End Homlessness
Homelessness is particularly acute in California where high housing costs can mean that many families are just a paycheck from being on the street. Nation-wide, up to 600,000 men, women and children go homeless every night. There are indications that the lack of affordable housing is a significant barrier that prevents otherwise employable recipients of public assistance from finding jobs. Research suggests that government housing subsidies can help to promote work among long-term welfare recipients when they are combined with a well-designed welfare reform program.
For current bills on homlessness, see the FCL bill status summary.
Information on housing issues:
- Housing California research, legislative programs, and special studies.
- "Homelessness: Unplugged", ACLU-sponsored student visits to drop-in centers, group homes, needle exchange programs, youth clinics, merchant associations, and youth employment centers in 1999 give young people first-hand knowledge of the issues in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.
- 1998 National Symposium on Homelessness Research Edited by Linda B. Fosburg, Ph.D., and Deborah L. Dennis, M.A., for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
- US Dept of Health &Human Svcs gives information about homelessness in America, as well as some homeless assistance programs, publications, research results, and other resource
- US Dept of Housing and Urban Development publication on Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve December 1999
- Evaluation of the Minnesota Family Investment Program showing reductions in poverty, as well as increases in employment, earnings, and in
See also, the FCL Newsletters:
FCL Newsletter, August/September 1998, "No Place to call Home" and "How CA ranks in affordable housing"
FCL Newsletter, June 1998 , "Mental Illness and the Homeless"
Literature: Rethinking Urban Economic Development by William Schweke and Brian Dabson (1998) is an introductory overview to a way of thinking about and acting within modern urban economies so that all may benefit from economic development. It outlines basic steps for tailoring an appropriate urban development effort, including modernizing manufacturing firms, reforming city schools, developing welfare-to-work initiatives, running microenterprise, and designing individual development accounts. [112 pages. Price: $20.00. Contact the Corporation for Enterprise Development, 777 North Capitol St., N.E., Suite 410, Washington, D.C. 20002 or call: (202) 408-9788].
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