Report: Bethesda's Most Vulnerable Spend Years on the Street
New data shows medically vulnerable homeless people spend an average of 7.47 years on the street.
Medically vulnerable homeless residents in the Bethesda area have been living on the street for an average of 7.47 years—nearly two years longer than the national average, according to new data released by homeless advocacy group Bethesda Cares. The data was collected through outreach assessments led by the group as a part of the 100,000 Homes Campaign, a nationwide effort aimed to house 100,000 of the most vulnerable homeless individuals by July of 2013. The campaign asks communities to canvas homeless individuals to determine who are most at risk of dying on the street, and prioritizing housing for those people. “These are not shelter beds—these are permanent apartments where you can lock the door,” Jake Maguire, a spokesman for the …
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Paisley Mint
6:01 pm on Saturday, November 24, 2012
Thank you for your continuing coverage of this issue. If you live and work downtown, you know that the chronically homeless are as much part of life here as the restaurants and rich people. Props to Bethesda Cares and Montgomery County for taking a seemingly more proactive stance, i.e., their canvassing and housing first approach. But let's see if numbers of homeless actually go down as a result. more ›