No sign of Bobo yet, so I decided to link it so we can wait for her arrival.
butterfly77 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Feb-27-11 03:52 PM
Original message
Homelessness hits young and old alike
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=news&cd=1&ved=0CC...
Roger Findley was living in a school bus in the middle of rural Missouri, and he still hadn’t hit rock bottom.
Photo by Parker Eshelman
Army veteran Roger Findley recalls his days living as a homeless man. Veterans make up 12 percent of the country’s homeless population.
It was 2009. He’d lived in the bus for four years and had been homeless even longer.
It had been almost two decades since he left the Army, where he had quickly made rank and won a medal for exceptional physical fitness. Findley served during the final years of the Cold War until 1989, the year the Berlin Wall crumbled.
But alcohol had been chipping away at Findley long before his four-year stint in the Army.
Despite high marks for performance, he said his superiors would routinely order him to seek help for his problem with drinking.
Near the end of his military career, he lost control. After testing positive for cocaine, he was given an “other than honorable†discharge. In the years that
+
A DIVERSE POPULATION
The latest point-in-time count in Columbia, conducted last summer, turned up 196 homeless people here, the highest number since summer 2008.
Nationwide, homelessness grew 3 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
With veterans making up 9 percent of the overall population, they’re the most overrepresented homeless subgroup, representing 12 percent of the nation’s homeless, according to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
But families are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population, a problem exacerbated by a spike in foreclosures, said Steve Hollis, director of Columbia’s Office of Community Services.
More families have taken to doubling up with friends and relatives, he said.
A recent count in Columbia showed 22 residents are living in a doubled-up arrangement, which doesn’t include the 98 Columbia Public Schools students identified as doubling up.
As of January, the school district counted 131 homeless students, and the majority of those, 76 children, are in elementary or preschool.
Harbor House, a Salvation Army-run shelter, has seen a record number of children this winter, peaking at about 18 kids, eight or nine of whom were of elementary age, Mathews said.
Dwayne Polk, a teachers’ aide for the district and dad of four who’s staying at the Harbor House, has been shocked to see so many of his students staying there.
“It’s been a rude awakening,†he said. “I don’t think many people have any idea†of how many hom
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x522948If Chimpy were still in office every mention of teh homeless would be a rant against the POTUS.
Since Obama is in office it's somehow not his fault. Just like how silent the anti war crowd became post Jan of 2009.
If McCain was in office they would be blasting the POTUS daily.
