Word: homelessness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There was a time in public memory when Americans imagined that the homeless were refugees of a kind, on their way from somewhere to somewhere else, residing temporarily in the tunnels and doorways between here and there. Some people were uprooted after the War on Poverty was fought to a draw, when their rents went up, their wages went down, and the safety net turned out to be full of holes. Others were in transit from mental asylums that didn't heal them or to halfway houses that didn't exist. Still others were maimed by drug abuse. Communities from...
...could have imagined, in so smugly prosperous a decade, that shantytowns would become tourist attractions? Until the mayor evicted them last summer, homeless people in San Francisco drew busloads of photo-snapping foreign tourists to their refugee camp in front of city hall. There, the visitors found a second city of cardboard condos, clogged with the traffic of shopping carts through makeshift living rooms, outfitted with easy chairs and dresser drawers. The waterless fountain steamed with stale urine; a sun-scorched lawn sprouted cigarette butts...
...inspired shouts of dismay and calls for action. Cities hurriedly opened shelters; churches converted their basements into temporary dormitories; soup kitchens doubled their seating capacity. When the problem only grew worse, city officials across the nation sought to drive beggars from their tunnels and parks and public doorways. The homeless became targets; sleeping vagrants were set afire, doused with acid and, in a particularly horrific attack in New York City last Halloween, slashed with a meat cleaver. Finally came resignation. After years of running hurdles over bodies in train stations, of being hustled by panhandlers on the street, many urban...
...Society lost faith that there were solutions," says Paul Grogan, president of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a source of funds and faith for grass-roots rescue efforts. A poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion shows that 75% of Americans believe the homeless problem will worsen or remain the same. The irony is that the loss of hope has occurred just when hope may be at hand. In city after city, advocates of the homeless can point to programs and policies that are tailor-made, cost effective, time tested. Now if adequate funds are provided, they will know...
Central Square, once a thriving mercantilecenter, has been in decline in recent years.Merchants and residents have complained about aninflux in homeless people and an upswing in crime