by John Barry
Thursday, June 15, 2000
From 1987 to 1997, the demand for emergency food and shelter indicate that despite the booming economy and the new prosperity, the number of homeless and those living in extreme poverty in the United States has increased. According to a recent White House press release, the number of homeless at any given time has now reached 750,000.
The homeless are not necessarily penniless, or without four walls. While anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of the homeless have jobs - depending on the city — many have no access to affordable housing. Some attribute this to the increase in property rates that reflect the income discrepancy caused by the "new prosperity" of the nineties. In Indiana, for instance, 50 percent of the homeless are working, as compared to 3 percent in 1987. While an hourly wage of $7.92 is needed to afford a cheap one-bedroom apartment in the city, most earnless than $6 an hour. The average low-income family now spends about 50 percent of its money on rent.
Homelessness became a visible issue during the eighties. From 1984 to 1987, according to HUD statistics, the number of homeless doubled.
Throughout most of that decade, the response to homelessness was largely local. President Reagan and the Republican Party generally advocated private charity on the local level as a response to the problem. In 1987, the McKinney Act was reluctantly signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. Sponsored by Republican Stewart McKinney, this Homeless Assistance Act provided emergency relief provisions for shelter, food, mobile health care, and transitional housing for homeless. Since 1995, the funding for the Act has declined by 27 percent. While many feel that the act is an important first step by the government, which has eased the blow of emergency housing shortages. Senator Al Gore was one of its first sponsors:
"McKinney is an essential first step towards establishing a national agenda or action to eradicate homelessness in America. No one in this body should believe that the legislation we begin considering today is anything more than a first step towards reversing the record increase in homelessness." (Congressional Record, p.S3683, March 23, 1987)
In 1994, President Clinton issued an Executive Order to the Interagency Council on the Homeless for "breaking the cycle of homelessness and preventing future homelessness." But in recent years, with the increasing prosperity, the President retreated on homelessness. His 1996, 97, and 98 budgets all cut the housing programs of the 104th Congress. While the 1994 federal plan acknowledged the central role of poverty in homelessness, the 1996 welfare proposal was passed despite research indicating that it would push one million children into poverty. The president's latest pronouncements have focused on "individual responsibility" for poverty.
Is there any indication that the Democratic Party this year is willing to take another major step toward defeating homelessness?
On One Hand...
The Democratic Party has been ignoring the plight of the homeless. The McKinney Act doesn't address the real problems behind homelessness — which include the minimum wage, the lack of housing, and the plight of single women. Since the dramatic increase in homelessness during the eighties, we are in danger of accepting this phenomenon as a constant in society. The Democratic Party needs to recognize that homelessness is a moral outrage, and that it is already beginning to breed a generation of young children who have been abused, who aren't educated, who don't have health insurance, and who aren't paid enough to protect themselves against increases in rent or cost of living. The cost of providing shelter to a homeless person is lower than the cost of imprisoning them for "loitering". But the burden of doing that will become impossible to bear if we don't start another campaign against homelessness that targets the structural and economic causes of this injustice.
In Los Angeles, according to the city's estimates, there are 5-8 homeless people for every shelter bed. President Clinton's administration has let this problem grow out of control. Strong measures must be taken to address the root causes of homelessness.
On the Other Hand...
The Democrats have been championing the cause of the homeless for decades. By reducing the unemployment level to 4 percent and by championing the cause of the homeless with his Priority: Home! Plan in 1995, Bill Clinton has led the full-scale attack on homelessness.
This is the first federal plan to attack the roots of homelessness by making abandoned housing available as permanent housing for poor people. Previous legislation since the McKinney Act was aimed at emergency measures for transitional housing, food distribution, and healthcare.
Al Gore will bring the same concern for the homeless into the 21st century. As senator, he was instrumental in writing the Homeless Person's Survival Act, which provided emergency relief for the homeless. He was also one of the major supporters of the 1987 McKinney Act. To truly address the plight of homelessness, though, the problem should be faced on the individual level.
- In a 1996 study of evening news programs in 1989: Under Bush there were 44 stories on homelessness in 1989, 54 in 1991, and 43 in 1992. The average was 52.5. Under Clinton there were 35 in 1993, 32 in 1994, and just nine in 1995, for an average of 25.3.
- In 1987, a Urban Institute study found that while only 12 percent of the U.S. population is black, they make up about 40 percent of the homeless.
- During the Great Depression, the number of able bodied men forced into homeless due to unemployment rates approached 25 percent.
- Al Gore turned down an invitation by homeless advocate Ted Hayes to visit the Dome Villiage homeless encampment two blocks from the Staples Center during the Convention. Hayes, who is seeking funding for the Homeless Convention said, "Don't just come into our neighborhood and pretend we aren't there. Hold a news conference with us. Do something."
- A 1995 evaluation found that approximately 86% of the homeless children and youth attended school regularly. A majority of the service providers and shelter operators felt that homeless children faced difficulties in being evaluated for special education programs and services, and in obtaining counseling and psychological services.
- "After more than 35 years of trying to help homeless people with every imaginable problem, I cannot escape this fact: Men and women who walk away from their jobs, their families, and their homes do so because, fundamentally, they are turning away God and his claim on their lives." - Rev. Stephen Burger
Media Reality Check; Symposium- Populations of Homeless Americans; Los Angeles Times; National Coalition of the Homeless; Policy Review, Heritage Foundation
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