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Even Goodwill is hurt by tough times

By Clay Barbour cbarbour@charlotteobserver.com Posted: Monday, Nov. 03, 2008       The pickings are getting slim at one of Tina Partridge's favorite shopping spots, another sign of the country's tough times. About once a month Partridge and her five children head to the Steele Creek Goodwill retail store, where the young mother can find great deals on everything from school clothes to dirt bikes. But the slumping economy is taking its toll on selection these days, and that hits parents like Partridge particularly hard. “With a big family like mine, finding the stuff you need at a good price is a matter of survival,” she said.   Goodwill officials said area donations were down 5 percent for the year, 10 percent over just the past three months. Meanwhile, the organization has experienced a dramatic increase in demand for its free …


Bush program curbs chronic homelessness

WASHINGTON - On a cold January morning in 2001, Mel Martinez, then the new secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was headed to his office in his limo when he saw some homeless people huddled on the vents of the steam tunnels that heat federal buildings.   "Somebody ought to do something for them," Martinez said he told himself. "And it dawned on me at that moment that it was me."   So began the Bush administration's radical, liberal -- and successful -- national campaign against chronic homelessness. "Housing first," it's called. That's to distinguish it from traditional programs that require longtime street people to undergo months of treatment and counseling before they're deemed "housing ready."   Instead, the Bush administration offers them rent-free apartments up front. New residents, if they choose, can start turning their lives around with the …


The gospel of 'White Mike'

2 MAY 2007  •  by Mike Kelly, Jeffrey E. Stern, The Independent Weekly, Durham, NC view story on The Indpendent Weekly's site view pdf version of story Editors' note: A little over a year ago, writer Jeff Stern profiled a group of three homeless men who lived together along Durham's railroad tracks ("The Family," March 29, 2006). This week, one of them, Mike Kelly, graduated from Housing for New Hope's PATH program. He's working and just moved into his own apartment. Recently, he sat down with Stern to talk about his stay at Phoenix House transitional housing, beating addictions, his new life and his old friends, Mark and Concrete.   A year ago, Mike Kelly was homeless, camping out along Durham's railroad tracks. Photo by Lissa Gotwals II called myself the invisible man. I wasn't a human being because I …


Renters feeling mortgage crisis shockwaves

Ripple effects now squeezing area's financially vulnerable due to greater competition for affordable housing Jim Wise Raleigh News and Observer August 30, 2008  Durham and the Triangle have been spared the worst of the credit crunch and foreclosure wave, but the effects are nonetheless rippling through the local economy, sometimes in unexpected ways.   Everyone knows that banks, builders, and home-buyers and sellers are suffering from a credit crunch these days.   But so are others whose situation has not been so well publicized -- even those who don't have homes.   "Foreclosure has hit lower-income people," said Jack Preiss, a retired Duke University sociologist and former Durham city councilman who has been building low-income housing for decades. "These people have been hit very hard."   The crisis in mortgage lending that began a year ago has set off a …


Homeless Advocates Hold Workshop in Capital

by TRANG DO, Herald-Sun Washington Bureau July 10, 2007   WASHINGTON - Durham resident Alphonso Williams really knows how to captivate a crowd.  But it's not because of his towering 6-foot-4 frame or his booming, resonant voice.  It's because he know how to tell a great story - his own story.   Williams joined Terry Allebaugh, executive director of Durham's Housing for New Hope in the nation's capital Tuesday to moderate a workshop on effective advocacy for the homeless.   "Looking at me right now, 13 years ago, you wouldn't even recognize me," Williams told the 40-plus attendees.  "I was homeless, dead broke."   Now, at 56, Williams tells his life story as a way to spur others to act.   Tuesday's workshop focused on helping other formerly homeless people and local community advocates to do the same.   "Alphonso …