EDITORIAL Put the poor back on the national agenda
Nearly a million people in the
United States find themselves homeless every night. More than a third of them
are turned away from shelters for lack of space, according to a survey released
last December by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Overcrowding is such in some
shelters that many sleep on the floor.
For homeless families, who comprise nearly 40 percent of the
homeless population, the situation is even worse. More than half of them are
turned away from shelters. In more than half of U.S. cities, families may have
to break up in order to find shelter. It is estimated that 50 percent of the
homeless are African-American.
The poor have always been the hidden segment in America. Their
absence from public concern is even more pronounced when our attention is on
outside enemies. That is why the bishops have embarked on a special campaign to
make the public aware of the ongoing problem of poverty, especially among
children (NCR, Feb 15). It is also why U.S. mayors and other advocacy
groups are trying to penetrate the din of war coverage with warnings about the
consequences of a continued economic downturn and a squeeze on social spending
anticipated next year to accommodate massive increases in the defense budget.
It is why we have highlighted what seem basic injustices in the availability of
health care throughout the culture, especially to those working poor who are
too poor to afford care, whose jobs dont provide health benefits and who
make too much to take advantage of clinics.
The poor may remain hidden, but an outline of their lives is drawn
in distressing statistics.
The two million poorest families in the country saw their income
fall by 8 percent between 1995 and 1999. What they gained in earnings from work
was less than what they lost in welfare and food stamps. Those who are on
welfare are now facing further cuts. The 5-year lifetime limit on welfare
mandated by the 1996 law affected many last year and will reach many more this
year. Others who got jobs are now being laid off because of the recession, but
because of their low earnings on the jobs they no longer hold, four out of five
of them do not qualify for unemployment insurance benefits.
Perhaps the weirdest quirk in the welfare laws is the so-called
family cap, a provision that denies benefits to children born to
mothers on welfare. More than 100,000 children are being punished for the
behavior of their irresponsible mothers.
In the struggle to survive, the homeless are losing. According to
the report of the Conference of Mayors, food requests were up 23 percent and
emergency requests up 13 percent in 2001. Each of the preceding three years had
recorded a similar percentage.
Experts warn us that the worst is still ahead. Facing budget
crises and burdened with security costs, states and cities have cut back on
programs that keep people from becoming homeless, such as health care and rent
assistance. Financing for low-cost housing has been scaled back, and that means
that the shortage of affordable housing will become more acute.
So tight is the squeeze already that the Department of Housing and
Urban Development recently reported that a third of vouchers for the Section 8
subsidized housing program are being returned unused. Meanwhile, foundations
are warning that their assets have been clobbered by the recession so that they
will be making fewer and smaller grants to grassroots community agencies.
The Federal Interagency Council on the Homeless describes the
homeless person as characterized by a high level of poverty, illness,
disabilities and lack of medical insurance. The disabilities typically include
drug addiction, soured relationships and alcohol. The root problem, however, is
low wages and lack of affordable housing. In the Minneapolis and St. Paul,
Minn., for example, 41 percent of the people on streets or in temporary housing
each night have jobs, and the figures are similar in many of our big cities. We
can expect no change until we take action to convert the minimum wage into a
living wage.
One would expect loud and angry protests from the self-proclaimed
guardians of the commonweal, the media. It is true that the issue is not
entirely ignored. Local newspapers record problems in their hometowns: requests
for beds in shelters up 26 percent in Trenton, N.J.; 25 percent in Kansas City,
Mo.; 20 percent in Denver and New Orleans. But these are presented as isolated
incidents, not as part of the national problem of which they are symptoms.
Meanwhile, on the national level, the homeless have no high-powered lobbyists
with bulging pockets of soft money to grab attention in Congress.
Homelessness, hunger, health care. Who cares? How can anyone hope
to get those issues on the national agenda in times like these? Perhaps it is
time to take small steps. The postcard or e-mail to a local legislator, raising
the issue with your small community, connecting with the shelters and soup
kitchens and religious groups providing frontline aid in your area. Perhaps,
together, we can bring the poor out of hiding and place their needs back on the
national agenda.
National Catholic Reporter, February 22,
2002
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