Homelessness Rate for Mass. Ranks Top 10 in Nation Springfield, Mass. (WGGB)- Massachusetts ranks in the top ten states with the highest homeless rates in the country. That’s according to a new Housing and Urban Development study. Ron Young, staying at Friends of the Homeless Shelter in Springfield, isn’t surprised that Massachusetts ranks number nine. “This is a place that I thought I’d never end up and I am. At first it’s scary,” Young says. He lived out West for 14 years and decided to come back home to Springfield. It’s been a struggle since. He became dehydrated from trying to survive on the city streets last summer, now this summer he visits Friends of the Homeless Shelter. “[Its been] A little over a year now, I’ve been trying to find housing which is hard to find because its expensive, being on disability you don’t get all that you need each month,” Young explains. “We have a high number of people in shelter right now,” says Bill Miller, Executive Director of Friends of the Homeless. “We are higher this summer than we were last summer,” he continues. The number of homeless people in shelters and living on the streets in the state has risen 14 percent since 2010 to nearly 20,000. That’s even as homelessness has declined nationally. “One of the trends is certainly the states that have the highest housing costs have the highest rates of homelessness. That’s not surprising people just can’t afford housing,” Miller adds. It’s a problem for many, with few solutions. “You can go up the street and down the street there are still people on the streets” Young explains. It’s a high statistic that Ron Young hopes to remove himself from one day. The study estimates that Massachusetts has 290 homeless per 100,000 people. That’s about 100 more than the national average. The top ten highest homelessness rates per 100,000 in the US for 2013 according to the data were: Washington DC (1133), Hawaii (465), New York (399), California (367), Oregon (360), Nevada (312), North Dakota (306), Massachusetts (290), Arkansas (274).
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 22:37:50 +0000
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