T he new administration’s projected $825 billion stimulus package should create jobs not only in traditional ways, like infrastructure improvements on roads, bridges and school construction. It should also focus on offsetting the sharp rise in hunger and homelessness among the nation’s rapidly growing number of poor people.
Already, low-income advocates predict that people in deep poverty, that is, those with incomes of less than half the poverty line of $21,200 for a family of four, will increase by between five and six million if unemployment reaches 9 percent. Barbara Sard, a policy analyst at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has said that such an increase would put as many as a million families at risk of housing instability and homelessness. Even those not yet in deep poverty could face homelessness because of home foreclosures that have already pushed many into the rental market, which, because of competition for affordable rental housing, has experienced an increased demand that in turn has caused rents to rise.
And yet, precisely at a time when help is most needed because of the escalating rate of unemployment, homeless prevention programs in some areas are being cut back because of state and local budget shortfalls.
Ok, so if they DO pass it, how, exactly, does it get to people like me?
I haven’t heard ANYONE discuss that part of the plan.