FEMA denies vast majority of homeowners' derecho aid requests thegazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thegazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Millions of Americans will soon be turning to FEMA as disasters worsen. The agency has grown dramatically more restrictive with the assistance it gives out.
Jordan Sellergren/Little Village
A total of 2,647 Iowans were homeless on a single night in January 2020, a 14.3 percent increase from January 2019.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in Iowa was increasing even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Then came the August 2020 derecho that caused nearly $4 billion in damage, with at least $83 million of that being housing-related.
Of the individuals experiencing homelessness in Iowa, about 87 percent or 2,314 were sheltered. The remaining 333 individuals were unsheltered.
These findings are part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual point-in-time count of homelessness in the country. The one-night counts are conducted nationwide during the last 10 days of January each year. The report, along with a breakdown for each state, was published last month.
Radio Iowa
You are here: Home
Iowa agencies see continued increase in housing issues
Nine months into the pandemic and many Iowa families are still being pushed into homelessness.
Waypoint Services, a Cedar Rapids-based provider, is seeing the need grow sharply among Iowans who never experienced homelessness before.
Housing services director J’nae Peterman says area shelters and other providers are also struggling to meet the demand for rent assistance and transitional housing. “Within a month-and-a-half time period, we served the number of people that we typically serve in a full year,” Peterman says. “That’s typically around 3,000 people and that’s what we’re seeing in less than two months.”