Facts for the Week

As part of an on going initiative, we will be releasing facts on various aspects of homelessness. In order for all us to realize what we are trying to solve, we have to see the tremendous effects that this social issue is causing people. Today, we highlight a few facts on children's health who are battling homelessness:

• Are sick four times more often than other children. They have:
  • Four times as many respiratory infections.
  • Twice as many ear infections.
  • Five times more gastrointestinal problems.
  • Four times more likely to have asthma.
• Go hungry at twice the rate of other children.
• Have high rates of obesity due to nutritional deficiencies.
• Have three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems compared to non-homeless children.

*Facts from: www.familyhomelessness.org

Our Solutions University allows children to not fall into the above categories... one family, one community at a time!

Visit our site to find out how you can get involved today! www.solutionsforchange.org

One Family's Story...

We continue to build and develop our Solutions University because it provides a permanent solution to SOLVING Family Homelessness. Stories like the one you are about to ready is what fuels are drive and passion. This is a problem faced all over the world, not just in North County, San Diego.... we are here to change this...

"I am a single mom with three kids. We have lived in North County for six years. After four years with the same employer, I was laid off. Within three weeks my $2,000 savings account was depleted. Within two months, my children and I were homeless. The weeks that followed were some of the most desperate and scary times of my life.

I sought assistance through the maze of social programs. I was turned down because I wasn't a substance abuser, a victim of domestic violence, or suffering from mental illness. A few places could not take me because I had a child over age ten. The affordable housing programs all had long waiting lists.

Every night that went by I just couldn't believe that my family had to sleep in our car. My kids were hungry and cranky all the time. I felt like a failure - like I was letting them down. I began to lose hope.

That was just a short twelve months ago, although it seems like a lifetime. Today, thanks to North County Solutions for Change, my family and I are no longer homeless. Feelings of hopelessness were replaced with dignity and gratitude. Living in our car and unemployment were replaced with an affordable apartment that I qualified for because they helped me get a decent paying job.

Solutions for Change took my children and me in when no one else would. They challenged me, provided structure and the economic re-entry support that we needed to change our lives. They provided a safe and loving atmosphere for my children. Most of all they believed in me - and my potential for success."

- Program Graduate

Honoring Bill Gerken

The article says it all...Please take a moment to read this article on Solutions For Change honoring an amazing person and member of the Solutions Family!

It is people like Bill who have enabled us to be where we are and give us the opportunity to SOLVE Family Homelessness - one family, one community at a time!

Thank you to the Vista/San Marcos News as well for releasing this article.

The HEARTH Act evolves from 20 years of failed policy. Will it work?

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assitance Act was the first federal response to the growing homelessness crisis in the United States. Passed in 1987, it established that homelessness is an immediate and growing problem that the nation had an obligation to address. In May 2009, Congress passed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act, which reauthorized the McKinney-Vento programs. It was the first significant reauthorization in nearly 20 years.

Look at the problem today compared to 1987 and ask yourself how the originators of the act, Stuart McKinney and Bruce Vento would feel today if they were still alive.

The intent of the the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act was a decent and honorable one but the execution of this Act has been an abysmal failure. The Act essentially led to the creation of HUD's Continuum of Care which has resulted in the mother of all containment systems and duped millions into believing that homelessness could be solved by using a plan based on managing homelessness.

We are reaping the consequences of two decades of battling the effects of homelessness on people and communities. McKinney-Vento led to the mobilization and deployment of thousands of programs and millions of people that went into battle against a very tough opponent (homelessness), with pitch forks and axes. No real battle plan, no exit strategy, no hope to win...just a bunch of pitchforks and axes flying around that made it look like we were fighting the good fight. The outcome? We got our butts handed to us. More homeless then ever. 1.2 million CHILDREN homeless. It's bad. real bad.

Its like if your local hospital used candy stripers to run around and give magazines and hugs to patients lying in beds on a morphine drip. The real problems never get addressed and people churn around in the system for a long time. Some get out but many just die. That's what happens today in America after spending billions and billions of dollars. Millions of people churn around the homeless system, some get out (about 20% MAYBE), some die but most just CHURN, stuck in it.

But here is the scary part...the new HEARTH Act evolved not from a new battle plan with sound strategies built on core values to defeat (solve) homelessness, but to put a giant dome over the battle and call it housed. It is a colossal REACTION to the failure of McKinney Vento. It is NOT, in my 19 years of being on the front lines of this thing, a real plan to defeat homelessness.