Coalition for Homeless Individuals calls for budget funding
The Coalition focuses on the individual homeless shelter system, which functions separately from the family system. Individuals experiencing homelessness are not protected by Massachusetts' right to shelter law.
Area correctional officers learn how to better their facilities at annual conference
Advocates say the system is an effective functional safety net, and consists of emergency shelters, transitional services to rebuild health and work skills, and supportive housing for people who are unable to live independently long-term. Housing Secretary Ed Augustus said that despite the state's effort, homelessness in the Bay State is on the rise.
'I'm very worried given what we're hearing out of Washington, we're going to see more headwinds as we combat homelessness,' Augustus said.
One western Massachusetts provider said resources are stretched especially thin in more rural parts of the state.
'This year, the numbers are out of control. said Jane Banks, Assistant Secretary of Housing and Community Development. 'In Greenfield, we have 45 beds, and we served 74 people for 2,441 bed nights.'
The coalition is requesting $121 million to fund provider programs, and $10 million to help providers with workforce development.
This funding would need to be established in a compromise version of House and Senate budget drafts and approved by Governor Healey to go into effect for next fiscal year.
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com.
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But the two leaders, President Cyril Ramaphosa of the ANC and John Steenhuisen of the DA, have shown how their partnership can ideally work when they supported each other in the Oval Office showdown with US President Donald Trump in May. After Trump confronted the delegation with a video in support of discredited claims of a white genocide in South Africa, it was Steenhuisen - the agriculture minister in Ramaphosa's cabinet - who assured the US president that the majority of white farmers wanted to stay in the country. Their performance proved to South Africans the GNU was worth the bickering at home. Together the unlikely pair hold the political middle ground in South Africa and have the potential to be a stabilising force - this is certainly the opinion of big business. Their alliance initially raised some eyebrows, given that that they were opposed "ideologically [and] historically", but the business community largely welcomed the move, political analyst Dr Levy Ndou told the BBC. 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The latest crisis - over Ramaphosa's sacking of Andrew Whitfield, a deputy minister from the DA party - has really upset Steenhuisen, who held a press conference detailing his heartfelt complaints. These include Ramaphosa's decisions to push ahead with various bits of controversial legislation "that have far-reaching consequences for our economy and economic growth as has been seen by the reaction form some of South Africa's largest trading partners". This is a reference to the US's anger over the law that will give the state the power to expropriate some privately owned land without compensation for owners. "This was done without even the common courtesy of informing the fellow partners in the government of national unity about his intention to do so," said Steenhuisen. He also spoke about the budget crisis, when in March Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana proposed hiking VAT by 2%. The backlash - which included court action, led by the DA - forced him to scrap the proposal. 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South Africa in 'uncharted waters' as budget splits coalition government Unpacking the South African land law that so inflames Trump How Ramaphosa might gain from US showdown Ramaphosa fires stinging rebuke at coalition partner Is South Africa's coalition government about to fall apart? Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Focus on Africa This Is Africa
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