Stimulus money helps homeless schoolchildren
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — Downtown Rocky Mount in eastern North Carolina offers a horizon of shuttered businesses, along with a stretch of houses with boarded-up windows and vacant porches.
Forbes magazine now ranks Rocky Mount, once a vibrant manufacturing hub, as one of the 10 most impoverished cities in America, with an unemployment rate hovering at a dismal 13 percent and a county crime rate that's almost double the national average.
The area's woes have contributed to another number that's rising: homelessness among children.
The Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools system had at least 564 homeless students for the 2009-10 school year, up 9 percent from last year. North Carolina ranks as the ninth worst state in the country for the risk of child homelessness, with a 48 percent
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/08/98564/stimulus-money-helps-homeless.html#ixzz0w1vV0tNF
Forbes magazine now ranks Rocky Mount, once a vibrant manufacturing hub, as one of the 10 most impoverished cities in America, with an unemployment rate hovering at a dismal 13 percent and a county crime rate that's almost double the national average.
The area's woes have contributed to another number that's rising: homelessness among children.
The Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools system had at least 564 homeless students for the 2009-10 school year, up 9 percent from last year. North Carolina ranks as the ninth worst state in the country for the risk of child homelessness, with a 48 percent
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/08/98564/stimulus-money-helps-homeless.html#ixzz0w1vV0tNF