Homeless Families with Children Receiving Welfare Assistance in Washington State

This report provides basic 1997-98 data about families with children, who received welfare assistance and were newly reported homeless in Washington State. The report provided data to the CTED-DSHS work group that was preparing an inventory of available state assistance. The findings conveyed a sense of the numbers of newly homeless families and were designed for statewide services planning. Over the full 12-month study period ACES data identified 4,344 newly homeless families, comprising 11,949 persons: 6,756 children, 5,193 adults. The 12-month group included 710 (or more) homeless pregnant women. Some 397 of these women had no children and were in one-person households. About 73 percent of the entire group received cash grants, most, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families grants. Close to 90 percent had state-provided health insurance; close to 90 percent got Food Stamps. Sixty percent had been active DSHS welfare recipients in the month before they were newly coded as homeless. Over half were enrolled with welfare offices in the urban Puget Sound area, from Everett to Olympia, including Bremerton and Puyallup.