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December 6, 2006

Plan to remedy RI homelessness announced

PROVIDENCE -- Governor Carcieri announced an ambitious new plan today that mirrors a national initiative to radically change how local communities have dealt with chronic homelessness for decades.

Rather than attempting to manage the problem by placing homeless people in nightly shelters, it calls for ending homelessness by providing permanent housing, health care and social services with few strings attached.

Those communities that have embraced the concept are finding it is not only more humane but cheaper than traditional, uncoordinated efforts, said Philip F. Mangano, who heads the federal initiative.

Mangano, the director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, was one of the guest speakers today inside the basement of the Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul where Governor Carcieri announced the plan for Rhode Island.

More than 200 cities and other jurisdictions have started 10-year plans to eliminate "the moral disgrace of homelessness,’’ Mangano said. The plan works on the economic principle that it is cheaper to develop a well-coordinated offering of human services rather than rely on the current disjointed system that sees the homeless cycling through soup kitchens and emergency rooms at tremendous cost to taxpayers.

Read more about the plan in tomorrow's Journal.

-- Journal staff writer Tom Mooney

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 4:53 PM | Permalink

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