The Great Recession has left in its wake a sad legacy that those who work in the field of affordable know all too well: we have an epidemic of homelessness across the nation. I read today a particularly depressing statistic. A report from the American Institutes for Research reports that one child in thirty is now homeless. That is 2.5 million children sleeping in cars, shelters, couch surfing or worse. The link to the news article is here: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/homelessness-hits-one-in-30-us-children/ar-BBekEKV
We can do so much better for our children. This is why housing advocates raise money and awareness, spend endless hours writing grant applications, sweat out the closings and overcome the myriad obstacles to create homes that families can afford. Because we have to. Because the children we are serving need our help.
If you want to know what you can do, consider investment in the Community Investment Tax Credit program this year. You make a donation, get a charitable donation and a state tax credit, and the nonprofit that has the tax credit takes the money and reinvests it into our communities. For more information, check out this link: http://www.macdc.org/community-investment-tax-credit