Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
USA and the efforts of government agencies to
tackle the issue. Homelessness is so debilitating that
individuals without a home are highly susceptible
to a range of other problems and have great
difficulty in gaining access to health care and other
services. How homelessness is measured is of
course subject to competing pressures. US
government agencies usually insist on a strict
definition of rooflessness when making estimates,
while pressure groups and charities tend to argue
for a broadly based definition to include those
individuals living in substandard, overcrowded
accommodation (see Daly 1996: p. 7 for a
discussion of competing definitions). As in other
countries in the developed world, there has been a
large increase in the number of homeless people
in the USA. In the 1980s, estimates of the
homeless population ranged from 250,000-
300,000 (US Department of Housing and Urban
Development 1984) to 3 million (Homes and
Synder 1982). In the 1990s, estimates now range
from 840,000 to 5,000,000 (Link
et al
. 1994;
Takahashi 1996). In New York, agencies working
on behalf of homeless groups estimate the number
of homeless to be between 70,000 and 90,000, half
of whom live on the street and the remainder in
public or private emergency sheltered
accommodation (National Coalition for the
Homeless 1989). Approximately one-fifth of this
number are parents and children, one-third young
adults aged between 16 and 21 years and the
remainder single people, 80 per cent of whom are
men. As many as 90 per cent of the residents in
sheltered accommodation are from ethnic
minority groups, even though as a proportion of
the city population, ethnic minority groups
constitute 40 per cent (Cohen 1994; National
Coalition for the Homeless 1989).
As discussed in the first part of the chapter,
homelessness represents the outcome of a complex
set of economic, social and political factors, all of
which impact upon the availability and location of
housing. In most of the principal cities of the USA,
the supply of homes has been affected by
abandonment of properties in the 1970s and recent
gentrification processes in which professionals
moved to the inner city (Daly 1996: p. 21). So, for
example, in NewYork city between 1970 and 1985,
109,000 single-room occupancy units were either
demolished or converted into flats for sale or rent
(many of which were let to people on low incomes,
including those in receipt of welfare support). Over
the same period, the number of single households
has increased enormously, forcing rents up and
literally pricing many individuals out of the market.
The problems have been compounded by
economic restructuring (leading to unemployment
and lower-paid jobs), reductions in welfare support
(as many as 1 million of NewYork city's population
is in receipt of welfare allowances) and the
curtailment of new public sector housing.The result
has been a relative fall in the incomes of the poor
and a long waiting list (200,000) for public housing
(Marcuse 1990). In addition, it has been suggested
(Kearns and Smith 1993) that the
deinstitutionalisation of mental health care has
added to the number of homeless people along
with demographic changes and changes to family
structures.
The policy response to the increasing incidence
of homelessness in New York reflects the issue's
low political priority. There is no constitutional
right to permanent housing, and as Cohen (1994:
p. 772) argues, 'there have only been piecemeal
programmes for the homeless'. In New York city,
$500 million is spent each year by the city and
state authorities on programmes to assist the
homeless (New York City Commission on the
Homeless 1992). This includes funds set aside for
soup kitchens, emergency hostels and drop-in
centres. As in other countries, voluntary
organisations have played an increasingly
important role, especially for individuals with
mental health problems. In recent years, following
the McKinney Homelessness Assistance Act
(Interagency Council on the Homeless 1990;
1994), there is a requirement for city authorities
to establish an implementation plan
(Comprehensive Homeless Assistance Plan).
However, this assistance has made only a limited
impact (Berman and West 1997) and, as any visitor
to NewYork can testify, there remain an enormous
number of destitute individuals living on the city's
streets.
