolton heard about that and began to wonder - why couldn't she put some of those people up in her church? She soon learned other churches and a community center were wondering the same thing. Dick Gordon of The Story talks with Alice about how she convinced Pleasant Garden Baptist Church to set out cots in the fellowship hall and welcome about 20 homeless men. He also talks with Ron Clark, one of the men who found a home and a second chance there. Listen to the interview on The …
Stimulus goal: Stem homeless tide in city By Matthew E. Milliken : The Herald-Sun mmilliken@heraldsun.com Mar 12, 2009 DURHAM -- The federal stimulus package will provide $789,000 for Durham agencies to devote to the prevention of homelessness over the next three years. Rules for the new program, which will get $1.5 billion nationally and $29 million around the state, could be finalized by federal authorities next week. But advocates say it will help keep people off the streets by providing money they need to stay housed or to find new housing. "This is really a new way of thinking about prevention than we have typically dealt with in the past in North Carolina," said Denise Neunaber, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness. Neunaber said her group and allies around the nation have been lobbying for years …