Description |
Homelessness is fast becoming one of the primary and most pressing items of the social welfare policy agenda at all levels of government. It is also coming into vogue as a national issue resulting in extensive media coverage. The stark pictures on television project the most abject poverty in the nation into viewers' living rooms across the country. We see men, women, and children living in boxes on a sidewalk, sleeping on park benches (when the city fathers have been kind enough to not install armrests in inconvenient places to prevent tired people from sleeping on them), huddled together in a small room in a shelter, or standing outside in a long line waiting for a soup kitchen to open. These sights, in addition to numerous articles appearing in local newspapers and national magazines prompt the question, "What is to be done?" |