An increase in homelessness
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Thursday Dec. 18 Noon-1:00 PM EST
Jeff Singer, president of Health Care for the Homeless, says his organization has documented a 16 percent increase in the number of newly homeless people this year and he thinks most of it is related to the downturn in the economy. In this hour, we observe National Homeless Persons Memorial Day, coming up this weekend, with a look at the status of families who are going through homelessness in Maryland, what's being done in Baltimore and what the new Obama administration plans to do to make housing affordable for the nation's poor. Plus, we'll hear the voices of some Marylanders who are living in shelters right now . . .
Comments
Excellent discussion today. I had planned on e-mailing in but you covered all the points I planned to bring up.
I have been in Baltimore since the 1960s and I, too, hoped the problem of homelessness would be less by now. Of course it was exacerbated by Reagan releasing so many from the mental wards nationwide.
Two of my brothers were working in NYS hospitals during the 60s and 70s. They said after Reagan's action about 90% of their former residents were out on their own. I don't think we have ever recovered from that action.
Posted by: max843 | December 18, 2008 8:25 PM
On a very real note, do keep up the good work on this subject. It was truly amazing how the homeless just seemed to vanish between 1992 and 2000, at least as far as most of the mainstream media was concerned, and I was afraid that the same thing would happen for an Obama presidency.
Posted by: Alexander D. Mitchell IV | December 18, 2008 10:36 PM