Who Goes Homeless?

SHOULD the homeless be included in the statement, “Ye have the poor always with you”? Given the array of individuals who have become permanent fixtures on the streets of every American city in the last decade, the answer would appear to be yes. In fact, however, homelessness has evolved from being a homogeneous, sphinx-like problem to being a heterogeneous cluster of interrelated problems for which many of the solutions are known. The mystery no longer is what to do, but rather why we do not do it.

One change in homelessness has been the perceived magnitude of the problem. Until 1987 some advocates were claiming that more than two million Americans were homeless. A 1987 study by the Urban Institute initially estimated the number to be between 567,000 and 600,000; the primary author later revised this downward to between 355,000 and 445,000. Peter H. Rossi, in his 1989 book, Down and Out in America, concluded that “the most believable national estimate is that at least 300,000 people are homeless each night in this country, and possibly as many as 400,000 to 500,000.” In 1990, Census takers claimed to have found 228,621 homeless on the night of March 20, including 49,793 persons “visible at preidentified street locations.” If it is assumed that only one-third of those actually living on the streets were counted by the Census, the total number of homeless persons would be 328,207, a number consistent with the estimates by both the Urban Institute and Rossi.

About the Author

E. Fuller Torrey

Mr. Torrey, a psychiatrist, is the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center (www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org) and the author of The Insanity Offense: How America’s Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens (W. W. Norton).

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SHOULD the homeless be included in the statement, “Ye have the poor always with you”? Given the array of individuals who have become permanent fixtures on the streets of every American city in the last decade, the answer would appear to be yes. In fact, however, homelessness has evolved from being a homogeneous, sphinx-like problem to being a heterogeneous cluster of interrelated problems for which many of the solutions are known. The mystery no longer is what to do, but rather why we do not do it.

One change in homelessness has been the perceived magnitude of the problem. Until 1987 some advocates were claiming that more than two million Americans were homeless. A 1987 study by the Urban Institute initially estimated the number to be between 567,000 and 600,000; the primary author later revised this downward to between 355,000 and 445,000. Peter H. Rossi, in his 1989 book, Down and Out in America, concluded that “the most believable national estimate is that at least 300,000 people are homeless each night in this country, and possibly as many as 400,000 to 500,000.” In 1990, Census takers claimed to have found 228,621 homeless on the night of March 20, including 49,793 persons “visible at preidentified street locations.” If it is assumed that only one-third of those actually living on the streets were counted by the Census, the total number of homeless persons would be 328,207, a number consistent with the estimates by both the Urban Institute and Rossi.

About the Author

E. Fuller Torrey

Mr. Torrey, a psychiatrist, is the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center (www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org) and the author of The Insanity Offense: How America’s Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens (W. W. Norton).