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Getting the Homeless Back Home
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17228 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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2 / 1990 |
2,985 Words |
| Author
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Patrick Boyle
Patrick Boyle is an investigative reporter at the Washington
Times. |
Things were going just fine for Tyrone and Sherri Coleman in the summer of 1988. They were settled in their own apartment, their baby boy was healthy, Tyrone was working, and Sheri was pregnant. Homelessness? They knew as much about that as most Americans. "We watched the homeless on TV," Sherri said. She never imagined that her new baby's first home would be a shelter.
The trouble began with a car accident. The injuries left Tyrone unable to work at the print shop for a few months. Soon they couldn't pay the rent. One day an eviction crew kicked them out and set all their belongings on the sidewalk, where passersby quickly hauled away everything the Colemans owned.
Within weeks, the family was split up. Tyrone was sleeping on a friend's couch, and Sherri was living in a shelter with Tyrone Jr. She wasn't working, having quit her job with the federal government in order to raise her growing family.
Sounds desperate, doesn't it? Guess what: Within four months, the Coleman family was back in a home of their own, a six - room, $800 - a - month apartment in Washington, D.C. Tyrone was working at a better job than he had before, and Sherri was preparing to work for the government again.
With more and more homeless people crowding America's cities and towns - sleeping on sidewalks, begging for change, costing taxpayers millions of dollars for shelters - the Colemans stand out. They are part of a program that, unlike traditional efforts to help the homeless, actually gets people out of shelters and into homes of their
... (1967 of 17320 Characters)
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