Sinking into homelessness

...Churches can make more pleas for funds, material, and volunteers...

...For example, in 1982 unemployment reached nearly 14 percent in Britain, yet few families were known to have been turned out of their homes or to have had to sell their possessions...

...We should hardly be surprised by the number who have been sinking into homelessness during the last decade...

...Yet the National Low Income Housing Coalition points out that only 19 percent of the renter households with incomes below $3,000 lived in subsidized units in 1980...

...The government owns 60 percent of the rental Commonweal: 370 housing stock, which makes eviction more unlikely, and also assures a more manageable waiting list...

...UTD is a subsidiary of Litton Industries (the huge conglomerate based in Beverly Hills, California...

...does require a deep counter-cultural commitment, the battle waged in Athol between a small union and a giant conglomer- ate has implications which reach far beyond this semi-rural community...

...He has not taken his psychotropic medications in months, for no one is supervising them...

...In nine years the economy has moved steadily in the direction of high technology, leaving behind those who are limited in educa- tion, work training, and job experience...

...He has lost weight, and developed a chronic cough and ulcerated legs...

...he likes to play hopscotch with imaginary companions...

...It is no coincidence that in European countries, where real safety nets persist even in hard times, homelessness is a comparatively rare phenomenon...

...WHO STANDS IN SOLIDARITY...

...As homelessness was growing in the past decade, so, too, Commonweal: 368 Income Housing Coalition points out that if we adjust for inflation, since 1980, for each dollar cut from low-income programs (housing and other programs) $4.15 has been added to the military budget and $2.26 to interest on the public debt...

...For nearly a year Bill received General Public Assistance, $189 a month...

...The twenty religious leaders gathered in the basement of the Methodist church in Athol, Massachusetts on May 16 were listening to Monsignor George Higgins, arguably America's leading labor priest for more than a generation...

...other men on the street per- suaded him to be a runner in the numbers game...

...Back in 1975 black unemployment was 13.9 percent...

...Reagan would hardly agree, it is a symptom of the bankruptcy of our militarized economic system...

...Less than one American household in sixteen is living in such units...

...Union leaders found they were being presented with new demands for worker give-backs in salary, paid holidays, and health insurance benefits...

...Let us focus on one example...

...Yet the homeless promise to be a long-term problem...

...doctors determined that because Bill had failed to fill out recertification papers that had come to him in the mail --papers that mystified and frightened him -- he was no longer qualified as disabled...

...Some advocates and workers in the field, notably those who belong to the National Coalition for the Homeless, are pushing for a three-tiered approach: basic emergency shelter...

...Because all European countries have ~ some form of national health care, unemployed persons have not had to choose between food, shelter, and medical treat- ment, as thousands have had to do here...

...Almost no politicians are talking about preventive meas- ures...

...And in real life, hunger and homelessness are two di- mensions of the same problem...

...Statistics are telling, but they don't tell the whole story...

...City and state governments, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, can provide more assistance for emergency shelters...

...During the 1975 recession, unem- ployed workers were eligible for up to 65 weeks in benefits...

...in West European countries the average was 85 percent...

...It is possible, of course, that the president was uncomfortable with his choice, since the Community for Creative Nonviolence, which operated the emergency refuge, had planned a protest march that would have brought the issue up to the White House gates...

...Homelessness has become an election-year issue...

...Never since the inception of the program have so many unemployed been left without benefits...

...I/n New York City alone, SROs have declined from about 50,000 units in 1975 to less than 14,000 in 1982...

...They are here to stay, unless Americans change their basic social philosophy from making it up by their bootstraps to one based on fair shares...

...And on January 31 he referred to the "people who are sleeping on the grates" as "the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice...

...Today it's 16.6...

...Although most European countries have been struggling with high inflation and high unemployment, they do provide social supports...

...Many such condos were single-room occupancy hotels (SROs), traditional havens for single persons on welfare...

...In 1975 official unemployment was higher: 8.5 percent...

...The United States has the distinction of being the only industrialized country in the world without such allowances...

...Bill (a few details of Bill's life have been altered to conceal his identity...

...Ogle, who had spent twenty years ministering to workers in South Korea and had been expelled for his role in protests there, stressed the interna- tional importance of the Athol struggle...

...This pattern is being repeated in all large metropolitan cities...

...If official unemployment (i.e., all civilian workers) is down to 8,772,000, a "mere" 7.8 percent (a figure which excludes the involuntarily under- employed and those who have given up looking for work), why does this phenomenon persist...

...Or, in presidential confidant Edwin Meese's view, a lazylegs who finds standing in a line for food "easier than paying for it...

...Today Bill lives on zero income --hustling when he can, eating where he can, alternating between sleeping on park benches and bedding down in barn-like public shelters...

...Rooted in the industrial history of the nineteenth century, Athol shares the character of other small towns to its west along the scenic Mohawk Trail rather than the newer, high- tech suburbs to its east...

...Black teenagers (whose unemployment rate is cur- rently 46.7 percent) and blacks in their twenties are dispropor- tionately represented among the chronically homeless...

...I MARJORIE HOPE & JAMES YOUNG teach sociology at Wilmington Col- lege in Ohio and both have contributed articles to a large number of periodicals including Commonweal, the National Catholic Reporter, Christian Century, the Progressive, the Washington Post, Catholic Digest, and the Village Voice, among others...

...Sometimes he hustled...

...it is less a problem in itself than a symptom of deeper, ongoing problems...

...in March 1984 only 37 percent of the unemployed received it...

...Nestled in hills along Route 2 near the New Hampshire border, Athol by car is less than two hours from Boston...

...The union's response was that such a request could be considered in the larger context of a multi-year agreement if the company would open negotiations early...

...Yet just as surely as Higgins's challenge to church leaders JACK CLARK is former national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, and a New York-based writer...

...Research shows that 86,000 units were converted between 1970 and 1975, and 280,000 more in the following four years...

...Moreover, this process has been aided by tax abatements of up to 100 percent...

...Real life isn't like that...

...F OR TEN YEARS prior to 1983, labor relations at UTD itself had been excellent, according to Local 276 President Jack Davidson, president since its founding in 1967...

...Moreover, deinstitutionalization has been carried at a slower, more con- trolled pace...

...While those of the "new poor" whose jobs have not disap- peared forever may be reabsorbed into the economy, the chronically homeless form a new class, or underclass...

...Sometimes he soM his food stamps --at about half their net worth...

...The union offered to consider all these concessions on the basis of the 15 June 1984:371...

...Stevens, the giant textile firm which was a target of union efforts in the 1970s...

...Yet even Saint Francis cannot exist without considerable government support...

...In the past five years growing numbers of critics have pointed out that decarcerating mental patients into an uncoordinated, ill-funded community-based "system" was not working...

...Recently the D.C...

...Emergency shelters and breadlines are not the answer to homelessness in the richest and most powerful country in the world...

...For years we have talked anxiously about technological unemployment, yet never has government pro- vided meaningfui training or jobs programs, as many Euro- pean nations have done...

...Some weeks he could not afford to pay the rent...

...The food stamp program can be expanded...

...the figures and circumstances are nevertheless real) is twenty-five, unemployed, black, and mentally ill al- though he has never been hospitalized...

...Bureaucrats in their office towers tend to assume that human needs are neatly segregated...

...transi- tional accommodations where clients would receive intensive help in obtaining social and health services...

...then he was homeless and hungry...

...We can decide that the homeless are redundant, non-productive casualties of today's society, and simply write them off or hope against hope that somehow the overburdened churches will fill the gap.We can, if we consider them to be nonproductive, provide supportive services and some sort of guaranteed annual income...

...To qualify for this he had to be judged temporar- ily disabled by District of Columbia doctors...

...Condo conversion has been accelerating since 1975...

...Homelessness baffles the public...

...The company refused...

...Let's compare the two years in terms of the four major causes of homelessness: unemployment, displacement from housing, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and inade- quacy of social benefits...

...Most existing tenants cannot afford the converted units because monthly costs often double...

...This is the lowest proportion among the so-called civilized countries...

...Unemployment, lack of low-income housing, eroding welfare benefits, and lack of resources for the mentally disabled often converge to produce homeless- hess...

...sixty-one others, including many that are poor, find this an effective way to help keep families together and off welfare rolls...

...He and Reverend George Ogle of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society had traveled from Washington to urge support for 375 men and women locked out of their jobs at Litton Industry's UTD subsidiary in Athol since September 22...

...Hence, if we have a food stamp program and some people are able to get along on that, then anyone who is hungry must be a poor manager, or a glutton, or a cheat...

...On the Upper West Side of New York, where many of these SROs have suc- cumbed to conversion, rents for one-bedroom apartments now bring $700 or more...

...As for housing, clearly only the federal government can finance low-income housing on the scale needed...

...The 375 UTD (for Union Twist Drill) workers are repre- sented by Local 276 of the United Electrical, Radio and Ma- chine Workers (UE), a small international union not affiliated with the AFL-CIO...

...In D.C...

...How was he to survive...

...Weeks later when bargaining did begin, the UTD management team was accompanied by a representative from Litton headquarters...

...As one worker put it: "The church brings a compassionate, caring dimension that you don't find in big bureaucratic city-run shelters...

...Yet two months later, he personally intervened to postpone the closing of a large shelter in a federally-owned building in Washington --a shelter that hundreds of people seem to have chosen as preferable to the grates...

...For a run-down hotel room Bill paid $50 a week, leaving him with less than nothing to pay for all other expenses except those covered by food stamps and a medical card --i.e., clothing, transportation, non-prescription medi- cations, tobacco, repairs, telephone calls, laundry, soap, toilet paper, and the like...

...The majority of the chronically homeless --however able-bodied they may be -- are simply unemployable in today's economy...

...Higgins concurred and emphasized that just as surely as it must speak out on disarma- ment, today the church must stand with working people in their struggles, a stand, he warned in light of the current political climate and anti-union mood, that would prove not only dif- ficult but genuinely counter-cultural...

...Or, if we still believe in liberty and justice for all, government, churches, and individuals can make concerted efforts to pre-vent homelessness...

...For example, Saint Francis Residence in New York offers its mentally disabled residents a variety of social services, com- parative privacy, and opportunities to work out long-range individualized plans...

...Why are there so many more undomiciled people in 1984 than in 1975, when the recession of the 1970s hit its worst point...

...Although Mr...

...In the same year, jobless Americans who did receive compensation got only an average of 63 percent of previous earnings...

...Today some 5,544,630 "officially" jobless and some 1,457,000 "discouraged" jobless, or a toral of 7,001,630 Americans, are without work and without unemployment compensation...

...According to other union leaders, UTD's Litton parent holds the worst record of labor law violations since J.P...

...Then in January 1983, more than four months before the contract expiration, management asked the union to forgo a scheduled wage increase...

...They are co-authors.of two books, The Struggle for Humanity and The South African Churches in a Revolutionary Situation (both Orbis...

...Clearly, the fact that some two million Americans are roofless repre- sents only the tip of the iceberg...

...According to the Legal Services Anti-Displacement Project, displacement afflicts some 2.5 million Americans each year;, moreover, some half million lower-rent units ate lost each year through conversion, abandonment, inflation, arson, and demolition...

...HUD has estimated that about two-thirds of the occupants move out...

...and permanent housing (which can include, for the chronically mentally dis- abled, supportive residences where services are built into structures of everyday life...

...In all three tiers of housing, religious groups have had the most humane --and most economical --approach...

...Displacement from low-income housing is one of the most widespread factors in homelessness...

...The churches have also pioneered with new efforts...

...A S HUNGER and homelessness take on stronger dimensions in this election year, there is growing talk of solutions --short-term ones...

...The public doesn't seem to buy the findings of his hunger task force, namely that it was unable to "substantiate allegations of rampant hunger...

...It was predictable...

...Lockout by Litton JACK CLARK BBI~ HE STAND THE CHURCH is called upon to take is I genuinely counter-cultural...

...On the other hand, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in that year 78 percent of the jobless enjoyed unem- ployment compensation...

...We do have three major choices...

...The protagonists reflect larger, even international forces, and the labor dynamics have broad ramifications...

...Family allowances have never been adopted here...

...Doctors for the Supplemental Security Income program, which would have paid him up to $304 a month, turned him down as not suffi- ciently disabled...

...an unemployed but "able-bodied" person is eligible for food stamps and some medical aid, but no cash assistance whatsoever...

...Since this left him quite hungry, he spent the last half of each month standing in line --often for one or two hours, sometimes in rain or snow --for a bowl of soup or spaghetti, dry bread, coffee, or Kool-Aid, and perhaps an apple...

...Let's look at a real case --in Washington, the president's own backyard...

...Bill had little choice...

...He has an engaging smile and a playful manner...

...POLITICS OF DISPLACEMENT Sinking into homelessness MAR]ORIE HOPE & ]AMES YOUNG H UNGER AND HOMELESSNESS are haunting the president these days...