Jeanette Wolfberg reports in The Columbia Paper that Columbia County has 54 homeless people who have contacted the Department of Social Services, and officials think the true number could be twice as high. “There’s a homeless explosion," said Supervisor Richard Scalera (D-Hudson, 5th Ward). "It breaks my heart that we pay so much to put people in hotel rooms with barely running water.” DSS Attorney Bob Gibson said much of the problem was due to housing. “We have a recruitment problem with landlords. We need low-cost housing,” Gibson said at the Jan. 20 Human Services committee meeting. Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.