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Word on the Street About: The Mortgage Crisis and Transitional Housing
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With the mortgage crisis and all the foreclosures, most people expected us to have a lot more families coming in. But instead, the issue has been that it's harder to get people out [of transitional housing] into [permanent] housing. People that are getting foreclosures are moving into rentals. Rental rates have gone up, vacancies have gone down and landlords can be as selective as they want to be. So we can't find affordable places for our families. You know, when people think about a homeless person, they think of a grizzled man on the street. But homeless people work at Target, work at Starbucks, have families; the husband in one of our families is in the National Guard.
Cate Steane, Executive Director, FESCO Family Shelter, Hayward, California
Comments
it's "people who" not "people that"
One of the problems with Transitional Housing programs offered through HUD or other government agencies is the amount of paperwork, restrictions, and documentation required just to get approved let alone move in to a project. It takes time and some of the people in need don't have the time to wait. The very programs created to help prevent homelessness end up putting more burden on the families they are intended to help.
Both on the families and on the nonprofit organizations trying to help them. If only our government required a small fraction as much "accountability" for the billions being handed out to bailed-out financial institutions as it does for the few thousands it metes out to nonprofits trying to addresses the social problems the government has given up on.
Thanks, Cate, for your reality check from Hayward, California.
Same here in Minneapolis, MN -- the system is in gridlock. No one is moving out of any affordable housing, and there are nowhere enough new units coming on line. Our vacancy rate in the low end of market-rate rental housing is ZERO. This is not only because no one is moving out, but also because many low end units have been taken out of the market -- landlords have gone into foreclosure and the lenders have evicted everyone and boarded up the buildings. Apparently, it is better to let them rot than to hire a property manager and try to keep them in service.
Leslie Frost, Executive Director, FAMILIES MOVING FORWARD. www.FamiliesMovingForward.org
Get a grip. Who cares about proper grammar while reading about such difficult subjects. Put your heartless, analytical comments to the side and listen to the heart of this person. Whether it be "people who" or "people that" or anything else. There are a lot of people out there in need of help. More every day. We have got to help each other if we are going to make it through this very challenging period. I doubt correction of grammar is the proper start.
Thank you for your response to the grammar police. Please get a grip and get a life.
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