INTRODUCING THREE CASES
Case 1: The Homelessness Industry
My brother telling me that he was at risk of losing his home and becoming homeless, and aware of the increasing homelessness in my neighborhood, I decided to learn more about this problem. I offered my services to the CEO of the largest homeless services agency in Santa Clara County. He stated that his Board of Directors had asked for a trends analysis in the field of homelessness – a document for strategic planning and decision making. I accepted the task.
For several months, I reviewed academic literature, interviewed local individ- uals (activists, advocates, bureaucrats, NPO executive directors), and researched historical and real-time developments via the Internet, producing a final document (O’Connor, 2004). One part of the document represented an attempt to identify the key players and events in the homelessness field dating back to the late 1970s and early 1980s – which virtually every source I consulted, with the exception of one that took a historical approach (Hopper, 1990), identified as the beginning of what some sources explicitly called and many implicitly related to as ‘the homeless industry’. In retrospect, two years later, I better appreciate the entrée to this study having been this particular agency and CEO. His agency was known for its competitive nature and he had a strong and controversial reputation. Yet I depended on him for introductions and he was indirectly present in every interview. Having my own firm motives and stakes in the matter facilitated more openness, though, especially for the non-interview-based research.
Alongside many social movements, the 1960s activists focused on a War on Poverty. During these years, John Kennedy launched the Peace Corps. Lyndon Johnson initiated a set of programs called the Great Society. Activists couldn’t solve poverty, so they pursued more tangible agendas (Stern, 1984; Hopper and Baumohl, 1994); homelessness became one of them. One activist, Mitch Snyder, is retroactively given credit for his role in the Community for Creative
Non-Violence (CCNV) and for leading a national social movement to end homelessness (Baumohl, 1996). However, the same source states that this homelessness movement ‘began locally, often in college towns, where pools of unemployed, ill-educated, and often homeless young adults – mostly White – had formed by the deep “stagflation” recession that began in the mid-1970s’
(Baumohl, 1996, p. xiv). The CCNV was unique in its ability to ‘demand that the public face up to the shame of homelessness’ (Baumohl, 1996, p. xv).
Local coalitions formed throughout the US. The Coalition for the Homeless formed in New York City in 1980, and in the next few years similar organiza- tions formed in Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Phoenix, Minneapolis/St.
Paul, Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Los Angeles, Richmond, Seattle, and Tucson. After taking the US presidency in 1980, Ronald Reagan cut social services significantly. For the first time (according to the accounts I obtained), people noticed women and children among the homeless. In downtown San Jose, a priest worked with local city officials to establish an emergency hous- ing shelter. One Christmas Eve in the early 1980s, he welcomed a couple named Joseph and Mary to the shelter. He either made contact with or was contacted by a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, who came to the shel- ter, interviewed the couple and the priest, and published a front-page story about homelessness at Christmas.
In the fall of 1984, Mitch Snyder chained himself to the White House gates and began fasting. The weather turned cold, and he attracted media and other attention. Celebrities began to join him for hours and nights at a time, which attracted more attention. An attorney who had been doing pro bono work on poverty proposed to Snyder that they work together to lobby for the homeless.
In her account, she recalled being laughed at by staffers on Capitol Hill who
‘could not imagine that homelessness could be taken seriously as a “legiti- mate” legislative issue’ (Foscarinis, 1993, p. 45). But Snyder’s strike ‘galva- nized the national public’. As no Congressional staffers had been designated to work on the ‘issue’, ‘there was simply no one to talk to’. (However, Foscarinis notes that the CCNV had operated in Washington for years prior to 1984 and acknowledges its groundwork.) Draft legislation contained three main parts: emergency relief, preventive measures, and long-term solutions.
Although an election was coming up, homeless people didn’t vote. Foscarinis credits Mickey Leland of the House of Representatives and then-Senator Al Gore (via his wife, Tipper) for supporting the bill. In 1986, Congress passed the Homeless Eligibility Clarification Act. It removed permanent address and other requirements preventing the homeless from obtaining subsidized health care, food, and job training. A noteworthy point in the campaign was that ‘the federal agencies took the position that no significant numbers of homeless people were being denied access to these benefits, so the Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of these measures as zero. Given that esti-
mate, bipartisan support was ensured’ (Foscarinis, 1993, p. 48). Snyder disap- proved of this deception and the advocates’ having taken advantage of it.
Instead, Snyder lobbied for more substantial funding, $500 million, called
‘emergency aid’. ‘Our strategy played directly into the desire of the political community to view homelessness superficially, and as amenable to emergency fixes’ (Foscarinis, 1993, p. 50). Furthermore, the campaign capitalized on the emergency aspect of the issue as Snyder and other CCNV members spent the winter on a heat grate outside the Capitol. ‘When he and I went on lobbying visits, I was a lawyer in a suit; he was an activist in an army jacket. We brought the sense of emergency, as well as the aura of legitimacy, into the congres- sional offices. . . . Congress expedited the legislative process and passed the bill by Spring’. Reagan signed the bill but did so in the evening to register his reluctance.
The McKinney Act, the name of this legislation, has been renewed regu- larly ever since, with increasing dollars appropriated, primarily to provide emergency housing for the homeless. Increasing numbers of NPOs apply and compete for this funding. What was once a dialogue about ending homeless- ness became one about lobbying, staffing, and getting government funds. The organization for which I did my pro bono consulting was considered by the local Housing and Urban Development officer (the agency of the US govern- ment that administers McKinney Act funds) as the most skilled at this activity.
Foscarinis regrets that some former advocates in NPOs who now receive federal funds may hesitate or even be tacitly prohibited from criticizing government policies. ‘The price of moral consensus may have been the creation of a new lowest common denominator, a lowering of what is the mini- mum acceptable standard to meet basic needs: shelters and soup kitchens’. The movement ‘lost its potency’ at this point. While the original plan had three parts including a long-term solution, only one part was adopted. ‘We had no . . . plan for a shift in gears once our strategy had served its purpose . . . we became victims of our own success’ (Foscarinis, 1993, p. 58). The emergency approach (used in other social scenarios, see Lipsky and Smith, 1989) permits policymakers and the public to see the problem as solved (Foscarinis, 2000, p.
329). Shelters may even worsen the problem: amid a lack of permanent hous- ing, they tend to become permanent, and those living in them, ‘institutional- ized’. They become legitimized as a solution. Then, as the problem remains unsolved, it appears unsolvable.
The phrase ‘homelessness industry’ came from one of my informants, an advocate in San Francisco, founder of one of the national coalition offices referred to earlier. When I described my research for ‘the largest homelessness service provider in Santa Clara County’ (with perhaps a tinge of self-impor- tance), he replied, ‘That is nothing to be proud of’. When I had introduced myself to my sponsoring organization’s Board of Directors, one of them
commented that my work would position this already leading agency still further as a leader in the field. I gained an appreciation for the phrase ‘home- lessness industry’. The passage of federal laws and the growth of federal fund- ing means more and more NPOs in the homelessness ‘business’.
Public opinion and policy has often split in two directions, one viewing the problem as having to do with defective persons needing rehabilitation, the other deriving homelessness from economic and political policies (Marcuse, 2001). The former approach emphasizes social services; the other, housing.
Backing these viewpoints, thought leaders and decision makers line up in government agencies, research and policymaking institutions, NPOs, profes- sional associations and institutions, and local communities. What is now an industry began humbly – with activists and hunger strikes, and with the poor, who are still among us.