And also let's talk about the homeless youth living on the streets in Minneapolis. On any given night there are between 650 to 1200 unaccompanied homeless young people on the streets of Minnesota (that's ages 13-21). Let's also talk about how there are only 50 youth designated shelter beds in Hennepin County for homeless young people. Now I'm not sure how ya'll define crisis, but I define this as a crisis.

I work for YouthLink, and we served 770 homeless young people last year through Project OffStreets. Very few of these young folks could go home because they had either been kicked out of their homes or left their homes because the streets were (or appeared) safer than their living situation. My agency, along with several other youth serving agencies in Hennepin County, were able to convince the county board of commissioners that they should focus on homeless youth as a group for targetted services, and thanks to the efforts of Commissioner Dorfman, the county board acknowledged the homeless youth crisis in Hennepin County.

Are there more homeless people in other cities? Yes. Does that negate our responsibility in anyway to the folks living without homes in the Twin Cities? No. There are some other amazing stastics out there such as that 40% of homeless adults living in shelters are employed at least part time. Hmmm...working...but still can't afford a place to live. That's not a crisis; that's criminal.

-Brandon Lacy
-Powderhorn Park





Chair
National Lavender Green Caucus
Green Party of the United States

Lavender Greens: www.lavendergreens.org
BrownTones: http://galileo.spaceports.com/~brandonl/
YouthAction: www.youthaction.net





From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Mpls] Putting Mpls "homeless problem" in perspective
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:32:18 -0500

just because San Fran has more person experiencing homelessness does not let Mpls off the hook.
the perspective of one person who lives in homelessness or 10,000 is the same...it sucks.
Margaret Hastngs-Mpls-Kingfield
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