In just the past 12 months, the number of homeless families living in Massachusetts motels has skyrocketed from 17 in September 2007 to 550 in September 2008. That’s on top of another 1,800 or so families in shelters.
My tea leaves tell me that you will hear about the “perfect storms” that created these events for quite awhile.
Driving the increase is the sour economy, rising energy costs, escalating unemployment and shortage of affordable housing. For the first time, the state is tracking how many families are winding up homeless due to foreclosures.
“You’re seeing a perfect storm,” said Robyn Frost, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.
This is only one data point. But I think we will hear and see more in the next few weeks.
1 response so far ↓
Rachel // October 6, 2008 at 9:23 pm
In spite of all these negative stats, I still see thousands of high paying jobs posted on several employment sites.
http://www.linkedin.com (professional networking)
http://www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
http://www.realmatch.com (matches you to jobs)
Good luck!