Liz Murray's Breaking Night

Overview of the Problem
The book “Breaking Night” by Liz Murray is a memoir that describes Liz Murray’s life growing up with a substance addicted mother and father. The memoir recounts Liz Murray’s struggles including taking care of her mother, who battled substance addiction and severe mental illness, truancy, and homelessness. Throughout Liz Murray’s story there were countless systems that failed her and her family. Several systems, including social services and school, could have implemented several federal, state, and local policies that could have provided assistance to Liz Murray’s family and alleviated the stress on Liz Murray that enabled her from successfully attending school on a regular basis. While reading the memoir, I was able to identify two different housing policies that could have been implemented to reduce or eliminate Liz’s risk of homelessness. The two housing policies/programs that were identified were McKinney-Vento Act and the Frank Melville Supportive Housing

There are different types of permanent housing that the CoC Progam deems eligible of receiving funds. The first type of permanent housing is permanent supportive housing for individuals with disabilities. Permanent supportive housing is “permanent housing with indefinite leasing or rental assistance paired with supportive services to assist homeless persons with a disability or families with an adult or child member with a disability achieve housing stability” (HUDExchange, para 4). The second type of permanent housing is rapid re-housing, which “emphasizes housing search and relocation service and short-and medium-term rental assistance to move homeless persons and families, which and without a disability, as rapidly as possible into permanent housing” (HUDExchange, para