Survey: More U.S. homeless families

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- The number of families with children becoming homeless is growing as mortgage foreclosures add to mounting economic pressures, a survey indicates.

USA Today's poll of local officials around the country found more homeless families in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Washington, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

"Everywhere I go, I hear there is an increase" in the need for help to homeless families, Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, told USA Today, adding that the main causes are job losses and mortgage foreclosures.

The newspaper found that in New York City, 2,747 families applied for shelter in September, up from 2,087 in September 2007. Meanwhile in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, 880 families were listed as being in shelters from January through August 2008, up from 698 in that period in 2007.

Cathy ten Broeke, a Hennepin County official in charge of efforts to end homelessness, told USA Today that at least 10 percent of this year's homeless families came from foreclosed properties where most had been renters.