Charities, Shelters See Wave of Homeless Families

By Alexi Mostrous
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 15, 2009

PONTIAC, Mich. -- The lowest point in Lawanda Madden's life came in February, when she woke up on the floor of her friend's run-down house in this city battered by recession. She was shivering with cold. She remembers turning to her 8-year-old son, Jovon, and thinking: "How did this happen to us? How did we become homeless?"

Only 15 months before, Madden, 39, had a $35,000-a-year job, a two-bedroom apartment and a car. She was far from rich, but she could treat Jovon to the movies. She occasionally visited her sister in Chicago and bowled in a local league. She dreamed of going to law school. Then she was laid off and lost everything.

"I've had a job since I was 19," she recalled. "I never imagined I would be without a home. You think it's going to get better -- that it's just temporary -- and then six months goes by, and you wonder, 'Wait a minute -- this might be it.' "

With neat hair and clean clothes, a college education and stable job history, Madden represents the new face of American homelessness.

Across the country, community housing networks, charities and emergency shelters are seeing a flood of people like her -- mothers driven out of their homes by the economic collapse. Even as the economy shows signs of improving, the number of homeless families keeps going up. In more and more cases, these people have never been homeless before.

More than half a million family members used an emergency shelter or transitional housing between Oct. 1, 2007, and Oct. 1, 2008, the latest figures available from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The number of homeless families rose 9 percent, and in rural and suburban areas by 56 percent. Women make up 81 percent of adults in homeless families, and tend to be younger than 30 with children younger than 5.

In some areas of the country, family homelessness has almost tripled since 2007, new figures obtained by The Washington Post show. Formerly prosperous areas such as Bergen County, N.J., and Hillsboro, Ore., have been particularly affected, with increases of 161 percent and 194 percent, respectively. Oakland County, where Madden lives, has experienced a 111 percent jump in the number of families seeking shelter or emergency housing since 2007.

"And it's going to get worse," said Marc Craig, president of the Community Housing Network in Oakland County. "Thousands of people here will lose their unemployment benefit in the next few months. Many of them will become homeless."

The Obama administration announced last month a $1.5 billion package focused on tackling first-time and family homelessness. The funding, which lasts for three years, represents a change from President George W. Bush's approach, which limited most HUD funding to the chronically homeless with substance-abuse or mental-health problems.

"There's been a funding gap for a long time," Craig said. "It's good there's been a change in approach, but the new money is just a Band-Aid. It's got to continue."

The shift is also evidenced in the District, where the number of homeless families is listed as 703, a 20 percent increase over last year. But these figures -- like the HUD statistics -- heavily underestimate the number of homeless families, experts say, as they do not count those who cram themselves and their children into friends' houses, "couch surf," or sleep four to a bed in cheap motel rooms built for single occupancy.

"Families, especially, are likely to explore every option before they stay in a shelter," said Jill Shoemaker, who collects homelessness data for the Community Housing Network in Oakland County. "We just have no way of counting them at the moment."

Madden stays day-to-day at the half-finished home of friend Frankie Johnson in a dilapidated suburb of Pontiac. Layers of drywall are stacked on the floor next to giant bales of insulation. There are holes in the wall, and the one bathroom that works leaks. More pressingly, the three-bedroom house is also occupied by Johnson and seven children.

"It's tight," Madden said stoically, sitting on the bare bed she shares with her son. "But at least it's not winter anymore. When we moved in, in February, we didn't have a bed. For a week, there was no heating. The gas people hadn't turned up. Even with jackets, coats and two pairs of socks on, the cold was indescribable."

In a city with unemployment at almost 20 percent, it is perhaps unsurprising that Madden is still without work, 20 months after being laid off from a laboratory testing firm where she worked as a biller. From earning a middle-class wage, she now survives on $118 a week in child support.

"Whenever I see a job come up I apply, but I don't get replies," she said. "I go to the job center three or four times a week." Madden also enrolled in a No Worker Left Behind program, under which she hopes to complete her bachelor's degree in criminal justice. "But a degree is no good if you can't get a job," she said.

And with no job, "there's no mortgage, no savings -- definitely no house."

In Royal Oak, Mich., Kevin Roach is a front-line witness to this paradigm shift. "We've seen a dramatic increase in women and children seeking help," said Roach, executive director of South Oakland Shelter, which provides 30 beds to homeless people in Oakland County. In October, he turned away 770 people, more than half of them from families. "We turned down 320 children. That's a number that's burned in my head."

Even a year ago, Roach said, he would have described a "prototypical" homeless person as middle-aged, male, with mental-health or drug issues. "But in the last months, we've had a teacher and a banker in our program," he said. "A third of our clients once had a steady income." Two months ago, he added, the number of clients with bachelor's degrees overtook those with mental-health problems.

Roach's clients are sheltered by a rotating list of churches and community groups that take them in for a week each. Last week it was the turn of First Baptist Church of Detroit. Over a plate of lasagna cooked by church volunteers, a mother of two, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told a familiar story. "I moved into my mother's after I was evicted," she said. "But we argued. I think she expected Molly the Maid service. Sometimes you want someone else to load the dishwasher, you know?"

That night, the church's volunteers give the sheltered women makeovers, using make-up scrounged from local stores. "It's amazing how much our guests have changed," said Myrtice Batty, a college professor who has been involved in the church's shelter program for 15 years. "When I first started, there were many more men. Now families are about 50 percent."

The new wave of HUD funding will benefit groups such as South Oakland Shelter, which has just secured a $300,000 grant to provide rental and utility assistance to struggling families. Roach hopes that a concerted outreach effort will reach women like Veronica, 47, a former Ford worker who lives with her 11-year-old son in a tiny motel room near Royal Oak. She declined to give her full name in an interview.

"I remember in June 2008, Ford called a meeting for me and 20 other employees," she explained. "They got us all up and said, 'This is your last day.' I was like 'Whoa.' I knew straight away I couldn't cover $650 a month. We left quietly as we didn't want to be evicted -- you're already embarrassed enough."

After moving between friends and family five times in less than a year, and applying unsuccessfully for 65 jobs, Veronica moved into a $110-a-week motel; her son sleeps on an air mattress at the foot of her bed. "There are so many moments where I don't feel like getting up and putting on clothes, but you do, for him," she said, nodding at John, who wants to be a chemist when he grows up. "And he supports me, too. Sometimes he tells me, 'Don't doubt, believe.' We support each other."

There are thousands of children like John in Oakland County. "This year, the number of students we served was up by a third," said Susan Benson, director of the Oakland Schools Homeless Student Education Program, which advocates for homeless children. Benson estimates the number of homeless students in the county at 4,000 to 10,000. "The average age of a homeless person in Oakland County is just under 9," she said. "Most are doubled up, living with friends, hours away from their schools."

Back on North Johnson Road in Pontiac, Madden finds it difficult to adjust. She used the last of her unemployment benefit to buy a $2,000 car in January -- allowing her to take Jovon to baseball practice and herself to the job center. The car uses up $60 a week in gas, but still providing activities for her son is a priority.

"Entertainment doesn't happen too often," she said. "In 2007, I couldn't buy Jovon Christmas presents. Sometimes I take him to his grandma's because I find it hard to feed him. I want to keep him here, but it's more stable there. Sometimes he screams, 'Don't leave!' "

Residents of Michigan Town Want Prison to Stay Open, Even If That Means Housing Guantanamo Bay Detainees

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

STANDISH, Mich., Aug. 4 -- From the road, the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility looks like it could be a country resort, lush wooded grounds surrounded by corn fields and flower beds.

Prison employees and residents of this northern Michigan town are proud of the facility and want to keep it open at all costs, even if that means becoming the new home of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The news that the Obama administration is considering moving some detainees at the military prison in Cuba to facilities within U.S. borders, including Standish and Fort Leavenworth, Kan., prompted Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm (D) and several state legislators Tuesday to voice their opposition. But residents here are most concerned about keeping some of the 340 jobs and other economic sustenance the prison provides, in a county where unemployment tops 17 percent.

A hand-painted sign outside the lockup begs "Save Our Town, Save Standish Max," referring to the collection of buildings behind razor-topped fencing that contains 604 beds, usually reserved for maximum-security inmates. Throughout the quaint, somewhat ramshackle borough of 1,500 people, marquees and handmade posters outside churches, bars and Denise's Beauty Barn carry the same message.

The facility is one of three prisons and five correctional camps slated to close because of the state budget crisis and a declining prison population. The Michigan Corrections Department needs to cut $120 million from its $2 billion budget for the fiscal year that will start in October, and 500 to 1,000 jobs will be lost with the closings.

State officials are making a last-ditch effort to turn Standish into a medium-security facility for about 1,100 California prisoners. They also proposed housing inmates from Alaska.

And then there is the Guantanamo Bay option.

Some residents loathe the idea of terrorism suspects locked up in their town, but relish the chance to keep people employed. Others scoff at the notion that current guards would keep their jobs in a federal facility housing such detainees. State and federal spokesmen said they had no information on likely hiring practices.

"The state officers are more than capable of doing anything the federal government would have us do," said Bob Davis, president of the local corrections officers union. "But if they bring them here, I think we'll be cut out of jobs. They'll want their own personnel, there will be CIA all over the place."

Standish warden Thomas Birkett first heard about the proposal on television over the weekend. "There had been rumors, but no one in our department knows what it means, no one can tell you anything," he said.

Over the past few months, former governor John Engler (R) and Michigan legislators and business leaders brought up the idea of housing Guantanamo Bay detainees in the state. Engler proposed putting them in the sparsely populated and remote Upper Peninsula, which has two maximum-security facilities.

Standish City Manager Michael Moran III supports bringing the detainees to town. Even if locals do not keep their jobs, he said, the economic stimulus would be crucial. The prison pays the town $36,000 per month in water and sewer fees, and new employees would help keep businesses afloat. If the prison closes, teachers probably will lose jobs as school enrollment drops, post office revenue will plummet, and family-owned restaurants and bars will suffer. The town is home to small factories making fire sprinklers, pet food and plastic parts, but the prison is by far the biggest employer.

Elementary school teacher Kitty Campau wants to keep the prison open, but she considers Guantanamo Bay detainees a last resort.

"That scares me," she said after choir practice at a Catholic church whose parishioners have been protesting the closure plan. "We have high-risk prisoners there now, but not terrorists."

Michigan Sen. Carl M. Levin (D) and Reps. Dale E. Kildee (D) and Bart Stupak (D), who represents Standish, have supported the idea of bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the state. On the question of whether Standish should be the site, Stupak said he will reserve his opinion until federal and state officials have further studied economic and security issues.

Officials from the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security will visit potential sites for Guantanamo Bay detainees in the next few weeks, Stupak's office said. Michigan corrections spokesman John Cordell said the California deal may be finalized soon, which could mean no inmates from the prison in Cuba.

"It's hard to believe the feds and lawmakers could get their act together overnight, and California could make a decision any minute now," said Mel Grieshaber, executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing prison guards.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) said he opposes bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to Michigan, based on information he sees as the ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He thinks locals would be endangered by affiliates of the detainees coming to the area.

"If President Obama wants to move Gitmo jihadists to Standish, I would hope he would brief the local officials and guards," he said. "I want to make sure everyone has a much more comprehensive view of who these people are and the threat they pose to those in the facility and the community. I think if they knew what I know, they would make the same decision as me. Michigan can do a lot better than becoming the federal government's penal colony."

During a media call for the Republican National Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) echoed this sentiment, saying Guantanamo Bay inmates should not be anywhere in the continental United States. Roberts threatened to shut down the Senate before allowing the detainees in Kansas, and Rogers suggested that Guantanamo Bay's name be changed rather than closing the facility.

But auto mechanic Gary Church, 50, laughed at the idea that locals would be in danger.

"If they do get out, they're not going to rob the general store," he said. "They are thinkers and planners, not street criminals. They do big stuff."

New York Council Votes to Add Muslim Holy Days as School Holidays

By KIRK SEMPLE

Spurred by a broad coalition of religious, labor and immigrant groups, the City Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Tuesday to add two of the most important Muslim holy days to the public schools’ holiday calendar.

But the vote, which was nonbinding, put the Council in conflict with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has the final say to designate the days off and has said he is resolutely opposed to the idea.

The mayor told reporters before the vote that not all religions could be accommodated on the holiday schedule, only those with “a very large number of kids who practice.”

“If you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school,” he said. “Educating our kids requires time in the classroom, and that’s the most important thing to us.”

The current school calendar recognizes major Christian and Jewish holy days like Christmas and Yom Kippur, but no Muslim holy days.

Mr. Bloomberg’s stance has irritated advocates of the measure, and some said he risked alienating many in New York’s fast-growing Muslim population as he seeks re-election in the fall.

Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, a leader of the campaign to add the holidays, said that if the mayor continued to oppose the move, the results for him at the voting booth could be “catastrophic” among the city’s roughly 600,000 Muslims.

“We really have confidence in the mayor’s intelligence,” said Imam Talib, head of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem. “It’s an election year.”

The proposal to add the two holy days — Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha — has not drawn much visible public opposition. Some council members have expressed reservations about subtracting more classroom days from the school calendar, though only one, G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx, voted against it.

After the vote, Mr. Koppell said the existing schedule of religious holidays might have to be reviewed and trimmed, lest other growing religions in New York start demanding their own days off. “Where are we going to end with this?” he asked.

The resolution’s advocates said that since about 12 percent, or more than 100,000, of the city’s public school students are Muslim, they deserved recognition. The two holidays have already been adopted by school districts including Dearborn, Mich., and several municipalities in New Jersey.

Supporters also say that since the Ids (pronounced eeds) are floating holidays whose timing is set by the lunar calendar, they often fall on other religious holidays, on weekends or during the summer. During the next decade, for instance, at least one of the two Ids each year is expected to coincide with summer recess or an existing school holiday, according to a report by the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University.

It was unclear on Tuesday whether Mr. Bloomberg would continue to have final say on the issue, because the State Legislature still has not passed a bill to extend his control over the schools. But some officials said that even if the bill did not pass, he would be able to exert indirect control through appointments to the Board of Education.

The Council resolution also urged the Legislature to pass two pending bills that would amend state education law to require the holidays in the city’s school calendar. That could allow the move without the mayor’s approval, said Councilman Robert Jackson of Manhattan, a co-sponsor of the resolution and a Muslim.

Id al-Fitr celebrates the end of Ramadan, the sacred month of fasting, and Id al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Muslims traditionally observe these days by praying in the morning, then celebrating with family and friends, exchanging gifts and sharing a large meal.

The holy days have long posed a painful choice for Muslim students: Should they go to class in the interest of their grades and attendance record, or cut class to be with their families?

When Rebecca Chowdhury, 18, was young, she said, she generally skipped school. But as she grew older and faced more academic demands, she often had to forgo the celebrations.

“It created a great divide between myself and my family,” said Ms. Chowdhury, who graduated last week from Stuyvesant High School.

The campaign to recognize the two holy days has been coordinated by La Fuente, a grass-roots organizing group, and supported by a coalition; at its core are dozens of Muslim organizations.

Some leaders said the coalition’s successes reflected the political maturation of the city’s diverse Muslim population, which has at times seen its social and political ambitions hamstrung by schisms among competing groups.

“When there are issues of common concern and broad-based impact,” Imam Talib said, “the people put aside other differences and unite around a common cause.”

Members of the coalition said the current effort stems from a decision by the state in 2006 to schedule the Regents exam on Id al-Adha, which angered Muslims and spurred state legislators to pass a bill ordering the State Department of Education to make a “bona fide effort” to schedule mandated exams on days other than religious holidays.

While there have been scattered efforts for years to put the Id holy days on school calendars, the efforts finally coalesced into a formal campaign after the passage of the state bill.