This week, NPR has taken on the issue of homelessness in a 3-part series airing on Morning Edition.  The focus of the stories is Skid Row in LA, but because homelessness is universal, it is definitely worth listening to.

Los Angeles adopted the ‘Safer City Initiative’ nearly 2 ½ years ago.  The goal of this program was initially intended to reduce crime and house the homeless.  However, with the addition of nearly 50 extra policemen in a 1-square mile area, many believe that this program has criminalized homelessness.  Especially since they majority of the homeless in this area have not been housed.

When the initiative was instated, police began handing out tickets on Skid Row for supposed offenses such as sitting on the sidewalk, jaywalking, littering and drinking in public.  A study conducted by UCLA found that police officers wrote roughly 1,000 tickets per month during the first year of this program.

By targeting people who live on the street, it often compounds the problems faced by homeless individuals.  If a guilty plea is entered, this comes with a fine.  If the defendant does not show up for court, then a bench warrant will be issued, which means the next time that person gets arrested for something as minor as sitting down on the street, they could be carted off to jail.

Los Angeles city officials note that crime is down in the Skid Row area. The city has funded 796 units of permanent supportive housing, most are not complete and many have not even been started. It has been noted that there are currently less homeless people residing in the area.  However, most likely they’ve simply moved to another part of the city where they won’t have to fear being arrested for resting.  

To learn more about this series, or to hear it online, visit www.npr.org.

On Monday, Poland’s largest fire since 1980 took the lives of 21 people at a homeless shelter located in northwest Poland.  The shelter housed families, and out of the estimated 77 people registered there, 20 others were injured in escaping the blaze.

Poland has declared a national 3 days of mourning.  Residents of the town Kamien Pomorski, 37 miles east of the border with Germany, have gathered where the building once stood with an outpouring of donations for the survivors.

The government offered $300,000 in immediate aid to survivors of the fire, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it would allocate money to build a new shelter at a different site. 

This is a tragedy and our thoughts are with them.

Last week, The Washington Post reported that at least 3% of Washington DC residents have HIV or AIDS, which is triple the threshold for a ‘generalized and severe’ epidemic.  Almost 1 in 10 residents between 40 and 49 are living with the virus, and black men had the highest infection rate at almost 7%, the report said. It added that 3% of black women in D.C. have HIV.  And keep in mind that these rates only take into account those individuals that have been tested, so that means the actual numbers are probably much higher.

The District’s Director of the HIV/AIDS Administration told the Post that “every mode of transmission” — men having sex with men, heterosexual and injected drug use — is on the rise.  This is a 22% increase in the amount of cases since 2006, which puts it on par with Uganda and parts of Kenya.

Even though this study was conducted in Washington D.C., as reported previously, the numbers of those infected are also in the rise here in NYC, especially amongst young women. 

These figures come out in a time when funding is threatened to be cut.  This just goes to show that the fight for HIV/AIDS funding for education, treatment, and housing is unfortunately not even close to being over.