Finally, in May, the diligent volunteer moved into her own apartment and is working toward completing her bachelor’s degree in culinary management, WTOP reports.
Best is on her way to realizing her dreams, and continues to make giving back a regular part of her routine.
Spending hike sought to help end veterans homelessness | McClatchy Darren Spencer a former homeless veteran and his 18yearold son Lamont Spencer pose in their Tacoma Washington apartment Wednesday April 4 2012 | Lui Kit …
Emergency Solutions Grants (ESGs) are used by local communities for emergency shelters, temporary rental assistance and other services that help families avoid homelessness; these grants face up to a 34 percent cut.
Chalaia Smith is determined to become something more than a statistic.
“There’s a stereotype with homeless youth – that we are all troublemakers, that we’ll always be homeless,” said the graduating Foss High School senior. Smith has other ideas. The 18-year-old is headed to Washington State University, with her eye on a career in veterinary medicine.
A good night’s sleep makes all the difference. When you’re homeless, any sleep would make a difference; a bed to sleep on, I would imagine, is what dreams are made of. Making dream come true for many people transitioning out of homelessness across America is the mission of a new social enterprise called Sleep With a Purpose (SWAP).
Now that that’s dead, the agency plans to go about systematically cutting up to 17 percent of its service hours over the next two years. Just think about that. It is, quite plainly, insane.
A shocking 45 percent of the nation’s estimated 131,000 homeless veterans are African-American, according to a new report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a well-known advocacy and research organization.
“The big thing about this that was interesting is that the mayor and a lot of other people seem to be saying that this is in the best interest of the homeless,” she continued. “But I don’t know how a criminal record would be advantageous to anyone who is eventually looking to seek long-term employment. This is really a step in the wrong direction.”
But being numb to homelessness has social costs that are greater than people realize. “Letting a lot of people become homeless it is not smart move,” Roman said of the fact that the stimulus monies that have kept homelessness at a steady rate are running out.
“It is costly in terms of causing an increase in health care costs, causing poor performance in schools, and making it hard to reduce unemployment.”
“These kinds of cuts are really unprecedented,” Rice told me. “The Section 8 voucher program has been around for nearly 40 years—it was created during the Nixon Administration and has had strong, bipartisan support for its entire history. Part of that support has consisted of Congress providing adequate money to ensure that the vouchers currently used by families are renewed from year to year.”
Association Against Homelessness in America 