New solutions sought as homeless ranks grow

New solutions sought as homeless ranks grow
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Latrina Medlock knows how a few bad decisions can lead to homelessness.

As she walks the streets of the city pregnant and uncertain of the future, she says she knows that handling money and opportunities a bit differently in her life would have saved her from dire straits.

"Bad decision-making caused me to get in the situation I am now," said Medlock, who is one of a growing number of pregnant women and families left homeless in Metro Detroit as the economy shrivels. Being "homeless is not pleasant," she says. "I just make it day by day."

As state officials, along with more than 5,000 social workers, charities and the poor gather at Cobo Center for a major conference on poverty Thursday, a national and worldwide recession threatens to burst the seams of the social safety net in Michigan, where the economy soured earlier in the decade. The recipients and providers of social services, who normally grapple with solutions for poverty in good times, will gather to hammer out a new, concerted approach to fighting rising levels of poverty as more workers and their families are exposed to dire circumstances.
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http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081113/METRO/811130414
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