Word: homelessness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Yorkers, who pride themselves on having the nation's thickest urban carapaces, are cracking under the tightening grasp of the homeless. When then Mayor Ed Koch urged Gothamites two years ago to stop giving to panhandlers because many "just don't want to work for a living," residents shrugged off the curmudgeonly remark as the latest from the city's self-appointed curmudgeon. But Koch's sour mood has caught on over the past twelve months, surfacing recently in cartoons, editorials, dinner conversations and official campaigns to move the city's vagrants out of its subway, bus and train stations...
...People who maybe a year ago would simply have walked away really snap back at panhandlers and homeless people who are acting aggressively," says Robert Kiley, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "Just in the past four or five weeks, I've seen a couple of near physical confrontations." Peter Harris, the MTA's director of research, says his "eyes kind of bulged" in October as he listened to the complaints of subway riders who participated in a focus group. "One woman said, 'I've spent my whole life in New York, I've grown up on the Upper West...
This free-floating anger crystallized two months ago around the case of Rodney Sumter, 39, who was charged with first-degree manslaughter for beating to death a homeless man on a subway platform after the stranger spat on him and punched him in the head. Sumter who was traveling with his three-year-old son and had lately worked in a program to train homeless people in construction, had all the credentials of an earnest victim. Civil rights leader Roy Innis rallied to Sumter's defense, as did editorialists from the city's newspapers. "How many subway riders, wary...
...Help the poor, help families, help the homeless, help the aged, help those who need it--but don't protect the wealthy," said Walsh. "Why should a guy making $50,000 a year be in a rent-controlled apartment--that's stupid...
...Harvard officials claim that the committee is unaware of its positive involvement with the city. On the contrary, we acknowledge and laud such projects as last year's James Taylor benefit concert for homeless citizens. Such events, however, fail to address the deeper problems of affordable housing and too often serve as ornaments for Harvard to point to or hide behind...