Advocates say funding Alabama’s housing trust fund could help prevent homelessness

Source: AL — 

Anne Rygiel runs a homeless shelter for men in Birmingham called Firehouse Ministries. As the weather gets cold and the holidays approach, Rygiel must turn more people away each night for lack of bed space.

“It can be a matter of life and death,” she said. There are 92 beds in her emergency shelter, and 10 to 15 extra people arrived on Monday night. The shelter moved into a new building at the outset of the pandemic, doubling its capacity. Rygiel hoped that would be enough, but she said rising rents are driving more people to homelessness, particularly the young and elderly.