A bitter winter for America’s 3M homeless

Press, 27 February 1986, Page 13

A bitter winter for America’s 3M homeless

America’s homeless have risen from 250,000 to around 3 million in the three years of the second Reagan Administration. They come from all walks of life and fit no stereotype or social pattern. WILLIAM SCOBIE reports from the “homeless capital” of the U.S.

Some are former engineers from California’s once-booming Silicon Valley. Some are young, laid-off steelworkers from the Mid-West. Some are teen-age runaways, some crazed old "bag ladies” released from institutions with nothing more than their bags and a bus ticket to Los Angeles’ Greyhound bus station. They are the army of America’s new homeless, which social agencies estimate has risen from around 250,000 to close to 3 million in the three years of the second Reagan Administration.

They come from all walks of life, fit no stereotype, or social pattern but one thing they have in common: none of them ever believed that they would be spending the bitter winter of 1985-86 on the streets, destitute in this wealthy land. As President Reagan announced Draconian cuts in welfare and Federal funds for the cities, a new study released in Los Angeles — one of more than 100 reports on the subject prepared by social agencies and churches — declared Los Angeles to be the “homeless capital” of America, with an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 homeless people living in alleys and parks, under freeway flyovers, on beaches and — if fortunate — in shelters. “Did you ever try sleeping in the back of your car while it’s snowing outside?” asks Ron Mills, a jobless construction clerk, "and you need to use the toilet but you know that the only one is three streets away in a gas station that’s closed.” Each month more than 10,000 destitute people apply to Los Angeles County for aid. More than half of them are homeless, "Some are 'snowbirds,* jobless, broke people who’ve come here from the east for the better climate,” said a worker at a church-run soup kitchen on L.A.’s Skid Row. "But many more are Californians who’ve lived ’iere all their lives and have held V >

down good jobs until the past few years.” In fact, county statistics show the average L.A. welfare recipient has lived in the “Golden State” for 24 years. Downtown L.A.’s soup-line may be longer than most, but the depression-era scene is being •repeated in cities across the nation.

e Texan authorities report at least 50,000 homeless in the six largest cities. Their median age fell from 42 three years ago to 27 in 1985.

• Florida reports up to 30,000 homeless. Social workers say at least 25 per cent are former mental patients who don’t know how to get welfare benefits, or don’t quality because they have no permanent address. ® New York City estimates 40,000 homeless, with less than half finding a place in shelters. Why is it happening, and why now? Firstly, there is a desperate shortage of low-income housing almost everywhere in the U.S. So-called urban renewal in the 1970 s eliminated millions of cheap single rooms in lodging houses and inner city ghetto areas that used to harbour the poor. The most L.A.’s physically able homeless can expect from welfare is a $228 per month “workfare” grant. Recipients pay back the “grant” by cleaning streets, and other menial chores. Of the $228, by law $l4O is officially provided for rent There is no housing at that price anywhere in L.A. Even on Skid Row, the meanest room, without heat or running water, costs an average of $230 a month.

( Secondly, the Reagan Administration since 1983 has budgeted only a pitiful $7O million annually in direct aid to the homeless. This month’s Reaganaut budget cuts, if passed by .Congress, would mean a $1.9 billion loss to New York state alone — mostly in welfare funding, including $l9O million in housing assistance. Mayor Koch called the cuts X

“hideous and crippling.” ;

Thirdly, a shocking number of outcasts roaming the ‘streets come from state mental j hospitals. In the 19605, U.S. , medical advisers to the White House decided that newly-discpvered drugs would help the emotionally disturbed to cope with evdry-day life. Institutions released millions of patients, who were .to be tended in more than 2000 aftercare centres. President Kennedy signed a bill to creates these centres. But because of budget cuts in the Nixon-Ford years, fewer than 700 were completed. The bizarre results of this medical muddle are every day in every majqr U.S. city. Disoriented, chronically mentally ill people, deprived of medication, wander aimlessly. Some turn violent, morie are subject to violence. "These people can’t survive on the streets for more than’a few days. They’re assaulted, fobbed, raped," says Mary Smith of L.A.’s beachfront “Venice family clinic.” “One night out ip cold rain can lead to severe hypothermia, a lowering of the body core temperature that often lulls.” The homeless are not popular. At a packed city council meeting in L.A. recently, angry businessmen denouced them as "predators and bums” who preyed on visitors and damaged the Californian tourist industry. At Harvard University, authorities placed iron plates over dormitory heat vents to keep away homeless people seeking warmth at night More than 400 students signed a protest but the bars remain in place. “The Reagan Administration has doubled the national debt in five years with its emphasis on massive defence spending,” says a Californian Democrat, Tom Hayden. “The message to the poor and the homeless is the President’s state of the < union address last week boils down to two words: tough luck.” (Copyright — London Observer Service.)