Press Room

The stock market may be ticking upward but local economies are set for a struggle as state budget gridlocks are halting payments to basic human services and causing thousands of homeless shelters, food pantries and senior centers to cut staff, reduce services or shut their doors.

The homeless are having more trouble getting help because of state budget cuts, and federal stimulus funding in September will fill only part of the gap, service providers for the homeless say.

The Metropolitan Homelessness Commission is calling on businesses, faith-based groups, government and nonprofits to raise $71.7 million over the next five years to end chronic homelessness in Nashville.

Project Hope – a groundbreaking program that could change the way Charlotte deals with homelessness – is expected to be unveiled tonight as part of a Charlotte City Council vote to back the project with nearly $2 million in federal stimulus money.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a whopping 15% of 2,400 Public Housing Authorities nationwide, are currently experiencing funding shortfalls in the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program!

Across the city, nonprofit groups that provide social services to New Yorkers are reeling, trying to fulfill their core missions as demand for those services rises and their ability to provide them shrinks. With government, foundation and individual grants down by as much as 50 percent — not to mention withering endowments or investments lost to Bernard L. Madoff — agencies are trimming and delaying programs and cutting staff, in essence contributing to the very problems they exist to fix.

About 75 percent of the more than 3 million American adults who spent some part of the last year homeless have no insurance, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. Under the radar of the town-hall shouting matches on health reform, advocates for the homeless are pushing to get them on the rolls of the insured.

The secretary of Veterans Affairs vowed Wednesday to "do better" for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and the new GI Bill, he said, is a proven way to serve both veterans and the county.

Advocates for moderate-income housing, "Smart Growth" and transit-oriented development are all heralding a new federal proposal modeled along the lines of the state's HOMEConnecticut program. The so-called Livable Communities Act would offer federal money to communities that encourage affordable housing development clustered near public transportation.

Since 2007, the Wachovia NEXT Awards have provided Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) with financial awards that combine unrestricted grant dollars with unsecured below-market loans. Presented by the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), a network of 170 financial intermediaries that have originated more than $19.8 billion in financing in non-conforming urban, rural, and Native communities through 2007, the awards are funded through OFN by the Wachovia Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The program is scheduled to continue through 2011.