Last week”s New York Times featured New York City on the front page. Its newsworthiness: a homelessness crisis.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has retraced his steps from mid-July. Many New Yorkers were sending up an outcry that street homelessness had risen. His response at that time was, “Homelessness isn”t going up, thank God.”
Now, as of Sept. 2, de Blasio seems to have rethought his stance on things. Or maybe it was the poll numbers coming in showing dissatisfaction with his handling of the matter. It is an election year, after all.
There are approximately 610,042 people experiencing homelessness in the United States. About 9 percent of homeless adults – 57,849 – are veterans. These numbers come from point-in-time counts, which are conducted, community by community, on a single night in January every other year by the National Alliance of Homelessness.
Claire Whitley
In New York, the number of homeless people living in shelters has decreased slightly from last year. The shelters went from 60,939 people in December 2014 to 58,761 in June 2015, and as of Monday, the Times said it has dropped to 56,731. That means that nearly 9 percent of homeless adults are living in New York on their own.
The number of homeless people living in the streets has also decreased from last year, but only just. In New York, those people living in the streets or subways was counted at 3,100 people in February.
Why does what happen in NYC matter here in Moscow? Simple. Despite the common perception of a peaceful, beautiful town that is all happy-go-lucky, there are plenty of homeless in Idaho too.
As of the end of 2014, Idaho had 2,104 homeless people living in it. Here in Latah County, there was 112 homeless people in 2012. This report also didn”t include the number of people who were “couch-surfing” at a friend”s house, even though they should have been included.
Family Promise of the Palouse, a nonprofit organization in Moscow, alone has hosted 27 families, 79 individuals and 42 children in the last year.
These numbers are dramatically less than the numbers of New York. However, our population is also dramatically less.
In an interview in 2013, the director of Sojourners” Alliance, another nonprofit on the Palouse, said about 23 percent of Latah County lives in poverty. That doesn”t mean those people are homeless, per say, but it is still a significant amount of people struggling to stay afloat.
Homelessness isn”t just a problem in the big cities. Moscow doesn”t have the money to reconstruct the New York solution, but average normal people can help too.
Direct people in need to Sojourners” Alliance or Family Promise of the Palouse. These local nonprofits provide affordable housing to low income persons. They also provide basic services, education in life and interpersonal skills, counseling and opportunities for integration into the Moscow community.
Buy someone food, blankets or coats. Sit down and listen to his or her story over a warm cup of tea or coffee. Eat lunch with him or her.
Little things may seem pointless in the grand scheme of things, but all anyone really wants is a little bit of kindness.
Claire Whitley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Cewhitley24