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Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Homelessness jumps again in Kentucky as Trump administration moves to cut housing funds
The vast majority of counties and rural communities in the state do not have emergency shelters, which often means there is 'nowhere else for people to go but to sleep outside,' said Shaye Rabold of the Kentucky Housing Corp. (Getty Images) As homelessness rises in Kentucky, especially outside the two largest cities, the Trump administration wants to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support for state housing programs. Recently released data showing an increase in Kentuckians experiencing homelessness comes from the annual 'Point-In-Time' count conducted each January to capture a snapshot of homelessness across the country. The Kentucky Housing Corporation, a quasi-governmental agency that manages federal funding for housing, publishes the numbers. In January 2025, volunteers and agency outreach workers counted 5,789 individuals who lacked 'a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,' the federal definition of homeless used for the survey. That was a 10.7% increase from January 2024. The most significant percentage increases in homelessness were outside the state's two largest cities. Louisville and Jefferson County saw an increase of 6%, Lexington and Fayette County saw an increase of 12%. The increase in the other 118 counties was 13.3%. Shaye Rabold, a technical administrator for the Kentucky Housing Corporation who helped coordinate the January count, told the Lantern the rise in homelessness was unfortunately 'not surprising.' She said calls from people needing assistance statewide continue to increase, driven by people who became homeless less than a year ago. It's the fourth year in a row the count has risen in Kentucky. A main reason for the rise, Rabold said, is the state's ongoing housing shortage, especially the lack of low-income rentals. 'It's a problem nationally, but we know it's a problem in Kentucky. And so when you have people that literally have nowhere else to go — they're pushed out of the market, or they don't have family support that they can lean on, whatever the case might be — it's going to lead to increases in homelessness,' Rabold said. The survey also counts people who meet the federal definition of unsheltered homeless because they are sleeping in cars, the wilderness, abandoned buildings and similar settings. The largest percentage increase in unsheltered homelessness from 2024 to 2025 — 25% — also was outside Lexington and Louisville. Adrienne Bush, the executive director of the advocacy group Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky, said the picture some people have of homelessness is 'someone on a pretty busy street in a city in a tent.' 'The picture is more nuanced and fuller than just that mental image,' Bush said, referencing the significant rise in rural homelessness reflected in the data. 'The federal assistance that we do have in place is working to house people as quickly as possible, but the larger housing market conditions are creating these additional pressures.' Critics say the annual nationwide 'Point-In-Time' effort is an undercount, pointing to how the count is conducted on only a single day in January when people experiencing homelessness are more likely to find temporary shelter indoors. Both Rabold and Bush said while the count is not perfect, it serves as a solid estimate that shows the general trend of homelessness in Kentucky. The vast majority of counties and rural communities in the state do not have emergency shelters, which often means there is 'nowhere else for people to go but to sleep outside,' Rabold said. Rabold also said the increased numbers outside Louisville and Lexington could be partially attributed to having additional resources for 'street outreach' in rural areas — something the housing corporation has been able to provide thanks to earlier increases in federal funding — a trend that could sharply reverse under the Trump administration. Kentucky could lose about $286 million in federal housing funding — out of about $651 million in current funding — under a proposed 44% cut to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget proposed by the Trump administration. That's according to data from the Urban Institute provided to the Lantern by the Kentucky Housing Corp. While most proposed funding cuts would come from federal rental assistance programs, the cuts also would impact HUD funding for homelessness assistance and affordable housing construction. The remaining federal funding for rental assistance would be allocated to states 'to design their own rental assistance initiatives based on their unique needs and preferences,' according to a proposed 2026 fiscal year budget outline by the Trump administration. The budget proposals are recommendations from the executive branch and could be changed as Congress crafts and approves a federal budget. In a visit to Arkansas earlier this year, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner said the agency's ultimate goal was to 'get people off subsidies and live a life of self-sustainability.' Kentucky Housing Corp. officials have spoken out against the significant budget cuts. Wendy Smith, the deputy executive director of housing programs, told a Kentucky Public Radio reporter that while the state housing corporation would like to 'streamline' the 'Section 8' voucher program, the budget proposal was a 'radical cut' that would be 'disruptive at so many levels across Kentucky.' Smith told state lawmakers in late June there was a need to boost housing supply across all income brackets. She said the impacts of a constrained housing supply were multifold, including a rise in homelessness. 'We have higher average housing costs right now. Kentuckians are spending too much of their monthly income on housing costs. We have lower home ownership rates, too little workforce housing, increased household instability as evidenced by evictions and then more homeless Kentuckians,' Smith said. 'The federal budget uncertainty makes a big question mark on a lot of this.' Rabold disputed assertions that the continued rise of homelessness in Kentucky is evidence that federal housing funding has been ineffective. Federally funded programs designed to help homeless people find housing and other supportive services are very effective, she said. What the funding is not designed to do, she said, is prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. 'That is more of a housing supply issue than anything,' Rabold said. 'I use the metaphor of like a bathtub with a faucet on, and you're bailing water out — but the faucet keeps running.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Homelessness jumps again in Kentucky as Trump administration moves to cut housing funds
The vast majority of counties and rural communities in the state do not have emergency shelters, which often means there is 'nowhere else for people to go but to sleep outside,' said Shaye Rabold of the Kentucky Housing Corp. (Getty Images) As homelessness rises in Kentucky, especially outside the two largest cities, the Trump administration wants to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support for state housing programs. Recently released data showing an increase in Kentuckians experiencing homelessness comes from the annual 'Point-In-Time' count conducted each January to capture a snapshot of homelessness across the country. The Kentucky Housing Corporation, a quasi-governmental agency that manages federal funding for housing, publishes the numbers. In January 2025, volunteers and agency outreach workers counted 5,789 individuals who lacked 'a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,' the federal definition of homeless used for the survey. That was a 10.7% increase from January 2024. The most significant percentage increases in homelessness were outside the state's two largest cities. Louisville and Jefferson County saw an increase of 6%, Lexington and Fayette County saw an increase of 12%. The increase in the other 118 counties was 13.3%. Shaye Rabold, a technical administrator for the Kentucky Housing Corporation who helped coordinate the January count, told the Lantern the rise in homelessness was unfortunately 'not surprising.' She said calls from people needing assistance statewide continue to increase, driven by people who became homeless less than a year ago. It's the fourth year in a row the count has risen in Kentucky. A main reason for the rise, Rabold said, is the state's ongoing housing shortage, especially the lack of low-income rentals. 'It's a problem nationally, but we know it's a problem in Kentucky. And so when you have people that literally have nowhere else to go — they're pushed out of the market, or they don't have family support that they can lean on, whatever the case might be — it's going to lead to increases in homelessness,' Rabold said. The survey also counts people who meet the federal definition of unsheltered homeless because they are sleeping in cars, the wilderness, abandoned buildings and similar settings. The largest percentage increase in unsheltered homelessness from 2024 to 2025 — 25% — also was outside Lexington and Louisville. Adrienne Bush, the executive director of the advocacy group Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky, said the picture some people have of homelessness is 'someone on a pretty busy street in a city in a tent.' 'The picture is more nuanced and fuller than just that mental image,' Bush said, referencing the significant rise in rural homelessness reflected in the data. 'The federal assistance that we do have in place is working to house people as quickly as possible, but the larger housing market conditions are creating these additional pressures.' Critics say the annual nationwide 'Point-In-Time' effort is an undercount, pointing to how the count is conducted on only a single day in January when people experiencing homelessness are more likely to find temporary shelter indoors. Both Rabold and Bush said while the count is not perfect, it serves as a solid estimate that shows the general trend of homelessness in Kentucky. The vast majority of counties and rural communities in the state do not have emergency shelters, which often means there is 'nowhere else for people to go but to sleep outside,' Rabold said. Rabold also said the increased numbers outside Louisville and Lexington could be partially attributed to having additional resources for 'street outreach' in rural areas — something the housing corporation has been able to provide thanks to earlier increases in federal funding — a trend that could sharply reverse under the Trump administration. Kentucky could lose about $286 million in federal housing funding — out of about $651 million in current funding — under a proposed 44% cut to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget proposed by the Trump administration. That's according to data from the Urban Institute provided to the Lantern by the Kentucky Housing Corp. While most proposed funding cuts would come from federal rental assistance programs, the cuts also would impact HUD funding for homelessness assistance and affordable housing construction. The remaining federal funding for rental assistance would be allocated to states 'to design their own rental assistance initiatives based on their unique needs and preferences,' according to a proposed 2026 fiscal year budget outline by the Trump administration. The budget proposals are recommendations from the executive branch and could be changed as Congress crafts and approves a federal budget. In a visit to Arkansas earlier this year, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner said the agency's ultimate goal was to 'get people off subsidies and live a life of self-sustainability.' Kentucky Housing Corp. officials have spoken out against the significant budget cuts. Wendy Smith, the deputy executive director of housing programs, told a Kentucky Public Radio reporter that while the state housing corporation would like to 'streamline' the 'Section 8' voucher program, the budget proposal was a 'radical cut' that would be 'disruptive at so many levels across Kentucky.' Smith told state lawmakers in late June there was a need to boost housing supply across all income brackets. She said the impacts of a constrained housing supply were multifold, including a rise in homelessness. 'We have higher average housing costs right now. Kentuckians are spending too much of their monthly income on housing costs. We have lower home ownership rates, too little workforce housing, increased household instability as evidenced by evictions and then more homeless Kentuckians,' Smith said. 'The federal budget uncertainty makes a big question mark on a lot of this.' Rabold disputed assertions that the continued rise of homelessness in Kentucky is evidence that federal housing funding has been ineffective. Federally funded programs designed to help homeless people find housing and other supportive services are very effective, she said. What the funding is not designed to do, she said, is prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. 'That is more of a housing supply issue than anything,' Rabold said. 'I use the metaphor of like a bathtub with a faucet on, and you're bailing water out — but the faucet keeps running.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Send them home': To promote tougher policies, report claims Spokane's homeless aren't from here
Jul. 5—Half of the homeless people in Spokane aren't from here and should be given bus tickets home, more strictly enforced by police and cut off from long-term services, according to a recent report released by the Spokane Business Association, a prominent political advocacy group funded by businessman Larry Stone. A week after the report's release, the association proposed an amendment to the city's charter, which if approved by voters would reshape the city's homelessness laws and force Spokane to shift funding away from affordable housing, firefighting equipment and other priorities to fund emergency shelters, more visible police patrols and other policies recommended in the report. Critics in City Hall have dismissed the report as unscientific, unhelpful and politically motivated ahead of the November elections, when several seats currently or recently occupied by progressives are being challenged by candidates more in line with the Spokane Business Association's policy goals. But the report's author and the organization sponsoring the survey argue the data is concrete proof that Spokane's homelessness policies aren't only not helping people get off the streets, they're attracting people from elsewhere who are drawn to the city by lax law enforcement. Just over 50% of the roughly 230 homeless people surveyed for the association said they moved to the city after becoming homeless. This contradicts the federally mandated "point-in-time" counts, annual standardized surveys that try to reach every homeless person living on the streets or in a shelter. The point-in-time counts have their own flaws, as the authors of Spokane County's 2024 report readily acknowledged. But of the 2,021 people surveyed in last year's point-in-time count, roughly 80% said they lived in Spokane County before becoming homeless. Robert Marbut, President Donald Trump's "homeless czar" from 2019 to 2021 and the consultant contracted to conduct the survey, argues his data is more accurate because he also asked where people were born, went to high school and whether they have family in Spokane. It is not clear why these additional questions would sway the data by 30 points, but Marbut's recommendations for dealing with this influx are clearer, and consistent with the "Velvet Hammer" approach he has pitched cities across the country for at least a decade: Spokane has to get tougher with the homeless, pressuring them into treatment or departure. Gavin Cooley, an executive of the Spokane Business Association, argued Marbut's expertise lent the report more authority than it lost from a lack of cited sources, and dismissed as "deeply political" a recent article from Range Media that turned to an expert in homeless research to pick apart the report's methodology and conclusions. Cooley believes the media and politicians are overly focused on attacking the data and not paying enough attention to the conclusions Marbut reaches with that data. "You can certainly note the deficiencies as you see them ... but I think it'd be a pity to miss the higher level order of what's being recommended," Cooley said. Every effort should be made to send people back where they came from, particularly if they've been in Spokane for less than 90 days, according to the report. Those who stay should be cut off from long-term services, which should be reserved only for those with longstanding ties to Spokane. For those who are from Spokane, the report recommends mandatory treatment services in order to receive housing, which city officials claim would violate state and federal law. Marbut has spoken out for at least a decade against policies he believes are "enabling" the homeless with "goodies," including Housing First policies that have been the national standard since 2013, in which homeless people are given stable housing upfront to enable them to then address addiction, mental health and social reintegration. Attempts to relocate the homeless en masse are even older. The phrase "Greyhound therapy" has been used to describe the practice since the 1970s and has been criticized by researchers for just as long for redistributing the social costs of homelessness rather than improving them. Many of America's largest cities have, at one point or another, attempted similar policies; between 2011 and 2017, the Guardian tracked over 20,000 homeless people given bus tickets out of and sometimes between 16 U.S. cities. Proponents, including the Spokane Business Association, argue that such programs reconnect people to families and friends and can lead to a long-term improvement in their situation. Spokane's homeless service providers have engaged in the practice for years, however. If a homeless person requests a bus ticket, and a friend or family member declares they can take them in, they will be provided a ticket. Julie Garcia, who runs the homeless services organization Jewels Helping Hands, which manages several of the city's homeless shelters, estimated her organization hands out around 250 tickets a year. There appears to be little academic research into whether these programs lead to long-term reductions of homelessness or just move it elsewhere. The Guardian reported that, of the thousands being bused from San Francisco through the Homeward Bound program between 2010 and 2015, the city had records of following up with only three people after they reached their destinations. But the Spokane Business Association report goes further to suggest that the city should cut off people who decline these tickets from long-term homeless services and even emergency shelters after 21 days. While much of the study copies nearly verbatim a similar report on King County that Marbut was commissioned to write for the Discovery Institute, Marbut claims that Spokane is unusual in one regard: Homeless people aren't coming to Spokane for its quality services, but for its lax enforcement. "What we got on the street was generally, they treat me nice here, they don't hassle me," Marbut said. "It wasn't that they came here because of the services — many communities I go to, it's, 'Oh, they have great services' — but here it was, 'They sort of let me be.' " This picture notably doesn't match what many homeless people on Spokane's streets have told The Spokesman-Review in recent years, who described being pushed from place to place throughout the day by law enforcement, security guards and business owners. "We literally don't get to sit down like this," said Amber, a 32-year-old homeless woman interviewed under an overpass in August. "We are moving constantly. ... So many people have cracked feet and heels." Cooley dismissed this type of enforcement as an "occasional blow of the horn," and wants to see tougher laws and stricter enforcement — not because he wants them to go to jail, which he says would be ineffective and expensive — but to force people to change their lives. Cooley acknowledged that Washington's involuntary treatment laws are not extensive enough to force a homeless person into drug or mental health treatment. Instead, he argued, the city should use its tougher homelessness laws to offer them a choice: either go to jail, or enter "voluntary" treatment. Or they could leave, Cooley noted. "If you find that a great number of people have no connection to Spokane at all, and you suddenly begin to say you cannot use fentanyl in this community unfettered ... how many of those folks will stick around?" Cooley asked. In an interview, Mayor Lisa Brown dismissed the report as misinformed, arguing many of the report's claims about the city's policies were untrue and some of its recommendations were already standard practice. "I believe this is really about the political campaigns in November," Brown said, noting Stone's longstanding funding of candidates opposing progressive policies and production of high-dollar videos to encourage tougher homelessness policies. "I also believe that, with the resources they are apparently able to mobilize, it would be great if, as a show of good faith, they put them into an actual solution, rather than a propaganda campaign against the city and the majority on the city council," Brown added. But Cooley believes the evidence was clear, regardless of the survey's findings, that what the city is doing is failing to have a significant impact on the city's visible homeless population or its soaring overdose deaths. "I know Seattle really damn well, and I can't believe the rapid turnaround as it relates to enforcement," Cooley said. "And what I don't know is where those people are ... but I know they've made a visible turn in on-street homelessness." The report has started to leak into the broader public conversation on Spokane's homelessness policies. Wendy Fishburne, vice president of the East Spokane Business Association, appeared to quote parts of it verbatim Monday before the Spokane City Council voted to reform its homelessness laws. "Research shows that people do better recovering from addiction when they're surrounded by their families of origin," Fishburne said. "Find out where people actually come from and compassionately send them home ... so that our resources could be used for our folks."
National Post
13-06-2025
- National Post
Manitoba hotel owners should step up for wildfire evacuees, Kinew says
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says some hotel owners in the province are not doing enough to help wildfire evacuees. Article content Kinew said on Thursday after touring some fire-hit areas that while a large majority of hotel operators have been great, some need to open up rooms as there are evacuees still sleeping in cots in emergency shelters. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
Al Arabiya
13-05-2025
- Al Arabiya
Philippine volcano briefly erupts, belching ash plume into the sky
A restive volcano in central Philippines briefly erupted Tuesday, spewing a 4.5-kilometer (2.8-mile) ash plume and debris into the sky as its rumblings were heard nearby. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said a moderately explosive eruption occurred at the summit crater of Kanlaon Volcano before dawn, lasting five minutes based on seismic and infrasound data. 'The eruption generated a greyish voluminous plume that rose approximately 4.5 kilometers above the vent before drifting to the southwest,' the institute's bulletin added. Ash fell in at least nine villages southwest of the volcano on Negros island, but no injuries or damage was reported. A level 3 alert - out of a scale of five - that was put in place during Kanlaon's eruption in December remained unchanged, with officials keeping a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) danger zone off limits. The alert means the volcano is in a state of magmatic unrest, with increased chances of short-lived, moderately explosive eruptions that could generate volcanic hazards. Kanlaon also briefly erupted in April. Its eruption in December prompted the evacuation of thousands of villagers to emergency shelters as the volcano continued showing signs of restiveness. The 2,435-meter (7,988-foot) volcano is one of the country's 24 most active volcanoes. In 1996, three hikers were killed near the peak and several others were later rescued when Kanlaon erupted without warning, officials said then. The Philippines is located in the so-called Pacific 'Ring of Fire,' a region prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms a year, making it one of the world's most disaster-prone countries.
