Final-Term Paper

“American Homelessness: The Silent Crisis”

Part II – The Causes and The Players
The 1980’s experienced a dramatic shift in the the homelessness situation. It was no longer “individual’s problem” but society began to sense the structural causes and factors that led to its proliferation, 1) Vets came home unemployed from Vietnam suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, many became to be counted among those living on the streets. 2) About a third of homeless people are diagnosed with severe mental illness and anti-psychotic drugs were developed and administered. The many patients on these drugs who were released from mental hospitals due changes to deinstitutionalization began to roam the streets. In the 1950’s more than 500,000 people were in mental institutions, the count was less than 120,000 in 1980. 3) Illegal drug usage – namely the crack cocaine - also attributed to the huge increase in homelessness. The Cuomo Commission in New York counted research of homeless people in New and reported “ through urinalysis of homeless people in New York City shelters for single individuals, that 65 percent tested positive for some form of substance abuse. Some 83 percent of those testing positive were cocaine users.” (Encyclopedia of American Social History) 4) Available and affordable low- income housing was scarce. Parents now had to make a choice between feeding their young versus shelter. They chose food. As a result more families were forced out of their homes now unable to afford payments onto the streets. Parents in low-income jobs were forced to choose between feeding and clothing their children or providing a roof over their heads, and they chose food over shelter, contributing to the increase in homeless families. 5) Importantly, lack of jobs and a way for one to support oneself and family due to the economic recession was and remains today, a major factor of homelessness. 5) Divorces were a result of pressures from the lack jobs and battered women were forced with their children to shelters. Many of these children ran off and became a new subgroup of homeless.

Homelessness was now a massively complex problem without solution

Today, the new faces of homeless are younger and better educated and visible and diverse. What is noticeable are the families, no longer just individual men. From 1984 to 1988 alone, national emergency shelters reported a 19% increase of shelter usage amongst families. Minorities also increased their shelter usage from 44% to 58%. (HUD, Report of the Secretary)

According to the Almanac of Policy Issues, homeless now account for between 700,000 to 2 million people according to estimates of the National Law Center on Homeless and Poverty. It is also interesting to note some facts based on a national report of the US conference of Mayors, of December, 2000 report that,

- single men comprise 44 percent of the homeless, single women 13 percent, families with children 36 percent, and unaccompanied minors seven percent.
- the homeless population is about 50 percent African-American, 35 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 2 percent Native American and 1 percent Asian. Of these
- 44 percent did paid work during the past month.
- 21 percent received income from family members or friends.
- 66 percent of the homeless have problems with alcohol, drug abuse, or mental illness.

The shift to a highly technical economy has little room for the low-skilled and unskilled labor.

Politicians felt the pressure from the community to seriously address the problem. In 1983, the Federal Task Force on Homelessness was implemented by the Reagan administration. Homeless advocates like Mitch Snyder and Mary Ellen Hombs, members of the Community for Creative Non-Violence in Washington, D.C. were responsible for creating more pressure to address solutions to the problem and as a result Congress introduced the Homeless Persons’ Survival Act and the Homeless Act in 1986. 1987 saw the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act which was crafted to address the multitude of needs of the homeless thereby putting the burden of the problem on the federal government. (Social Issues in America).

Conversely there was some of the public opinion that the homeless were homeless out of “their own choice” – after all, they were drug abusers and alcoholics and had mental or behavioral problems. One such example that haunted the Reagan administration policy was when as President in 1984 in an interview on Good Morning America he said of the homeless that they were “homeless, you might say, by choice.” The conservatives offered, basically, to help “these people” give up drinking and drugs and get treatment for their psychological problems which would get them off the streets. Another perspective came from social scientists making the correlation between the homelessness and the economic recession.


The problem of homelessness had loomed larger for all parties involved and becoming harder to wade through without any clear resolution.