Homelessness: Putting Money Where the Concern Is : Clinton calls for $1.7-billion outlay; Los Angeles would receive $40 million

The most promising element of the Clinton Administration’s ambitious new plan “to break the cycle of homelessness and prevent future homelessness” is the amount of money requested from Congress. The Administration seeks an unprecedented $1.7 billion, which would more than quadruple the funds now available to Los Angeles and other heavily impacted areas.

Because the new federal funds would be allocated on the basis of poverty and unemployment rates, Los Angeles stands to get $40 million next year. Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties would share $46 million. Washington wouldn’t dictate how the new money would be spent. Rightly, that would be a local determination. By law, nonprofit organizations--the key players in the recent assault on homelessness--must get 51% of the funds. That mandate would allow groups that have long provided scarce social services and built affordable housing to collaborate rather than compete for crumbs.

The Administration’s plan is expensive because the Clinton team honestly acknowledges the scope of homelessness, and the complexity of the multiple challenges. The federal plan cites recent studies finding that between 500,000 and 600,000 people are homeless on any given night. Christopher Jencks, a sociology professor at Northwestern University and the author of the new book “The Homeless,” believes that the number of the “visible homeless”--who live in shelters or public places like doorways, parks and cars--is between 300,000 and 400,000. Jencks in large part links the recent increase in the numbers of aggressive panhandlers and confused or babbling men and women pushing shopping carts to the proliferation of cheap crack cocaine and government’s failure to provide adequate mental health treatment.

Two of three single adults who agreed to the voluntary and anonymous drug testing requested by the Cuomo Commission at New York shelters tested positive for cocaine, according to Jencks. In family shelters, 16% tested positive. Jencks puts overall drug use at 25%, and notes that it makes the users even less employable, deprives them of money for rent, drives away friends and family members who could give them shelter and in general prolongs their homelessness. They need drug treatment, job training and additional low-cost housing.

One of three homeless people is severely mentally ill, according to Jencks. Many wouldn’t be on the streets if states still operated the warehouse-like mental hospitals that were common in earlier generations. According to Jencks, these people require some mix of hospitalization, outpatient programs, rent vouchers to pay for board-and-care facilities and government support for relatives willing to provide care.

Despite these daunting challenges, Henry G. Cisneros, the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, promises to reduce homelessness by one-third. HUD has already selected Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the nation, to receive a special homeless initiative grant for pilot programs to close gaps in services. Officials of a new city-county effort expect to use that $20-million infusion to target a 60-square-mile area that stretches from East Los Angeles through the poor neighborhoods of Downtown, Pico-Union and Echo Park then south through South-Central, Watts and Willowbrook. Smaller satellite projects are planned in Glendale, Long Beach, the Westside and Pacoima.

To help the homeless mentally ill, the most visible street people, new pilot programs expect to replicate the successful Los Angeles Men’s Place (LAMP), a drop-in center that also offers short- and long-term housing. LAMP outreach workers avoid high-pressure tactics; their approach is to seek to help the homeless mentally ill reconnect to society. Helping sick people who hear voices, fear others and are prone to violence is difficult. As the Clinton plan and the Jencks book indicate, they need more than a place to live. Providing treatment, services and financial aid will require a long-term commitment from Washington.

The Clinton Administration deserves credit for tackling a thorny social problem with a request for significant new funds and a well-thought-out plan of action that is long overdue. Now does America have the political patience required to make this plan successful?