HOMELESS PEOPLE IN THE U.S. — WHY THEY WILL NOT GO AWAY
I have no heart for someone who starves his folks.
George W. Bush (on North Korea’s Kim Jong II) San Franciscans are tired of homelessness.
It has been an evergrowing crisis for over two decades, and both conservatives and advocates agree that the problem is far beyond public control. In order to end Third World conditions on the City’s streets, many people are now willing to adapt more draconian measures, “tough love” approaches that will tackle the crisis with rolled-up sleeves. If homeless people get ruffled in the process, well, perhaps they won’t congregate here any longer.
Each mayoral candidate realizes the need to promise a silver bullet for homelessness. Gavin Newsom capitalized on people’s frustration with “care-not-cash,” which supposedly trades welfare money for services. As the campaign was in full swing last October, a concerned citizen in support of Prop N wrote to the Bay Guardian, expressing a sentiment shared by many San Franciscans: “Why can’t the homeless go somewhere else?”
The U.S. Conference of Mayors, held in December last year in Washington, provides the disturbing answer: “somewhere else” is already full.
Mayors all over the country confirmed that the malady is nationwide, calling it “a crisis in helping the needy.” According to the conference, 2002 brought the largest increase in demand for emergency shelter in a decade, while the demand for food aid rose 19 percent throughout the country. On the whole, food and shelter requests have consistently grown since the first mayor’s survey in 1986.
If you think of San Francisco as a homeless magnet, you might be surprised to hear that many people in the U.S. view their hometowns as such. Seattle, Los Angeles, or Santa Cruz have had homeless problems for quite a while, but who knew that St. Louis had a 64 percent increase in shelter demand last year? Or that Miami has a seven-year waiting list for public housing?
As we have learned from the Chronicle, homeless people are for the most part lazy bums, drug-addicted fuck-ups who cannot be helped. So are we witnessing a disturbing nation-wide increase in laziness?
Are the fuck-ups on the rise in America?
Before you suspect a vast liberal conspiracy, hear what experts and mayors have to say. “The mayor’s report shows that the country’s economic problems are visited most strongly on children and the working poor,” said Doug O’ Brien from Second Harvest, the nation’s main charity food provider. According to the mayors, working families are the most needy in the nation. The demand for food goes up because poor families are unable to pay for both rent and groceries. At the same time, more and more families get priced out of the housing market, and demands for public housing are vastly exceeding supply. With the federal budget busy to beef up the pentagon, and housing and health care prices skyrocketing, this crisis is far from reaching its peak.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in ritzy San Francisco. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that in order to afford a monthly rent of merely $700.00 (a steal in the Bay Area), a minimum wage earner would need to work 80 hours per week to afford rent! Damn little time to eat, sleep and shit, much less enjoy the beauties of the City by the Bay. And remember, these are people even Willie Brown considers necessary for the City, to do dishes, wash cars, and dig ditches.
Similarly, one shouldn’t become disabled in the Bay Area. A person on Social Security retirement or disability benefits can realistically only afford $200- 300 in monthly rent — not even a ticket to the Tenderloin.
After identifying the problems, the U.S. Mayors were quick to call for solutions. “What we need is funding to build the right kind of housing,” said Mayor Bill Purcell of Nashville. And Mayor Anthony Williams of Washington requested new federal financing for housing, job training, substance abuse treatment and mental health counseling. “The world’s richest and most powerful nation must find a way to meet the basic needs of all its residents,” said Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston. “We need a recommitment to help people put a roof over their head and have a nutritious meal every day.”
Meanwhile, food provider Second Harvest released a report showing that private charities feed more people than the federal government. As President Bush has already spent millions of dollars for troop deployment in the Persian Gulf, state budgets are being cut in nearly epic proportions. As government spends more than a billion dollars per day on the military, poor Americans go hungry and lose their homes.
As rich kid Gavin Newsom vows to confront homelessness, his first idea is to take away general assistance from the working poor — to build shelters to house them once they can no longer pay rent. “Why can’t they just go away?”
Dear concerned citizen,
Why can’t you get your head out your ass and see the problem for what it is?
Sincerely yours,
Chester