Minot Homelessness | Video

Sarahbeth Ackerman | 12/11/2012

Last year, the federal government reported that 630,000 people in the United States were homeless. Now, they say there is a slight decline in those national rates, but is Minot following that trend?

Over the past two years, the Minot Area Homeless Coalition reported increased rates of homelessness in the Magic City and throughout the state. More and more people are becoming homeless because the number of places to live in North Dakota is not keeping up with the number of jobs that are available.

"You cannot come to North Dakota thinking that you are going to get a job and expect to have a house over your head unless you can pay a thousand dollars for a one bedroom apartment, or 2,000 in some parts of the state. That`s just kind of hard. People come cause they want the oil jobs, not everybody is gonna get the oil jobs," said Minot Homeless Coalition Ext. Director Mac McLeod.

McLeod says last year they had on average 5,000 to 7,000 people in North Dakota that were homeless.

COMMENT ON THIS STORY