A Nation in Denial
A Nation in Denial
The Truth About Homelessness
Alice S. Baum and Donald W. Burnes
First published 1993 by Westview Press, Inc.
Published 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright 1993 by Alice S. Baum and Donald W. Burnes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baum, Alice S.
A nation in denial : the truth about homelessness / Alice S. Baum and Donald W. Burnes.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-8244-0. ISBN 0-8133-8245-9 (pbk.)
1. HomelessnessUnited States. 2. Homeless personsUnited states. I. Burnes, Donald W. II. Title.
HV4505.B378 1993
362.5'0973dc20
92-42265
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01615-9 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-813-38245-6 (pbk)
This book is dedicated to Button, Ralph, Brenda, Tim, Donald,
Loraine, Richard, Charles, Jimmy, Donald, Steve, Edith,
Ted, Shannon, Patricia, Arthur, Archie, Joe, Zollie, Henry, Jerome,
and the other homeless people with whom we worked
and from whom we learned the importance of telling the truth.
On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida and Louisiana and left in its wake an unparalleled path of destruction and devastation. The costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, Hurricane Andrew damaged or destroyed 137,500 homes, leaving an estimated 250,000 people literally homeless.
Something deep in the American psyche is touched when devastation and disaster strike members of our society. The nation's immediate response to this disaster epitomized the powerful American tradition of citizens assuming responsibility for helping members of society who are in trouble. Calls for donations of goods, money, and services were met with such generosity that officials were initially overwhelmed with the task of distributing and accounting for all the contributions. Roads leading to devastated communities became gridlocked with vehicles from around the country filled with people wanting to help, trained relief workers ready to volunteer their expertise, and shipments of food, clothing, medical supplies, building materials, and even ice. In the November/December 1992 issue of Psychology Today, John Carnes, a psychologist helping families cope with the traumatic effects of the hurricane, reported seeing more U.S. flags being displayed in affected communities than he had seen at the height of Desert Storm.
The homelessness created by Hurricane Andrew presents a stark contrast to that of the men, women, and children whom Americans have called "the homeless" since the early 1980s and confirms the need to reexamine "homelessness" in America today. Although the problem for both groups is described as being without homes, the impediments that prevent "the homeless" from establishing independent and self-sufficient lives are much more complex than the lack of housing that they share with the hurricane victims. The people who lost their homes to the hurricane needed exactly the kinds of emergency help that have been provided to America's homeless for more than a decade: temporary shelter, food, clothing, and financial assistance. The tragedy of homelessness in America in the 1980s and 1990s is that this kind of help has proven to be insufficient to address the multiple problems of the vast majority of the people called "the homeless."
Just three months after they were constructed, the last of the tent cities was closed and most hurricane victims had either found alternative housing or had moved into mobile homes provided by the federal government as interim housing. Ironically, on the same weekend in late October 1992 that the last of the emergency shelters in the tent cities in Florida was being dismantled, about 600 people in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, slept outdoors in freezing temperatures to draw attention to homelessness in America. One participant told a local television reporter that spending only one night on the streets was an insignificant sacrifice compared to the years that America's homeless people have suffered in shelters and on the streets. Why is it that most of the people who lost their homes to Hurricane Andrew resettled into new housing in just three months, while hundreds of thousands of others remain homeless for years?
Complete economic and psychological recovery from the tragedy of Hurricane Andrew will take energy, money, and enormous stamina, but the expectation is that in time most hurricane victims will rebuild their homes and their lives. Why is it that so many people in this nation do not have the same expectation for America's "homeless"? Why has there never been the same sense of urgency to help "the homeless" reconstruct their lives as was evidenced in the days and weeks following Hurricane Andrew? Why does America persist in describing the problems of "the homeless" in terms of poverty and lack of housing, when the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that other problems prevent "the homeless" from working and maintaining permanent housing? Why is there a sense of fatalistic inevitability that America's "homeless" will always have marginal lives, dependent on shelters, soup kitchens, and clothing distributions? Why is it that, despite the tradition of deep concern for the needy in our society, the problem of homelessness has proven so intractable?
We have written this book to answer these complex questions.
Alice S. Baum
Donald W. Burnes
In writing this book, we received help and support from many friends and colleagues who shared their insights and knowledge with us. We wish to thank them all. However, several of them deserve particular mention.
Carolyn Douglas, our good friend and colleague, read every word of several drafts of our work. She always provided invaluable comments and constructive suggestions and edited our drafts with extreme patience and an unflagging commitment to the truth. Without her support and wisdom, we would never have finished this book, and we are deeply indebted to her.
Dr. Robert Koff, a longtime friend and colleague, read our next to last draft and, as always, asked penetrating questions that forced us to clarify our thinking. His careful reasoning helped us write a better book.
Several other friends and colleagues deserve a special note of thanks. Irving Shandler, president of the Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Center in Philadelphia, and Daniel Steffey, former assistant to the mayor of Portland, Oregon, were both generous with their time, knowledge, and insights, Irv made time in his very busy schedule at the DRC to meet with us, arranged a lunchtime seminar with executive staff members, and arranged meetings for us with several members of the project staff. We were awed by Irv's commitment to his very difficult work, and we learned a great deal from him and other members of the DRC staff about maximizing opportunities for homeless men and women to achieve sobriety and recovery from drug addictions. Dan provided substantial assistance in our extensive visit to Portland, helped us make arrangements to visit the many impressive component projects of the Portland Model, and shared with us his profound optimism about truly helping the homeless.