Philly Mayor and Public Housing Authority Step Up Efforts to End Homelessness

Philadelphia Mayor Nutter and the Philadelphia Housing Authority have teamed up to provide 700 housing units and beds to address the needs of the city’s homeless population.
At a cost of $8.3 million, 500 PHA housing units will be given over to homeless populations, including 50 safe haven beds.
The exciting part of this effort is that [...]

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The Plight of Homelessness in New Orleans Persists

In an article published in the New York Times today, Mayor Nagin Of New Orleans was quoted as saying that the solution to homelessness was to purchase one-way tickets out of town. This insensitive and trite comment was later recanted and framed as a joke, but to thousands of homeless people in New Orleans, [...]

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Social Security, Working Part-Time, Sleeping Homeless in Car

CNN did a profile last week of a middle-aged woman in Santa Barbara who lost her condo, is collecting Social Security, working part time, and cannot find a place to live. She currently resides in a parking lot with a number of other women who are in a similar situation; they sleep in their cars [...]

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Farm Bill Passes by Veto-Proof Majority

The Homeless Alliance will be reporting more on the passage of the Farm Bill by congress in the coming days as more news and analysis becomes available. For now, however, the passage of the Farm Bill as it is increases allocations for Food Stamps by $10.4 billion dollars, a much needed supplement for households that [...]

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How Does Inflation Get Calculated?

Recently the New York Times did an investigation into how the Department of Labor Statistics calculates inflation and average prices for basic goods. It is the estimates of the DLS that determines if the Federal Reserve will raise or lower interest rates. In other words, the formulas used by the DLS are of great importance [...]

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Profiles of Homeless Mothers in Buffalo News

The Buffalo News’ Emma Sapong wrote an article about homelessness with a focus on homeless mothers in transitional housing. Two local transitional housing programs are highlighted in the story: Gerard Place and Cornerstone Manor. Additional comments are provided by Bill O’Connell, executive director of the Homeless Alliance.
Bill comments on the struggles of mothers in poverty:
When [...]

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HUD Audit of City CDBG Funding

The cover story of this week’s Artvoice reports that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating the city’s administration of the Community Development Block Grant. According to Artvoice, the city is using a significant amount of the block grant money to pay salaries for city employees, plug budget deficits, and pay back loans. [...]

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Poverty Challenge Media Coverage

With the Poverty Challenge concluding last week, there was a lot of press coverage around the region.
Bill O’Connell, executive director of the Homeless Alliance, called upon the city and the county to form a poverty task force to address policy from a poverty perspective. Poverty, he said, should be the lens by which all [...]

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Local Priest Gives His Thoughts on the Poverty Challenge

2008 Poverty Challenge Reflections
– Fr. Ron Sajdak,
Co-Chairperson Peace & Justice Commission
Of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo
Pastor of St. Martin de Porres/Buffalo, NY

It has been fifteen years since I’ve had to live from pay check to paycheck. The preparation material for the 2008 poverty challenge helped me to want to [...]

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Reflection on the Poverty Challenge

This reflection on the Poverty Challenge experience comes to us from Erin Meegan, staff member for Buffalo Common Council Member Michael Kearns.
I pride myself on being a person who isn’t into money. I don’t wear designer labels or even shop at malls for clothes (Goodwill and Target are fine with me). I don’t care about [...]

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