From the National Coalition for the Homeless Fact Sheet, September, 2002
Among the causes of homelessness is the loss of SRO housing, the NCH says:
"A housing trend with a particularly severe impact on homelessness is the loss of single room occupancy (SRO) housing. In the past, SRO housing served to house many poor individuals, including poor persons suffering from mental illness or substance abuse. From 1970 to the mid-1980s, an estimated one million SRO units were demolished (Dolbeare, 1996). The demolition of SRO housing was most notable in large cities. . . ."
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From The Wall Street Journal (August 26, 2004, pp. B1 B3):
"'Forty-six million people in this country have been convicted of something sometime in their lives and our economy would collapse if none of them could get jobs,' cautioned Lewis Maltby, head of the National WorkRights Institute. That total is based on FBI database information for all individuals convicted of misdemeanors or crimes that are more serious.
"Compared to white males, five times as many Blacks and two times as many Hispanics have been behind bars. A recent study of entry-level applicants conducted at Northwestern University suggests that if a black male applicant has a prison record, the likelihood that the prospective employer will call back diminishes by two-thirds, and for white males, by one-half."
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According to the latest C.I.A.World Factbook, Cuba is one of 41 nations that have better infant mortality rates than the United States. Of interest is the fact that America's infant mortality rate improved every year since 1958 until 2002 when the trend line turned up for the first time in 44 years.
"America's children are at greater risk than they've been in for at least a decade," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and President of the Children's Health Fund. "The rising rate of infant mortality is an early warning that we're headed in the wrong direction, with no relief in sight."
Fact: if the U. S. had an infant mortality rate as good as Singapore's, 18,900 babies would be saved annually. Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof put it another way: "Our policy failures in Iraq may be killing Americans at a rate of about 800 a year, but our health care failures at home are resulting in incomparably more deaths--of infants. And their mothers, because women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe." (The New York Times, January 12, 2005)
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America's churches have much to consider and pray over tomorrow, wouldn't you agree?
And yet the values debate rages on over issues like homosexuality . . . rather than the basic needs of our poor and homeless friends.
ReplyDeleteOur policy makes are concerned with matters of "who sleeps with whom." My question to them -- whoever it's with, how do you sleep at night when this is our country's reality?
I'm sure this group is full of fans of Jim Wallis, but if you're not, yet, please read his new book "God's Politics." It's a powerful and in-depth explanation of a theology and a vision of a social agenda that would change our country and our world!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Greg. Tomorrow's blog will have a message from Jim Wallis. Stay tuned! And Jeremy, great line about how can policy makers sleep at night! Keep writing and talking.
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