Vulnerable People and Places Blog

Mexico, whose official name is  the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. It is the 10th-most-populous country and has the most Spanish-speakers. In many ways, the Covid-19 pandemic only heightened the homeless crisis, which has been an ongoing issue for this Latin American country. In early 2020,  according to France24 , approximately 12 million Mexicans stopped working in April after quarantine measures were introduced by the government to curtail the spread of Covid-19. Unfortunately, this led to an estimated 2.8 million people to be out of work in June. According to Mexico's National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, it was expected that the number of people living in poverty could climb to 62.2 million in 2020. Which i...

  Image courtesy of istockphoto.com   Monica* is a 61-year-old disabled woman working three jobs to make her ends meet. She makes roughly $2,500 a month, pays $1500 for rent, $300 for car, plus add in bills and food and it becomes impossible to save any money. Monica’s rent is going up, and she needs cheaper housing. She needs to drop two jobs because she physically cannot work that much, but if she does this, she will be homeless. Monica applied for several waitlists for federally funded housing, housing vouchers, section 8, section 42, and more. She isn't old enough for senior housing (age 62). She was denied every time for “making too much money” to meet income restrictions or “not enough money” to meet 3x rent for the apartments. She would literally need to be homeless to get help. And even then, some places require jobs, a specific monthly income, and base your income on last year’s tax return.   Post COVID-19 the housing voucher and housing assistance waist lists ha...

Finding a permanent solution for those experiencing homelessness has always been an enormous challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has made those efforts even more difficult. Traditional shelters are not ideal when it becomes necessary to maintain physical distance from others. Building new shelters to meet this need is very expensive and takes almost two years to complete. So, what to do? Welcome to Project Turnkey. This program, administered by the Oregon Community Foundation, was established last year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the wildfire’s that left many without homes. The program leverages federal and state funds to purchase motels and hotels in counties across Oregon to be used as emergency shelters and transitional housing.   “Project Turnkey reflects an enormous and collaborative statewide effort to quickly deploy an innovative solution for a complex set of challenges for communities facing increased houseless impacts,” said Max Williams, President and CEO of the...