By Erin Fuchs
Dalton Bureau
DALTON, Ga. -- As the Community Partnership to End Homelessness Act awaits Senate re-authorization, local advocates for the homeless say the bill makes more difficult securing federal funds to help the rural homeless.
The rural homeless are likely to live in overcrowded situations with family members, advocates say.
"There's more money dedicated to the people on the street than to the people who are invisible," said Teresa Sefcik, homeless education liaison for Whitfield County Schools.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, defines a homeless person as somebody who lacks a regular, adequate place to sleep at night.
It doesn't include people who are doubled up with family members, according to Gaile Jennings, executive director of the Dalton-Whitfield Community Development Corp., or CDC, which addresses housing needs.
"The phone calls I get... There are nine people crammed into a two-bedroom apartment," Ms. Jennings said.
"But according to HUD, we can't count them," she added. "They're not considered homeless."
The end result is that the CDC doesn't get as much federal funding as it needs, she said.
Jennifer Shearin, housing case manager for the CDC here, said that she turned away 132 families during their last fiscal year, because the organization didn't have the funds to serve them.
"Most of my families have been working, lost a job, gotten evicted," she said.
The Homelessness Act, which passed the banking committee Sept. 19, does expand the definition of "homeless" to include those who are doubled up, advocates say -- but only under certain conditions.
They would be required to have moved three times in one year, said Barbara Duffield, policy director for the Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.
They would also be considered "homeless" only if they had no money to contribute to rent, she said.
"It's very arbitrary and short-sighted," Ms. Duffield said.
She's urging people to call their representatives in the next few weeks before the bill heads to the Senate floor.
In the meantime, local housing experts say they are frustrated that the rural homeless aren't getting national recognition, and national money.
"They don't show up on the radar," Ms. Sefcik said, "because they're not pushing a cart down the street or hanging out in the park."
E-mail Erin Fuchs at efuchs@timesfreepress.com
