Homelessness

“ The domestic peace of those old streets made her own homelessness the more pitiful to her. She felt as she had felt once before—years before—in her childhood, when she had set sail with her parents for America. ”

“ The homelessness might, not improbably, result from that very querulousness; but this is too frequently fomented, if not created, by the hard, unreflecting folly which regards fellow-creatures intrusted with forming the minds and dispositions of its children as ingenious, disagreeable machines, needing, like the steam-engine, sustenance and covering, but, like it, quite beyond or beneath all sympathy, passions, or affections. ”

“ But the Relief station alone will not cope with the evil unless the common lodging-house is reformed from top to bottom. It is necessary to recognise the existence not only of destitute homelessness, but of migratory homelessness. It is necessary to get into safe and sanitary surroundings the whole of the outcasts who sleep out, and to purify our parks and streets. One thousand four hundred and sixty-three men walking London streets in one night constitute a social danger. ”

“ The homeless were beginning to look upon homelessness as a state to be passed through rather than the end of things, the bereaved were discovering little by little that life may arise from ashes, and that sackcloth may be cut quite becomingly. ”

“ Get help for homelessness, hunger, and more
Every day, hundreds of thousands of Americans face homelessness and go without proper food and shelter. It can affect people at any age and from all walks of life. ”

“ A comparison of the rate of homelessness among individuals and families in and from rural areas and rural communities compared to the rate of homelessness among individuals and families in and from non-rural areas and non-rural communities. ”

“ Prevention of homelessness is a complex challenge that faces us today. Although estimates of the exact number of homeless vary widely, innovative approaches to this problem by all elements of our society are needed. ”

“ The agreement is that kipping, or dossing, or sleeping, is the hardest problem they have to face, harder even than that of food. The inclement weather and the harsh laws are mainly responsible for this, while the men themselves ascribe their homelessness to foreign immigration, especially of Polish and Russian Jews, who take their places at lower wages and establish the sweating system. ”

“ Rule of construction.—For purposes of this subsection, activities that have been proven to be effective at reducing homelessness generally or reducing homelessness for a specific subpopulation includes— `` (A) permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals and families ”

“ The same information, for such preceding year, that was included with respect to 2010 in the report by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs entitled “Veterans Homelessness: A Supplemental Report to the 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress”. ”

“ In general.—The term ‘chronically homeless’ means, with respect to an individual or family, that the individual or family— `` (i) is homeless and lives or resides in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter ”

“ Domestic violence and other dangerous or life-threatening conditions.—Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, the Secretary shall consider to be homeless any individual or family who is fleeing, or is attempting to flee, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, or other dangerous or life-threatening conditions in the individual’s or family’s current housing situation, including where the health and safety of children are jeopardized, and who have no other residence and lack the resources or support networks to obtain other permanent housing. ”

“ One may see on a dark night many a wistful face of lonely man or lonely woman, hurrying resolutely past, and looking away from, the illumined houses which mean nothing to them except the keen reminder of what they are without. Oh, the homeless people there are in this world! Did anybody ever think to count up the thousands there are in every great city, who live in lodgings and not in homes; from the luxurious lodger who lodges in the costliest rooms of the costliest hotel, down to the most poverty-stricken lodger who lodges in a corner of the poorest tenement-house? ”

“ Gutters running with seething matter; homeless outcasts sitting, besotted, on crazy door-steps; the vicious, with savage visage, and keen, watchful eye, loitering at the doors of filthy "groceries;" the sickly and neglected child crawling upon the side-pave, or seeking a crust to appease its hunger-all are found here, gasping, in rags, a breath of air by day, or seeking a shelter, at night, in dens so abject that the world can furnish no counterpart. ”

“ There is this much to be said for the lodging-houses, however, that it is a ticklish subject to approach until the city as a municipality has swept before its own door. They at least offer a bed, such as it is, and shelter after their fashion. The hospitality the city offers to its homeless poor in the police-station lodging-rooms is one of the scandals of a civilized age. The moral degradation of an enforced stay in these dens is immeasurable. To say that they are the resort of tramps and “bums” who know and deserve nothing better, is begging the question. ”

“ I shall ask my reader to go with me and see for himself the conditions existing in our great cities,—to view the plight of the homeless, penniless wayfarer, who, because of the shortsightedness of our municipalities, is denied his right to decent, wholesome food and to sanitary shelter for a night. And my concern is not only the homeless man, but the homeless woman, for there are many such who walk our streets, and often with helpless babes at their breasts and little children at their sides. ”

“ And while, first, my plea is for the upright wage-earner, I am broad enough to feel that if we have been criminally thoughtless and negligent enough to allow social evils to exist and make derelicts and dependents, we certainly ought to be honest enough to stand the consequences and give them at least a place of shelter.
But the 4,000,000 homeless, honest toilers with us to-day affect the welfare of every home in our nation. They are an important force and factor in society. ”

“ Against the drift and the head-winds of an unparalleled immigration that has literally drained the pauperism of Europe into our city for two generations, against the false currents and the undertow of the tenement in our social life, we are making headway at last.
Every homeless child rescued from the street is a knot made, a man or a woman saved, not for this day only, but for all time. ”

“ We are standing, you know, in the cheerful kitchen of that Refuge for the Homeless in the renovated old slaughter-house in Newport Market, and I want you to come with me to see the boys' school, which occupies a very considerable portion of that weatherproof but ramshackle building.
Only those who are acquainted with the poverty and the crime of this great metropolis can estimate the deep and urgent need that still exists for refuges in which homeless, destitute, and neglected children can be received for shelter, food, and clothing. ”

“ Bound up with this is the fact that around the common lodging-houses in each large town is growing up silently a great evil, a network of single "furnished rooms," which are the last refuge of evicted householders, but also the home of immorality. The insufficient provision of the common lodging-house is being silently largely supplemented by these. These evils are flagrant. Yet they cannot be suppressed. The homeless must have somewhere to go. The crowding of slum areas by "lodgers" is as grave an evil. ”

“ Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire and thank God they were at home; and for the homeless, starving wretch to lay him down and die. Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets, at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world. ”

“ But one no longer stumbles over homeless waifs in the street gutters. One has to hunt for them and to know where. The “cruelty man” knows and hunts them so assiduously that the game is getting scarcer every day. The doors of the lodging-houses stand open day and night, offering shelter upon terms no cold or hungry lad would reject: six cents for breakfast and supper, six for a clean bed. ”

“ The housing problem affects the tenant first of all, and in countless instances his unwholesome environment is ruining his health, ability, and character; but it also affects the community and the nation, for persons produced by such an environment do not make good citizens. The roots of family life are destroyed, gaunt poverty and loathsome disease hold hands along dark and dirty stairways and through the halls, foul language mingles with the foul air, and drunkenness is so common as to excite no remark. ”

“ Perhaps they will go to the parks and lie on the grass, or to the lake front where they may sit down and look out on the water.
The homeless man, as he meanders along the street, is looking for something to break the monotony. He will stand on the curb for hours, watching people pass. He notices every conspicuous person and follows with interest, perhaps sometimes with envy, the wavering movements of every passing drunk. If a policeman stops anyone on the street, he also stops and listens in. ”

“ During the summer time, when it is possible to sit outdoors in comfort, numbers [70] of old men may be found in groups on the pavements or in the parks. In winter they are too much occupied seeking food and shelter.
The physically handicapped and industrially inefficient individuals are numerous among the homeless men. The handicap is, in part at least, the reason of their presence in that class. Competition with able-bodied workers forces them into the scrap heap. ”

“ Of the homeless poor there are two classes. The more fortunate find shelter in those of the Dharamsalas, Temples and Mosques which contain provision for such purposes. It must be remembered, however, that a large number of such institutions are reserved for certain favored castes, and are not therefore available for the out-caste poor. For the rest, the uncertain shelter of verandahs, porticoes, market-places, open sheds, and, in fine weather, the road-way, esplanade, or some shady tree, have to suffice. ”

“ These effects of his work and life upon his physical constitution will be considered by many the most appalling of all the problems affecting the hobo and the tramp. Municipal provision and philanthropic effort have been and will continue to be directed to the treatment of his diseases and defects and to the improvement of his living conditions. The efficiency of the homeless man as a worker and his chance of regaining his lost economic and social status depend upon his physical rehabilitation. ”

“ About twenty-four thousand evictions occurred last year in the city of New York, and this indicated more than a hundred thousand human beings turned homeless into the streets, generally in a penniless condition! The distressing evictions of the great cities, and the selling out of thousands of western farmers under foreclosing mortgages, are preparing a terrible mass of discontented population to whom a social convulsion would not be alarming. Those who live under the pressure of a terrible social system will not be sorry if it is overthrown by violence. ”

“ Thousands of houses stand idle and go to waste in every competitive state, while thousands of homeless people walk the streets in every large city or tramp the country roads. In our system the state cares for every home and make a home for every man. ”

“ In this city there were four thousand unemployed homeless men, fully one-fourth of them destitute, begging, thieving, sleeping on the floors of the cheaper saloons, seeking all of those available places that would possibly keep aflame the spark of life, in addition to those finding shelter in the Milwaukee Rescue Mission. ”

“ Unhappy invalids who must seek shelter in the hospital, and drag themselves feebly through those long wards where quiet has reigned for centuries, only broken by the sobs and cries of those poor wretches who come to lie down within these walls, as in the common tomb of the homeless! ”

“ The mission is not the only institution to which the homeless man turns. Social service agencies, public and private, many of which are organized primarily for family rehabilitation, have given assistance to the homeless man. ”

“ Among them are the Weekly People, the Truth, the Industrial Solidarity, the Worker, the Hobo News, the Liberator, the Voice of Labor. These are not printed primarily for the homeless man, but have a wide circulation among the so-called “slum proletariat.”
The homeless man reads a certain amount of religious literature, but little of it is perused in the spirit hoped for by the mission worker or street evangelist. He reads it because it is handed to him and it kills time. ”

“ What hurt him most was not the night in jail or his bruised face but the fact that the other man had left town with the boy.
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In his sex life, as in his whole existence, the homeless man moves in a vicious circle. Industrially inadequate, his migratory habits render him the more economically inefficient. A social outcast, he still wants the companionship which his mode of life denies him. Debarred from family life, he hungers for intimate associations and affection. The women that he knows, with few exceptions, are repulsive to him. ”

“ Rightfully, and legally, in America, the so-called Overseers of the Poor, the Boards of Charities and Corrections, are required to relieve the homeless and destitute at their discretion. In many cities they are fulfilling this duty toward the men temporarily destitute and homeless by graciously permitting them to be sheltered at the insanitary, degrading police stations, to be fed with water concoctions, to sleep in a dark vermin-infested corner from which they are ordered to move on in the morning. ”