Homeless to Be in Focus

In what may be the first significant expression of national concern for the homeless, a symposium on that subject is scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Washington.

As many as 700 persons--advocates, public interest groups, housing industry officials, architects and elected officials--are expected to attend the landmark forum to ponder the plight of the homeless, a large but inexact quantity.

Estimates range from 250,000 to 3 million, but to date there is no consensus estimate. Finally, there is consensus that the subject needs far more attention than it has ever received.

The Home Builders Institute, educational arm of the 155,000-member National Assn. of Home Builders, and the Urban Land Institute are sponsors of the program, “Builders Examine the Many Faces of Homelessness: Laying a Foundation for Action.” A “white paper” is expected to evolve from the sessions, suggesting hopes and plans to address and resolve the critical homeless issue.

An NAHB spokeswoman said open invitations also had been sent to both presidential candidates, Republican George Bush and Democrat Michael S. Dukakis, but neither the President-elect nor the Massachusetts governor had responded with an acceptance--yet.

Among local leaders of groups involved with the homeless scheduled to attend will be Ruth Schwartz, executive director of the Shelter Partnership, a nonprofit organization that provides development and material support to increase the number of shelter beds for the homeless in Los Angeles County, and Andy Raubeson, executive director of the Single Room Occupancy Housing Corp., created in 1984 by the Community Redevelopment Agency.

The Shelter Partnership is sponsored by the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California, and that body will be represented by George Lightner, its secretary-treasurer; Ken Willis, executive vice president, and Hugh Temple, director and former BIA president.

Other principal participants scheduled are Dale Stuard, president of the National Assn. of Home Builders, an Orange County builder/developer; Samuel R. Pierce Jr., secretary of Housing and Urban Development; James Rouse, a pioneer in the housing field and president of the Enterprise Foundation, and Robert Hayes, founder of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

ABC’s Peter Jennings will be the keynote speaker at the Washington Hilton event.

Willis said the gathering “will mark the first occasion builders, elected officials, advocacy groups and providers will join . . . to examine the homeless problem.” He expects it to “generate workable ideas which, if adopted, could have a significant impact on the problem of the homeless.”

Schwartz added that “working in partnership with public and private organizations, builders can play a major role in helping to provide desperately needed immediate shelters and permanent housing.”

The newest study of numbers of the homeless throughout the country, announced early this month, was immediately questioned when it put the homeless at between 567,000 and 600,000.

Funded by the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service, the report by the Urban Land Institute places the estimate far below the figure--3 million--used by the National Coaliton for the Homeless in Washington, and far greater than the HUD estimate of 250,000 to 350,000 (in 1984) and a 1986 private study of 350,000.

Any number is far too many.