Our Homeless Fellow Americans
In the Neighborhood
7/11/16, BALTIMORE, MD --
Baltimore citizens organize to stop the city's destruction of homeless encampments. (Source: Baltimore Brew)
7/10/16, BALTIMORE, MD --
Watch this video from our HOUSING COMPASS page for an excellent discussion about how the homeless and affordable housing issues overlap and need to be addressed together. (Source: The Real News Network)
7/8/16, BALTIMORE, MD --
A link to important information about homelessness in America provided by Baltimore's The Journey Home. The mission of JH is "to make homelessness rare and brief." JH is a national model for how to think about and address homelessness. ODA is a big fan of JH.
6/22/16, SARASOTA, FL --
Federal Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich denies City of Sarasota's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by six homeless men who claim the city's lodging ordinance violates their Eighth and First Amendment rights. Sarasota's ordinance prohibits sleeping in public spaces and panhandling. Judge Kovachevich sits on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. She was nominated by President Ronald Reagan. (Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Zach Murdock)
6/15/16, SARASOTA, FL --
Sarasota County Director of Homeless Services Wayne Applebee releases report, Quarterly Homeless Initiative Goals Update.
5/19/16, LOS ANGELES, CA --
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approves Mayor Eric Garcetti's FY17 budget that includes $138 million for homelessness programs. L.A. budgeted $34 million in FY16. L.A. has an estimated 28,000 homeless. (Source: L.A. Times, Peter Jamison)
5/2/16, WASHINGTON, D.C. --
HUD Secretary Julián Castro awards $355 million to more than 1,200 local homeless housing and service programs across the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These Continuum of Care (CoC) grants support the Obama Administration's efforts to end homelessness and build upon the $1.6 billion in funding HUD awarded through a first round of funding in March.
January 2016, WASHINGTON, D.C. --
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty releases its updated Fact Sheet on homelessness in the United States. From the report: "The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty currently estimates that each year at least 2.5 to 3.5 million Americans sleep in shelters, transitional housing, and public places not meant for human habitation. At least an additional 7.4 million have lost their own homes and are doubled-up with others due to economic necessity."
June 2015, WASHINGTON D.C. --
The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) releases the amended federal strategic plan for preventing and ending homelessness. Called Opening Doors, the 2015 Amendment "encompasses much of the original plan but with some additions and clarifications that further strengthen its value as a living blueprint for action."
From Our Blog
2018 Poverty and the Urgency of Prisoner Reentry and Life Restoration
Since 2005 Open Door America has worked to unlock the secret codes of intergenerational poverty in America’s inner cities. Now in year thirteen, our story has greater meaning and urgency than ever before. Having come on line just nine years after metamorphic welfare reform in 1996, we were an immediate beneficiary of the raised social awareness generated by the faith-based initiative movement of the early 2000's. By the end of our first decade, however, a sharp decline in nationwide community development investment, especially in the key area of federal housing, shifted our thinking away from traditional block-by-block redevelopment strategies to individualized programming targeting heads of households, young fathers, and in particular, ex-offenders and current offenders who hold sway in the poorest neighborhoods. Today, 22 years into the nation’s endless rancorous debate over poverty and government spending, we operate in a political and cultural environment where the very existence of entrenched poverty is now openly and counter-factually questioned in Washington. We believe the lessons learned from our improbable survivor's journey and the promising potential of our current efforts to retrieve first-time offenders and restore vetted recidivists are essential to this discussion and critical to America's social and economic future.
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