Blog 2 - Post 5, Poverty in the city presentation

The name of the city, that our group introduced was Seattle, Washington and the number of homeless families and the number of homeless individuals increased over the past year.   Among homeless adults, 58% were severely mentally ill, 24% were physically disabled, 15% were veterans, 14% were victims of domestic violence and 10% were employed.  Homeless shelters had to turn away both homeless families and individuals.   To accommodate an increase in demand for shelter; shelters have had to increase the number of persons or families that can sleep in a single room and distribute vouchers for hotel or motel stays because shelter beds were not available.

For the next year, city officials expect the number of homeless families to increase substantially, the number of homeless individuals will increase moderately, and resources to provide emergency shelter to decrease moderately according to the Mayor's Report.

In reviewing the Mayors report the request for emergency food assistance increased by 2% over the past which sounds very interesting,  and among persons requesting food assistance, 41% were in families and 27% were elderly these statistics from the city of Seattle fall short  of reality, I believe.   18% of the demand for emergency food assistance  is estimated to have gone unmet.   For the next year city officials expect requests for food assistance to increase moderately and resources to provide food assistance.   They see providing adequate amounts of food with decreased resources in communities of need as the biggest challenge they will face during the year.   They note that Seattle food banks have experienced an increase in visits from immigrants and refugees, particularly those from Somali, Burma and Bhutan, and that food  banks are learning about culturally appropriate food for their households through locally sponsored workshops.

My prayer is that with the population of 608,660 and unemployment at 8.3% not to mention that they are well below the poverty y line 12.2% that their statistical information is accurate.   When I see numbers like this it always reminds of when Mayor Richard Daley openly claimed that there were only 27 homeless people in the city of Chicago?