Word: homeless
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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This tough-love approach to the homeless is a relatively recent phenomenon. Back in the 1980s, when Americans rated the issue an urgent priority, Congress passed a landmark law to give homeless people a variety of housing, health-care and job programs. In 1986 an outpouring of almost 6 million people locked hands to form a 4,152-mile human chain, Hands Across America, to raise some $15 million for the cause. Popular concern about the homeless eased in recent years as the economy boomed, but the stubborn visibility of the problem--coupled with high-profile incidents like the warehouse...
While measuring the size of the homeless population is an imprecise business, most evidence indicates the numbers are swelling. The demand for emergency shelter has grown every year since 1985 and leaped 11% in 1998, according to a study published last year by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. In New York City the number of homeless has grown more than 9% this year. Experts suspect the frothy economy is partly to blame. It has in many cases driven housing rentals beyond the reach of minimum-wage workers...
...many of the tough new urban measures is disarmingly simple--to shoo the homeless out of sight. Chicago has privatized sidewalks in front of businesses, which means that anyone who loiters is trespassing. In Sacramento, Calif., police will pay for one-way bus tickets out of state for homeless with family or jobs to go to. In its attempts to drive the homeless from downtown, San Francisco has even arrested nuns serving hot meals in the United Nations Plaza--for lacking a proper permit. Most of the 20,000 citations reportedly issued this year by San Francisco have gone unpaid...
...York City has adapted a more comprehensive policy of requiring the homeless to go to work in exchange for shelter. A state judge temporarily halted this practice last week in order to consider its legality. Some of the New York provisions are plainly unforgiving: being an hour late to work could mean a loss of benefits for more than 90 days; refusing employment altogether could result in eviction; and evicted parents have been threatened with losing their children to foster care. An outcry over that last threat has put the Giuliani administration on the defensive. "We're not going...
...Clinton Administration has embraced a multi-pronged solution, pouring $6 billion into services like job training, mental health and drug counseling. These "continuum of care" programs show promise. After receiving such help, 76% of homeless families ended their homeless status, according to the HUD survey. Even some of the get-tough cities are absorbing elements of this model. Memphis, Tenn., and Portland, Ore., send counselors instead of police to deal with the homeless. And California is putting $10 million into a pilot program that gives the homeless long-term counseling to help them get back on their feet...