How Any Person on the Street Can help a Street Person ...

In the early 1990s, when I was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, I'd walk six blocks each morning to the corner of West 22nd and Guadalupe Streets. The intersection was thick with homeless people--approximately fifteen people of both sexes and all ages.

Those mornings I could never wait to cross the street to my cushy, climate-controlled 8:30 class--away from the people at the corner and their sad eyes, their foul smells, and my own frustrated conscience. One man I often saw urinating in the street would call me Peaches, ask for money, and then snarl at me when I'd say, "Sorry, no."

That man helped form my image of who a homeless person is: an unpleasant someone who might spend the little money he has not on a meal or a bus ride but on booze, crack, or another nose ring. Although experts disagree on how many homeless people exist, the December 1996 U.S. Conference of Mayors' survey of twenty-nine U.S. cities reports that 47 percent of homeless people are men and 14 percent are single women. Eighty-one percent in twenty-two responding cities are substance abusers, and 59 percent in sixteen cities are considered to have a severe mental health condition.

A May 1998 fact sheet issued by the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for the Homeless reports that, although ethnic makeup varies according to geographic location, 58 percent of homeless people are African American, 29 percent are Caucasian, and 10 percent are Hispanic. That same fact sheet reports that fifty-five to sixty year olds account for 2.5 to 19.4 percent of America's urban homeless, thirty-one to fifty year olds account for 51 percent, and children under age eighteen account for 25 percent.

Then I met 28-year-old Lana and her four children: ages four, six, eight, and nine. I first saw Lana's nine-year-old daughter on the fenced playground of the Austin Salvation Army--a playground the daughter said she wished were bigger. The shelter should also have more bathrooms, she said. Lana's daughter then introduced me to Lana.

She once worked in a group home for handicapped people but has no job now and said she needs more computer and people skills to find a job that supports her family. She moved herself and her children into the shelter after her brother "kicked her out of the house" at Christmastime.

Ten Cities: A Snapshot of Family Homelessness Across America, 1997-1998 by Homes for the Homeless' Institute for Children and Poverty finds that single mothers head 78 percent of homeless families in the ten cities surveyed and that a typical homeless family in the United States consists of a single mother about thirty-five years old with two or three children averaging five years old. The Conference of Mayors confirms that the percentage of single homeless men has decreased in the last ten years as the numbers of homeless families with children and homeless single women have increased.

One reason for the increase in homeless women and children is domestic violence. That same Conference of Mayors report cries domestic violence as the primary cause of homelessness in thirteen of the twenty-nine cities it surveyed. A study in the August 28, 1996, Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that both homeless and low-income housed mothers have in common a history of physical assaults, poor physical health, and little education and job training.

Ninety-two percent of homeless mothers and 82 percent of low-income mothers have experienced an assault at least once in their lives. Nearly half of women in both groups--compared to approximately one-fifth of U.S. women--say they have suffered periods of major depression in their lives. And both groups have extremely small support networks of friends, family, and co-workers and, therefore, few resources with which to build their lives.

It makes sense then that, although housing is often cited as a blanket solution, it alone is not enough to solve the problem of homelessness. Experts agree that shelters are also just a short-term solution.

I met John at the central branch of the Austin Public Library, where the self-protective sign on the front door reads, "No bedrolls/ blankets." John carried a new maroon backpack, but his softened dusty jeans and maroon cap covering unwashed hair revealed to me his situation.

John told me he had worked for a wallpaper finishing company until 1986, when that company went out of business. Since then, he's done odd jobs that have earned him enough to keep clothed but not housed. I asked him why he doesn't seek assistance at a local shelter. "Actually, I'm afraid of shelters," he said. "There are too many wingnuts there--crazies, loonies--but I'd go there if they offered more job training and put up employment notices. Right now, it's mostly word of mouth."

John said he hasn't had much luck with employment agencies because they all seem to want younger people. "At my age (sixty-one), it's hard to get a job, so if you get a job, you're doing all right."

He appreciates being able to use the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, which provides him with a post office box where potential employers can contact him. The center also operates Labor Connection, which brings together the homeless and employers and provides Texas identification, applications for social security numbers, and birth certificates, according to Jona Ross, a client service specialist at the center. But these types of practical programs are few in number and only a recent development in the United States' rocky history of helping the homeless.

It was in the 1930s, during President Franklin Roosevelt's administration, that the federal government first began to assume--if only on a temporary, emergency basis--major responsibility for fighting poverty and homelessness. Most emergency relief programs were discontinued when World War II began and, by the 1950s, homelessness seemed confined to the alcoholic and mentally disturbed single men who loitered in bars and flophouses, according to the Congressional Quarterly Researcher's 1996 report.

Later, in 1963, President John F. Kennedy decided to replace existing mental health centers with a nationwide network of community mental health centers--which were never fully funded. As a result, many recently released patients did not receive the aftercare they needed to function in a noninstitutional setting and ended up on the streets.

The year 1979 brought progress in the form of the nation's first right-to-shelter lawsuit, which ordered New York City and New York State to create 750 new beds for homeless people in the Big Apple's bowery. But the recession of the early 1980s limited even low-wage jobs and left fewer affordable housing units--the combination of which swept many more poor people onto the streets.

It was during this period that the United States first recognized homelessness as a national problem. In so doing, it passed the McKinney Act--still considered the most important law of its kind on federal statute law books--in 1987. The McKinney Act defines homeless people as those who have spent more than seven consecutive nights in a shelter, car, abandoned building, public park, nonresidential building, or other nondwelling and gives aid to the homeless in the form of emergency food and shelter, medical and mental health care, permanent and transitional housing, and education and job training.

Since the mid-1990s, however, the tide has turned once more against helping the homeless. In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act aimed at overhauling the welfare system in the United States. Among its provisions, the act abolishes Aid to Families with Dependent Children and removes the safety net provided by the entitlement.

Federal block grants are now provided to each state, which determines how the money is spent. "With block grants in states' allocation of funds to various programs, organizations working to help the homeless may not receive the support they once got from the federal government," says Thomas Kenyon, author of the 1991 book What You Can Do to Help the Homeless.

Mimi Abramovitz, an author and professor at the Hunter College of Social Work in New York City, warned that these grants increase the overall likelihood of poverty because the demand for benefits exceeds the supply of funds and because localities now have to pay for the rising costs of shelters, foster care, prisons, and social debts that accompany the sick, hungry, jobless, and homeless. Add a stock market decline, inflation, economic recession, or other factor that increases these costs, said Abramovitz, and the pressure falls on the states, which in turn must raise taxes, turn away more people from existing services, or relinquish the provision of services to private organizations that are already strapped for cash.

In addition to the attack by Congress, local governments are also restricting the benefits and rights of poor and homeless people. The Washington, D.C.-based National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found that forty-two U.S. cities have tried to criminalize activities associated with homelessness. According to the center's December 1996 report, Mean Sweeps, cities generally pursue criminalization in one or more of four primary ways:

* enacting or enforcing restrictions on homeless people's use of public spaces for necessary activities, such as sleeping or sitting

* enacting or enforcing restrictions on begging

* conducting police sweeps designed to remove homeless people from specific areas

* targeting homeless people for selective enforcement of laws applicable to the general public.

The report concludes, however, that "penalizing people ... will not deter them, since they have no alternative. ... Homeless people who are chased out of one public area and who have nowhere else to go will simply appear in another area."

The cousin to criminalization is the nimby (not in my backyard) syndrome--opposition from those who object to the presence of social service programs for the poor and homeless in their community. The National Law Center's December 1997 report, Access Delayed, Access Denied, says that "in what may be a disturbing new trend," cities are turning more and more to revising zoning laws to exclude facilities that serve the poor and homeless. Eight U.S. cities have recently managed to increase restrictions by

* decreasing the number of zones where facilities may operate

* requiring facilities to obtain special-use permits

* placing stricter limits on the number of people a shelter or food service program may serve.

Despite such efforts, recent opinion polls show public support for programs to help poor and homeless people. A December 1995 Gallup poll reports that 90 percent of Americans are sympathetic toward homeless people.

In New York, the City Harvest Organization says it collects an average of 26,000 pounds of food from donors daily and delivers it to 450 of the city's 1,000 emergency nonprofit food programs. In 1997, it received $3.8 million dollars in donations and government funding. City Harvest Executive Director Julia Erickson said her organization is able to provide "a drop in the bucket--but a pretty big drop. We just don't nave the money yet to do more." And still, she adds, 73,000 people are turned away from New York's emergency food programs for lack of food each month--a 23 percent increase from 1997. In the United States overall, the demand for emergency food assistance increased by 26 percent in the first half of 1998, according to Catholic Charities, and one in eight families remain on the edge of hunger--despite the recent economic boom--according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, also in New York, runs several streamlined services funded completely by its congregation. The church--one of a few that can hire a full-time social worker, according to staff social worker Emily Dunlap--provides referrals to nonchurch agencies in the city for people who are homeless or who appear to be in jeopardy of becoming so.

The church is also one of a handful of 140 churches and synagogues in New York able to provide sleeping space every night to the homeless--ten men from Peter's Place, one of ten drop-in centers affiliated with the Partnership for the Homeless. Homeward Bound is the church's companion program, providing shelter visitors with health care, housing, nutritional counseling, and other vital information.

One homeless man I spoke with in New York told me that he just needs more time to get in the right mind-set to work. He said he last worked as a messenger for a restaurant in 1976. When I asked him for suggestions about how to improve shelters or job training programs, he could offer none. He just hoped passersby would continue to be kind to him. And as I was sitting with him at the corner of East 43rd Street and Park Avenue, he received a ten-dollar bill from one pedestrian and a whole pizza from another.

Experts disagree about whether giving to panhandlers or other people on the street helps solve the homelessness problem in the long run and recommend that people assess for themselves the homeless person's need in each particular case. But there are practical, safe ways that any person--even with a small amount of time, money, or patience--can help.

Suggestions from Nan Roman, vice-president of policy and programs at the Washington-based National Alliance to End Homelessness, include:

* If you have concerns about homeless facilities being built in your neighborhood, don't succumb to nimbyism. Don't think, "You can be homeless, but go be homeless somewhere else." The fact is that every community has its share of homeless people. Instead, volunteer at the facility, try to serve on its board, or otherwise constructively involve yourself in its operation so you will have a voice in how the facility interacts with your community.

* Oppose measures that essentially criminalize homelessness --such as arresting homeless people who sleep in doorways --by contacting your city councilmember or representative to express your opposition to such measures.

* At nonprofit organizations where you are already involved, initiate efforts to help people vulnerable to homelessness or who are already homeless--such as forming committees to provide low-cost housing.

Suggestions from Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the Washington-based National Center on Homelessness and Poverty, include:

* Give money to homeless people if they ask you for it and if you judge that person is really in need. You also could offer to buy the person a meal and, in any case, look at and acknowledge the homeless person.

* Volunteer at a shelter, soup kitchen, or advocacy group in any capacity, but especially useful are any specialized skills you have--such as accounting, legal, or business knowledge.

* Become knowledgeable about homelessness and its causes and become an advocate for solutions, especially by calling, writing, or visiting your local, state, or federal representative.

Suggestions from author Thomas Kenyon include:

* Talk to your family, especially children, about the causes and impact of homelessness. Write letters to the editor when you think homelessness problems are misrepresented in the media or by public figures. Subscribe to newsletters, read articles, and watch or listen to broadcast specials about housing and homelessness to stay current on the issue.

* Employ the homeless. Make sure your employer's personnel office contacts homeless programs when it hires. Help provide follow-up support for homeless employees. Make sure your company realizes that homeless employees have a different set of problems from other employees and that they may need more time and understanding during their first days on the job.

* Respond to the growing number of homeless children and families by tutoring homeless children and providing child care. Get your organization's members together to take homeless children staying at a local shelter on field trips once a month or coach homeless children in various sports. Donate children's books collected from friends, co-workers, and your attic to local shelters. Volunteer to pay for the homeless to attend summer camp, including needed clothes and equipment. Become a Big Brother or Big Sister to a homeless child.

RELATED ARTICLE: Homelessness Organizations

* Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program 701 North Fairfax Street, Suite 310, Alexandria, VA 22314-2064 703-706-9660 FAX [phone] www.efsp.unitedway.org/

Government program based on public-private cooperation to help meet the needs of hungry and homeless people throughout the United States and its territories by allocating federal funds for the provision of food and shelter.

* Food Not Bombs--San Francisco P.O. Box 40485, San Francisco, CA 94140 415-292-3235 [e-mail] webcom.com/peace

Secular, direct-action, economic human rights organization focusing on anti-war and anti-poverty issues.. There are approximately 100 FNB groups, mostly in the United States and Canada; however, each is local and independently run.

* Habitat for Humanity International 121 Habitat Street, Americus, GA 31709-3498 912-924-6935 [e-mail] www.habitat.org

Nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry working to eliminate substandard housing worldwide and to make adequate, affordable shelter a matter of conscience and action by building houses with families in need.

* HomeAid 9 Executive Circle, Suite 100, Irvine, CA 92614 949-553-9510 FAX [phone] [e-mail]

National organization working to build or renovate shelters for transitionally homeless men, women, and children.

* Homes for the Homeless 36 Cooper Square, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10003 212-529-5252 FAX [phone] [e-mail] www.opendoor.com/hfh/home.html

Private, nonprofit organization providing residential education services to homeless families through its American Family Inns transitional housing facilities and research through its Institute for Children and Poverty.

* National Coalition for the Homeless 1012 Fourteenth Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005-3406 202-737-6444 FAX [phone] [e-mail] nch.ari.net

National advocacy network of homeless persons, activists, service providers, and others committed to ending homelessness through public education, policy advocacy, grassroots organizing, and technical assistance.

* National Health Care for the Homeless Council, Inc./HCH Clinicians' Network P.O. Box 60427, Nashville, TN 37206-0427 615-226-2292 FAX [phone] [e-mail] www.nashville.net/~hch

Council: national membership organization of health care providers working with homeless people across the United States. Clinicians' Network: national association of clinicians working to combat and prevent homelessness and to improve the health and quality of life of homeless people through opportunities for education, information sharing, peer support, and networking.

* National Housing Institute 439 Main Street, Suite 311, Orange, NJ 07050 973-678-9060 FAX [phone] [e-mail] www.nhi.org

Independent nonprofit organization that examines how poverty, racism, lack of employment, and other issues affect people trying to build safe and viable neighborhoods; original research on such topics as saving subsidized housing, homelessness prevention, and jobs creation as a component of affordable housing construction.

* National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty 918 F Street NW, Suite 412, Washington, DC 20004 202-638-2535 FAX [phone] [e-mail] www.nlchp.org

Protects the rights of homeless people and works for solutions to end homelessness in the United States through litigation, policy advocacy, and public education.

* National Low-Income Housing Coalition 1012 Fourteenth Street NW, Suite 610, Washington, DC 20005 202-662-1530 FAX [phone] [e-mail]

National organization working to end America's affordable housing crisis through organization and advocacy for decent affordable housing in healthy neighborhoods. Provides current information, formulates policy, and educates the public about housing needs and strategies for solutions.

* National Resource Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness 262 Delaware Avenue, Delmar, NY 12054 800-444-7415 FAX [phone] [e-mail] www.prainc.com/nrc

Provides technical assistance and identifies, synthesizes, and disseminates information; links policymakers, service providers, researchers, consumers, and other interested parties to federal demonstration and knowledge development and application projects.

* National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness 11965 Venice Boulevard, Suite 408, Los Angeles, CA 90066 800-NO-HUNGR FAX [phone] [e-mail] www.pirg.org/nscahh

Group of more than 600 participating campuses in forty-five states working with a coalition of students and community members nationwide to end hunger and homelessness through education, service, and action.

Stacey Chambers is an assistant editor at Public Affairs Information Service, Inc., in New York City and has also written for Hispanic magazine.