Homeless Families

NEW YORK -- A state court ordered a temporary halt yesterday to the Giuliani administration's plan to make homeless families work for shelter, characterizing a measure that would place the children of people who fail to meet the requirement in foster care as frightening."

A $400,000 project to repair and expand a dilapidated shelter for homeless families in Westminster will begin today.Over the next few days, work crews will remove asbestos from the Family Shelter at 21 W. Green St. The two-story building is getting a complete makeover, with construction scheduled to begin next month.The project is funded in part by two federal grants. Construction is expected to be completed in January."It is the most depressing place," said Karen K. Blandford, Westminster's housing and community development manager.

Westminster officials are seeking a $382,870 grant to rebuild a dilapidated section of a shelter for homeless families. The grant also would be used to expand its capacity.The 12-year-old shelter serves intact families -- usually both parents and their children, said Karen K. Blandford, the city's housing and community development administrator.But the building at 23 W. Green St. is not so intact, she said."The entire rear of the building is structurally unsound," Blandford told the Westminster Common Council Monday night.

WASHINGTON - On any given night, as many as 15,000 Washington-area residents are homeless, and that number is slowly growing, chiefly because more families are becoming homeless, government officials and advocacy groups say.Steve Cleghorn, deputy director of the nonprofit Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, said there are more homeless families because there are more single-parent families.Nationally, single-parent households climbed from 12.3 million in to 15.4 million in 1995, U.S. Census Bureau figures show.

A 10-year-old homeless shelter in Lansdowne, which doubles as a classroom for poor families seeking basic life skills, is struggling to raise funding to remain open this spring -- even though local politicians have offered last-minute help.Brenda Pendergrass, executive director of Hearth House on Laverne Avenue, said she needs to raise at least $5,000 in private donations or the shelter may close until the next fiscal year begins July 1 and it receives new funding.Some relief came recently from First District County Councilman Stephen G. Sam Moxley, a Catonsville Democrat, who pledged to help obtain a $10,000 federal Community Development Block Grant for the shelter for homeless women and children.

A mortgage banker, a lawyer and the founder of homes and shelters for abused children and homeless families were honored by the Baltimore Urban League last night at the group's annual Equal Opportunity Dinner.The civil rights group presented its Whitney M. Young Award to:* Alexander Avella Jr., president of Amerifirst Mortgage Corp. since 1969, for his commitment to local and national housing initiatives. He has been active with Neighborhood Housing Services of New York and with real estate and mortgage banking groups.

Second Chances, a program that provides household goods to homeless families, is teaming with the Westminster maintenance department to increase its stock of furniture.It may seem an unlikely alliance, but those involv at Second Chances after their weekly pickups of discarded furniture. There, Second Chances coordinator Lynne Balant will sort through the items to determine what the charity can salvage for low-income families. City workers will take the rest to Northern Landfill."It's one of those things that's so obvious it takes a pair of fresh eyes to see it," said Karen K. Blandford, Westminster housing and community development administrator.

A few children whose drug-addicted homeless mothers have begun treatment and can't be proper parents can now live temporarily at Dayspring Children's Place, designed to give them skilled and loving care in an East Baltimore rowhouse.The small two-story home on North Glover Street is the first of its kind in the city, according to the coordinating Young Women's Christian Association. Six children up to 10 years old will live there with trained staffers for about two months. Their mothers can visit but live elsewhere until their treatment allows more normal child-caring and transitional family housing.

I noticed him out of the corner of my eye as I drove on Route 140 past Cranberry Square in Westminster. Standing on the concrete traffic island that divides Center Street at the intersection was a young man, dressed in bib overalls and a plaid flannel shirt, holding a cardboard sign: "Homeless -- willing to work for food."My first thought was: "What's wrong with this picture?"Seeing homeless people with signs asking for work or a handout has become a regular part of the landscape in Baltimore, Washington and other American cities.

A decade ago, when homelessness -- especially among women -- was still a relatively new phenomenon in cities across the country, Associated Catholic Charities opened My Sister's Place on Mulberry Street. It was designed not as a traditional overnight shelter, but rather as a safe haven for women during the daytime hours -- a place to sit undisturbed in a comfortable chair, to take a shower, wash their clothes and feel like worthwhile people for a few hours. Today, the need for a service like My Sister's Place is more acute than ever.

The Rev. Richard Wise Shreffler, who had pastored the First Presbyterian Church of Bel Air for more than 30 years and was also active in Baltimore homeless and AIDS ministries, died May 1 of pneumonia at his home in San Antonio, Texas. He was 88. Mr. Shreffler was born and raised in Shelby, Ohio. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1942 from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, he entered Naval Training School at Annapolis. Commissioned as an officer in 1943, he participated in the D-Day invasion and was later assigned to the Pacific theater of operations.

The recent decision by the Baltimore YWCA to close its downtown shelter for homeless women and children is more than unfortunate. If the shelter goes out of business by Oct. 1, as announced, about 10 percent of the city's temporary beds for families could be lost. There's no question that permanent housing is the ultimate solution for getting the homeless off the streets. But in the meantime, families must not be left without a place to go. On any given night, an estimated 3,000 people in Baltimore are homeless; about 35 percent consist of families, usually women and children.

Baltimore-area homeless families will soon have a new option: 17 area religious congregations have combined forces to offer housing, food and support specifically designed for such families. The group, the Baltimore Interfaith Hospitality Network, will house up to 14 people - usually two or three families - at seven area places of worship. The network includes Baptist, Catholic and Presbyterian churches, as well as a synagogue and a Baha'i temple. The congregations are in the city and in Baltimore County.

Toni Volk has seen some horror stories during her four years as executive director for Congregations Concerned for the Homeless. But she has also helped make some dreams come true. CCH is a nonprofit volunteer organization of about 35 Howard County congregations established in 1990 that works to get homeless families back on their feet and headed in the right direction. The group gives families a place to live and plenty of guidance during a two-year period -- and can be there for them afterward, too. "We want to open doors to the future," Volk said.

In the shadow of Aberdeen's train station, so close that you hear the clatter of passing trains, a small faith-based organization has been quietly assisting families for 14 years on a different kind of journey: from homelessness back to self-sufficiency. Started in 1989 by churches in the Episcopal Regional Council, Holy Family House was created "to provide safe transitional housing for homeless families with children." Providing support such as free transitional housing for up to six months, life-skills training and even cooking lessons, Holy Family House has grown from an all-volunteer organization with one housing unit to a full-fledged nonprofit organization with three professional staff members, 16 housing units and a budget of $225,000.

NEW YORK - At an hour when most people in the city are snug in their beds asleep, an army of exhausted little children and their mothers are loading into yellow school buses on a desolate corner in the Bronx, clutching pillows, plastic bags and one another as they shuttle in the dark to a city shelter for the night. Shielding an infant and 2-year-old under her sweat shirt as a hard rain fell outside the city's Emergency Assistance Unit, Shantay Jones wept. "Please, I need help, I have nothing," the 21-year old mother said.

Dionne Love knew the drill at the homeless shelter: Check in by 4:30 p.m. Leave by 6 a.m. and "blow time" until shelter doors reopened. So when the mother of two learned about Pratt House, a former West Baltimore school gymnasium converted into a $5.6 million, 35-unit apartment complex for homeless families with two or more children, she moved on it. Yesterday, Love, 28, watched as officials with Volunteers of America Chesapeake and other project partners...

NEW YORK - The number of homeless families lodging nightly in New York City's shelter system has risen higher than ever and the trend is accelerating, city officials say. With a critical shortage of low-cost housing, and applications for shelter running 30 percent higher than last year, officials say they expect new records to be set this winter. No single factor explains the startling growth in homeless families in New York, which has been echoed in cities around the country, including Washington, Chicago and Oakland, Calif.

NEW YORK - The number of homeless families lodging nightly in New York City's shelter system has risen higher than ever and the trend is accelerating, city officials say. With a critical shortage of low-cost housing, and applications for shelter running 30 percent higher than last year, officials say they expect new records to be set this winter. No single factor explains the startling growth in homeless families in New York, which has been echoed in cities around the country, including Washington, Chicago and Oakland, Calif.

NEW YORK -- A state court ordered a temporary halt yesterday to the Giuliani administration's plan to make homeless families work for shelter, characterizing a measure that would place the children of people who fail to meet the requirement in foster care as frightening."