How Reagan Created "The Homeless," & Why Charity Can't Fix It

[bijou]

Hannah Bell (720 posts)       Fri Apr-04-08 12:38 AM
Original message
How Reagan Created "The Homeless," & Why Charity Can't Fix It
 Advertisements [?]In 2008, an estimated 2.3 to 3.5 million people will be homeless for some part of the year - & the numbers have been growing. Americans have grown accustomed to seeing people sleeping in the streets of their big cities: the "homeless" seem to be a fact of nature, like the weather.

Yet I remember a time when it wasn't so. Pre-Reagan, in downtown Seattle. Sure, there were poor people downtown - mostly older men. They hung out on the streets around the market, but they didn't sleep there, they didn't even panhandle. They slept in SRO's - single-room occupancy hotels - on 1st & 2nd aves. It was a seedy area, but I was a young girl at the time, & I wasn't afraid to go there.

I left the US at the beginning of the Reagan years & returned in 1985; suddenly we had "homelessness". I was young. The papers said it was "mental patients" & "recession," so I accepted that explanation.

It was only when I got involved with a homeless shelter that I learned how the homeless problem grew from near-invisible to omnipresent in the space of 5 years. Here's the short version, from the "Without Housing" Coalition.

"In 1978, HUD’s budget was over $83 billion.

In 1983, HUD’s budget was only $18 billion.

In 1983, general public emergency shelters began opening in cities nationwide.

In 1987, Congress passed the Stewart B. McKinney Act, providing $880 million in homeless assistance funding (2004 constant dollars).

In short, Reagan deliberately created "homelessness" by cutting 65 billion of housing money & replacing it with $880 million in shelter funding.

The lost funding has never been replaced, & the percentage of low-cost housing & subsidized housing has been dropping ever since. 100,000 units of low-cost housing have been lost since 1996 alone.

Other factors that have exacerbated homelessness:

Thirty-five years of wage stagnation, achieved through a variety of means.

The Volker recession, deliberately prolonged & deepened to push back labor activism & organizing & drive down wages.

Increasing income inequality achieved though tax cuts at the top & other means. More money to the top drives up the price of land & housing & concentrates ownership of these assets - just like an influx of rich outsiders drives up the price of housing in a small town.

Increased competition for lower-wage jobs from immigrants (LEGAL immigration, which since the 80's has been set at turn-of-the-century levels for unskilled labor, precisely to drive down wages.)

Rises in the cost of medical care & higher education, far above the inflation rate.

The decline in the percentage of the population with medical insurance & guaranteed pensions.

The substitution of credit for income as people struggle to maintain "normal" lifestyles (& business struggles to maintain "normal" levels of commerce).

Homelessness isn't a fact of nature; it's been deliberately created by public policy.

Before I learned how homelessness was deliberately created, I'd been proud that the little community I live in now had pulled together in the 80's to create a homeless shelter.

According to the local feel-good story, a coalition of locals recognized the "growing problem." "With some government money that happened to be available & lots of local donations & volunteer hours," people worked together for the common good.

In reality, what most likely happened was this: Local government leaders got notice of HUD cuts & the availability of shelter funding. They talked to their local private sector friends, asked them to put their influence behind a shelter effort to solicity donations & volunteers. Then they applied for the federal shelter grant money - voila.

The local leadership knew there were going to be more homeless people, & they knew why. But they didn't tell their constituents. They pretended it was just some accident our town had "homelessness," where it didn't before. Everyone patted themselves on the back for being so "caring," & life went on - but now there was this "problem," & it kept growing. And since it kept growing, despite the generous help, more people began to resent the homeless, blame them, & despise them for their failure. Particularly when some of the helpers were close to the edge themselves, & others were doing so very well for themselves.

In the 2 years I was associated with the shelter, federal funding was cut, & struggles to raise more money from other sources intensified.

Almost all the churches in town participated in feeding programs. Community groups came in regularly to do service work. High school students volunteered for senior projects. Kindergarten kids sent pennies & canned foods. Artists did art projects, people sponsored raffles, gardeners & restaurants donated food. The state & local gov's freed up more money. Massive amounts of volunteer energy were expended.

Not only that, there was another, smaller shelter in town. And several other meals programs, Bible studies, donations of free medical & eye care, a big mental health establishment which largely served the indigent, teaching them to believe they had "chemical imbalances" which caused them to be depressed, addicted, or to "act out".

All this money (several million dollars), all these caring people.

The number of homeless the shelter served just increased, & the same faces rotated through over & over. This is a small town; many of the "homeless" had been there before. They'd get a job, get a place - something would go wrong, & they'd be back.

In short, lots of activity, lots of energy & caring people, but things just got worse.

The root problem is not that homeless folks don't have "skills". The problem is not that they're "crazy". The problem is not that they "lack self-esteem," or are addicts, or criminals, or come from broken families, or need cell-phones or jogging clubs, or lessons on budgeting & nutrition.

Some homeless may find these things useful sometimes, but the lack of these things isn't what creates homelessness - because folks WITH homes often have similar problems & deficits.

But the lack of stable housing & work will certainly exacerbate & CREATE depression & mental illness, substance abuse, family break-up, crime, & hard to eradicate declines in self-respect & hope. Multi-generational.

I am tired of being chided for "killing hope" because I remind people that it's housing & jobs that are needed, & a cease-fire in the 35-year war on the working class - not feel-good projects aimed at making "losers" "more competitive" in a system where 20% of the population NECESSARILY exist one step away from homelessness because the structure of the economy demands it.

If people can get together to build homeless shelters, they can get together to change the way the system creates the homeless, and yes - anything less serves the do-gooders more than the done-to. Reagan created homelessness in 5 years. It can be ended in 5 years as well, if we stop cheering for cell phones & jogging lessons & start pushing for economic change.
 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3103173

Wow, no homelessness until Ronald Reagan became President?  If that's the case then why didn't Clinton house them all?   

[franksolich]

This is bullshit.

It was during the administration of the Incompetent One (1977-1981) that it was decided to "mainstream" the mentally ill out of the asylums.

Such people were shoved out on the streets.

[USA4ME]

Hannah Bell

I left the US at the beginning of the Reagan years & returned in 1985; suddenly we had "homelessness".

Hannah Bell, if you really believe that homelessness wasn't as bad or worse before Reagan became prez, then you "left" long before Reagan was even a candiate in 1976, if you've ever been "there" to begin with, which explains why you're a lib.

.

[Taxman]

You learn something every day.  You mean all those winos that were out there panhandling when I was a college student in the late 70's actually owned homes? 

[MrsSmith]

HOMELESS IN AMERICA

In the Wall Street Journal of May 19, 1989, reporter Andy Zipser claimed that "pretty much everyone agrees . . . that by any standard homelessness has multiplied enormously in a period of general affluence . . . and that if finger-pointing is called for, the fingers should point to Washington . . . As need has escalated in recent years, total spending has plummeted."


Total spending did not plummet, as Carl Horowitz demonstrates above. Like the other mythmakers, Mr. Zisper has taken budget-authority numbers and used them as spending - or budget-outlay - numbers.


>>>snip

In spite of reductions in budget authority for housing subsidies, annual outlays kept on increasing; construction funded in earlier years was built; the number of households and people subsidized increased.


Expenditures for low-income assisted housing doubled between 1980 and 1984; it took until 1990 for 1980 GNP to double. Federal outlays for low-income housing thus increased as a percentage of the GNP. With the dollar increases came increases in the number of beneficiaries - from 10.6 million people in 1980 to 14 million in 1990, an increase of almost one-third while the population increased by only one-tenth. The number of households assisted also increased, from 3.1 million in 1980 to 4.4 million in 1990. Additional beneficiaries were served by the Farmers Home Administration.

>>>snip

If budget cuts caused homelessness, the solution would be obvious and simple - increase the budget. Just the opposite is the problem: homelessness occurred as a social phenomenon at a time when increasing cash outlays were subsidizing housing for an increasingly great percentage of the population.


Some writers have sought explanations in rent control and over-regulation as contributors to a decreased availability of low-cost rental housing, and indeed the consumer price index for rental housing increased somewhat faster than the overall CPI; on the other hand vacancy rates generally increased in the 1980s, and other costs - such as transportation and food - increased at a lower rate than the overall CPI. More significant may be the constitutional challenges to vagrancy and loitering laws; by the 1980s, it had simply become legal to live and sleep on the streets.

-Annelise Anderson

Mrs. Anderson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

[Lauri]

maybe ya'll heard about Seattle's fancy million dollar toilets downtown? we paid over 4 million for 4 electronic toilets that would spray water on themselves on the inside and stay 'clean' in between patrons.

well, 5 million now into this stupid project.. the homeless and the hookers figured out how to use the fancy toilets and now we have to pay another half million to have 4 toilets removed and sent back.

oh, and we spent 15 million to house 12 winos downtown in their own brand new condos..

seattle does nothing but encourage derelict behavior and rewards people for learning how to suck off the govt boob...

but long before and after we had the fancy toilets... there were homeless.

[bijou]

HOMELESS IN AMERICA

In the Wall Street Journal of May 19, 1989, reporter Andy Zipser claimed that "pretty much everyone agrees . . . that by any standard homelessness has multiplied enormously in a period of general affluence . . . and that if finger-pointing is called for, the fingers should point to Washington . . . As need has escalated in recent years, total spending has plummeted."


Total spending did not plummet, as Carl Horowitz demonstrates above. Like the other mythmakers, Mr. Zisper has taken budget-authority numbers and used them as spending - or budget-outlay - numbers.


>>>snip

In spite of reductions in budget authority for housing subsidies, annual outlays kept on increasing; construction funded in earlier years was built; the number of households and people subsidized increased.


Expenditures for low-income assisted housing doubled between 1980 and 1984; it took until 1990 for 1980 GNP to double. Federal outlays for low-income housing thus increased as a percentage of the GNP. With the dollar increases came increases in the number of beneficiaries - from 10.6 million people in 1980 to 14 million in 1990, an increase of almost one-third while the population increased by only one-tenth. The number of households assisted also increased, from 3.1 million in 1980 to 4.4 million in 1990. Additional beneficiaries were served by the Farmers Home Administration.

>>>snip

If budget cuts caused homelessness, the solution would be obvious and simple - increase the budget. Just the opposite is the problem: homelessness occurred as a social phenomenon at a time when increasing cash outlays were subsidizing housing for an increasingly great percentage of the population.


Some writers have sought explanations in rent control and over-regulation as contributors to a decreased availability of low-cost rental housing, and indeed the consumer price index for rental housing increased somewhat faster than the overall CPI; on the other hand vacancy rates generally increased in the 1980s, and other costs - such as transportation and food - increased at a lower rate than the overall CPI. More significant may be the constitutional challenges to vagrancy and loitering laws; by the 1980s, it had simply become legal to live and sleep on the streets.

-Annelise Anderson

Mrs. Anderson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Interesting link, thanks. H5

[bijou]

maybe ya'll heard about Seattle's fancy million dollar toilets downtown? we paid over 4 million for 4 electronic toilets that would spray water on themselves on the inside and stay 'clean' in between patrons.

well, 5 million now into this stupid project.. the homeless and the hookers figured out how to use the fancy toilets and now we have to pay another half million to have 4 toilets removed and sent back.

oh, and we spent 15 million to house 12 winos downtown in their own brand new condos..

seattle does nothing but encourage derelict behavior and rewards people for learning how to suck off the govt boob...

but long before and after we had the fancy toilets... there were homeless.

I remember reading about that. What a collossal waste of money.

[Lord Undies]

I guess the words "hobo" and "bum" were created just for radio and television. 

[Lauri]

maybe ya'll heard about Seattle's fancy million dollar toilets downtown? we paid over 4 million for 4 electronic toilets that would spray water on themselves on the inside and stay 'clean' in between patrons.

well, 5 million now into this stupid project.. the homeless and the hookers figured out how to use the fancy toilets and now we have to pay another half million to have 4 toilets removed and sent back.

oh, and we spent 15 million to house 12 winos downtown in their own brand new condos..

seattle does nothing but encourage derelict behavior and rewards people for learning how to suck off the govt boob...

but long before and after we had the fancy toilets... there were homeless.

I remember reading about that. What a collossal waste of money.

the fact that the mayor had them installed in the  [after dark] seedier areas of downtown should have been a red flag for the public.  

but you'd think the million dollar price tag of each one of them might have crushed the entire project... but no.  

[Bondai]

Homelessness isn't a fact of nature; it's been deliberately created by public policy.

Yea right, and AIDS is caused by a lack of funding..I am sick of these LIBERAL asshats....

BULLSHIT!

[MrsSmith]

By today's standards, the vast majority of Native Americans were homeless...at least the tribes that moved around a lot.  Living in a tent is NOT considering having a home. 

[DixieBelle]

I bet half of those DUmmies weren't even old enough to remember Reagan.

[franksolich]

I bet half of those DUmmies weren't even old enough to remember Reagan.

Hang on, madam.

Remember the demographics of Skins's island.

Probably 80% of the primitives remember Ronald Reagan, and not as a childhood memory.

More than half of the primitives remember John Kennedy, and not as a childhood memory.

About a third of the primitives remember Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt, although not necessarily as teenagers or adults.

[Chris_]

maybe ya'll heard about Seattle's fancy million dollar toilets downtown? we paid over 4 million for 4 electronic toilets that would spray water on themselves on the inside and stay 'clean' in between patrons.

well, 5 million now into this stupid project.. the homeless and the hookers figured out how to use the fancy toilets and now we have to pay another half million to have 4 toilets removed and sent back.

oh, and we spent 15 million to house 12 winos downtown in their own brand new condos..

seattle does nothing but encourage derelict behavior and rewards people for learning how to suck off the govt boob...

but long before and after we had the fancy toilets... there were homeless.

Oh, have no fear, I'm sure they'll be migrating to Eugene before too long...the homeless go where the best social programs are and Eugene has turned catering to the homeless into an art form. Not to mention those "unisex" bathrooms, because it's just so hard to know whether you're going to feel like a man or a woman on any given day.

Cindie

[JohnnyReb]

The mid 80's were the best years I ever had. I did a lot of grading for low rent and low cost housing. These projects are now a cesspool of crime and government titty sucking deadbeats.

"Let'em eat cake".....come to think of it, they are.

[Chris_]

You just can't argue with someone that far removed from reality.

[Mary Ann]

My niece has made huge mistakes in her life. I love her dearly, but she was always a difficult child.

A couple of years after she had graduated from high school, she would not look for a job, was stealing from her parents, was staying away from home most of the time, and only dropping in from time to time. My sister took the girl's stuff and put it in the garage, and turned her bedroom into a sewing room.

Technically, my niece was homeless. But the reason wasn't Reagan/'the wealthy'/budget cuts/Republicans or anything else. It was her own fault for refusing to take even a minimum of responsibility for her own life.

A few years later, with a baby, a job, and an abusive ex-boyfriend, my niece moved into a friend's apartment. The plan was that they would share the rent, share childcare, share a car, and get themselves on their feet. That only lasted a couple of months. The friend moved out, while my niece was at work. My niece could no longer afford the rent, and she became homeless again. She moved back in with the abuser, just to have a roof over her baby's head.

Again, the reason for her homelessness was her own poor choices: Her CHOICE not to get any education past high school; her CHOICE to hook up with a loser boyfriend; her CHOICE to be a single parent; her CHOICE to work a low-paying job in daycare; her CHOICE to get into legal trouble over unpaid fines; her CHOICE to amass huge fines in the first place.

The former roommate had once also been homeless. This girl has a mother (with a house) who would have taken her in, but she preferred living in her car to being dependent on her mom. Her homelessness was certainly voluntary.
 
My niece now has an apartment, is paying off her debts, and is working very hard to pull her life together. She still can't afford a car, and has a stupid custody agreement that could mean that she would have to pay the loser ex-boyfriend child support, if the state of Wisconsin ever learned that he is unemployed!

There is a lot more homelessness today because there are a lot more people making stupid choices and expecting other people to provide them with whatever they need (food, shelter, $$) in order to continue making stupid choices.

[MrsSmith]

There is a lot more homelessness today because there are a lot more people making stupid choices and expecting other people to provide them with whatever they need (food, shelter, $$) in order to continue making stupid choices.

 

This is absolutely true. Even the most pitiful of the homeless usually end up there due to the choice of drug or alcohol abuse.  I knew several people who'd spent years living homeless...and they all told about the same story.  When they have money, they don't want to waste it on rent and utilities. 

The one man I knew ended up with custody of his son, so he went back to school, stared a business, even built a huge addition onto the house he bought.  He was obviously fully capable of living whatever life he chose.  He had the boy for 11 years...when the kid was 14, he got into trouble and the state but him in juvenile lockup for a year.  My friend couldn't deal with a year, so signed away his rights completely to the state, sold the house and business and walked away from it all.  The last time I saw him was a couple years later...he was in detox at that time.  His plan was to head for Florida as soon as he got out...so he could go back to working temp jobs occasionally for the money he needed to drink and buy drugs.  I was completely disgusted by him, both that he'd mess up his own life so badly when he obviously could manage...and that he'd do something to cruel to his kid.  The boy had already been abandoned by his mother, and then his dad just dumped him on the state and walked away.