>From Real Change newspaper: Issue dated from 12/24/03 to Jan.7, 2004 San Francisco Mayor-elect Gavin Newsom intends to make homelessness his administration's number-one priority, and his first moves will include creating a 10-year plan for ending chronic homelessness and going after tens of millions of new dollars in federal funding. Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle that he plans to create within six months about 550 units of new supportive housing for troubled homeless people, and to make city agencies collect numbers on exactly how many homeless are getting which services, so he can better determine what the most pressing needs are. The centerpiece of any plan, he said, will be creating more housing with counseling services. The target population will be the chronically homeless - the 3,000 to 5,000 people who sleep outside most of the time. They are the worst off of the city's homeless population, estimated to be between 8,600 and 15,000.
Although Boston's official 2003 census of 6,113 homeless adults and children is about the same as it was last year, city officials and homeless advocates warned last week that the cities "hidden homeless'' pushes the actual tally well above 7,000 marking the largest increase in recent years. "These numbers are a dramatic undercount of the true number of homeless in our city,'I Mayor Thomas M. Menino said at a news conference where he announced a cabinet-level homelessness council to coordinate shelter and housing. "The numbers are lower because there are fewer places for homeless to go. Cuts have forced families to shelter on friends' couches, in cars, on the street and other places where we may not be able to count them" REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
