Blog 3: Welfare Officials Expanding Homeless Families Program By $35 Million

This article was about how money, 35 million dollars to be exact, in grants will be given to try and give families in several areas across the country permanent housing who have been homeless for at least a year.  The aim of this is to provide homeless families a place to live and a way out of poverty while giving families a chance to succeed instead of sending these children into foster care.  Officials are also to provide more intensive services including job training, substance abuse and mental health treatment, trauma counseling for children growing up in these homes and parenting skills rather than just giving them a home.  The article also noted that "homeless families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population and account for more than one-third of overall homelessness."

I find this article very important in many different ways, the first being that it shows the trouble families are in not only in other countries but in our own as well.  Its is also very encouraging that the government has decided instead of throwing more money into the foster care system they actually took a look into what was contributing to rising rates of foster children and are attacking part of the problem at its root.  This type of approach to looking at the root of a problem is a very positive thing to think about it gives hope to families who are homeless of in extreme poverty.  This idea of helping families not just by providing money or property alone but a comprehensive set of resources draws a parallel to the Personal Coaches Help Haitian Families Escape Poverty article I blogged about in the first blog. Overall I think a greater awareness of the shambles that family units are falling into all over the world from right here in the US to places like Kenya.

9/15/12  11pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/homeless-families-welfare-35-million_n_1881713.html?utm_hp_ref=impact#s540481&title=6_New_Mexico