The War On Homelessness Is Being Lost

The cities, towns and villages of Afghanistan are not the only places where people have lost their homes and are looking for shelter from the rude wind's wild lament and the bitter weather. In the U.S., according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, homelessness is on the rise, as requests for emergency help in 27 cities increased in 2001 by 13 percent over the year 2000. In five of the cities, the number of increases in requests for help ranged between 20 and 26 percent.

Unlike Afghanistan, however, the causes were not American bombs but a bombed economy. Layoffs have meant that people who had been making better than a subsistence wage were taking low-paying jobs that had previously gone to the hard-core poor. Charitable organizations which normally have adequate funds to help the homeless are finding that donations were cut after September 11 to help victims of the attacks in New York City and Washington.

The same charitable organizations have seen their pursestrings tightened not only because of post-September 11 demands but because of the sagging economy. Shortsighted welfare cuts mandated both federally and by the states have taken their toll and President Bush's popularity in conducting a global campaign against a slippery 0sama bin Laden does not extend to amassing sufficient votes in Congress to pass a workable, less slippery economic stimulus program. GOP members want more misguided tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporate giants; Democrats want more aid to the poor and the jobless. The standoff is probably going to be protracted enough that there will no relief in sight until the spring, if then. The rosy years of the 90's have given way, in such cities as New York and Boston, to all-time records for people seeking shelter.

The profiles of shelter-seekers are changing, as well. A growing number of those asking for help are families with children, not merely the hard-core homeless. In more than half the cases, the families have had to be broken up to be accommodated in shelters. At the same time, state and municipal programs have been slashed in areas such as rent assistance and health care - the buffer programs which traditionally give families the needed edge to stay intact and not become homeless.

It is clearly up to the White House and the Congress to provide aid where it is indicated - and to provide it now. In this holiday season, however, there is scant evidence that Mr. Bush and much of Congress, fixated primarily on ways to benefit the well-off, are even aware of such mundane matters as homelessness. But the skeletal wraiths of Christmas Present ought to be haunting their sleep.