Rising Problems With Homeless Cited in Survey : Cities: Conference of Mayors says that demand for emergency food aid increased 26% this year. Study finds evidence of a public backlash.

America’s cities have more hungry and homeless people than they can feed and house, and the situation is getting worse, the U.S. Conference of Mayors said Monday.

“When are we going to say enough is enough?” asked Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn, president of the conference.

In a report on a survey of 28 cities, including Los Angeles, the conference also said that officials in nearly half of them reported evidence of a public backlash against homeless people.

“Public sentiment has gone from apathy to anger,” an unidentified official in Miami was quoted as saying.

“Last week, President Bush took action to mobilize the American people behind the effort to bring about food relief to the people in poverty in the Soviet Union,” Flynn said. “We are calling on the President and the Congress to match every new dollar sent to Russia with new dollars to feed needy, hungry families in America.”

The report said demand for emergency food aid increased 22% in 1990 and 26% in 1991. Demand for emergency shelter grew 24% last year and 13% this year. Officials in all cities predicted continued growth in demand in 1992.

The study said that, on the average, 17% of the food needs and 15% of the shelter needs were believed to have gone unmet. In nearly four out of every five cities, hungry people were turned away from emergency feeding facilities.

The increases in requests for food assistance ranged from 132% in Norfolk, Va., to 10% or less in Los Angeles, San Diego, Alexandria, Va., Minneapolis, Phoenix, St. Paul, Minn., San Antonio, Tex., and Trenton, N.J.

Rep. Tony P. Hall (D-Ohio), chairman of the House Select Committee on Hunger, said: “These figures show how harshly this recession has hit America’s working middle class.”

Hall said that at the same time, government programs such as food stamps are not helping. Some of the “newly needy” have fallen so quickly into poverty that they do not qualify for federal assistance, he said.

City officials, when asked what steps should be taken to eliminate hunger and homelessness by the end of the century, most often recommended a substantial federal affordable housing program, job creation and expanded job training, full employment and increases in the minimum wage.

St. Paul Mayor James Scheibel, head of the conference task force on hunger and homelessness, said mayors were “encouraged” by Bush’s announcement Friday that he will propose $15 billion in block grants for local governments.

“But we know very little about what that money is,” he said.

Flynn greeted the President’s announcement skeptically, saying: “This may be just a redirecting of already existing dollars and repackaging the same worn out programs with a new bow and a new Christmas wrapping.”

All of the surveyed cities reported that the recession has increased the problems of hunger and homelessness, the conference said.

Increased Demand for Food, Shelter

Here are the 28 cities the U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed and the percentage increase in the demand for emergency food and shelter in the past year:

City Food Shelter Alexandria 8 NA Boston 100 4 Charleston 17 10 Chicago 21 26 Cleveland 20 10 Denver 0 NA Detroit 20 21 Hartford 30 0 Kansas City 15 NA LOS ANGELES 8 NA Louisville 0 15 Miami NA 40 Minneapolis 9 16 Nashville 11 NA New Orleans 19 15 New York City NA 10 Norfolk 132 26 Philadelphia 70 -7 Phoenix 10 8 Portland NA 17 Providence 55 NA St. Paul 8 10 Salt Lake City 23 20 San Antonio 10 25 San Diego 10 10 San Francisco 25 0 Seattle NA NA Trenton 5 8

NA=not available

Source: Associated Press