It is very difficult to live on the edge, the periphery of being housed while others make life and death decisions based on available dollars—focusing primarily on money rather than safety and quality of life. An exclusive group of federal legislators allocate funds for services and supports to end homelessness. Being dependent on housing subsidies subject to periodic budget cuts while the elite holders of the purse strings are economically secure is very hard to digest and tolerate.
To kick-off Homelessness Awareness Month, we are posting this blog by Ellen Bassuk, MD that originally appeared on Huffington Post on October 8, 2015 at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-l-bassuk/not-one-child-not-one-nig_b_8258580.html.
How can it be in a country as affluent as the United States that 2.5 million children are homeless each year? Although the numbers are climbing, family homelessness is absent from our nation's agenda.
I am a survivor of domestic violence and all of its consequences and side effects: emotional instability, housing instability, risk to health and safety…all of it. I am a survivor, and this is my story.
Homelessness and housing instability are growing problems in Massachusetts. The number of homeless families in the Commonwealth has increased dramatically by 94 percent between 2007 and 2014.[1] As a progressive state, Massachusetts has long recognized that individual experiences of sexual and domestic violence play a significant role in housing instability, frequently resulting in homelessness.
