Read Rachel and Her Children Online
Authors: Jonathan Kozol
Not all homeless mothers can expect to be assisted by the Coalition for the Homeless. The coalition, with its limited resources, has been able to pay for only six burials over the past two years. Occasionally, a generous crisis worker in a hotel like the Martinique, moved by a sense of personal obligation, will contribute money or will help the mother to track down a funeral director who will conduct an inexpensive ceremony. This action, however, may constitute a violation of the city’s rules, as it necessitates the favoring of one funeral director over another. City employees, the coalition writes, “are forced to jeopardize their jobs” in order to provide this help.
It is unclear where Benjamin is buried. Funds raised by the coalition to pay for his funeral may not have been adequate to pay for private burial. Holly refers to “an island.” It is possible that she is speaking of Hart’s Island. Another possibility is that Benjamin is buried in a grave on Staten
Island where, because the water table is so high, the graves cannot be deep and, partly for this reason, are the least expensive in the city.
The sum of $250, established in 1966, was not adjusted for inflation for two decades. In 1986, after the fire at the Brooklyn Arms in which four children died, the city raised this allocation to $900. The death benefit is now in keeping with the market prices for a no-frills funeral, plain coffin, and interment. Of all benefits allowed the poor in New York City, burial is the only one that bears some true connection to prevailing costs. Cost-of-living benefits lag far behind the cost of death in this respect.
The forty-five acres of Hart’s Island used for burying the poor are, according to the author of the coalition’s study, tended with dignity by the thirty-five prison inmates who reside there. “The currently used sections,” she reports, “resemble a park.” Except for an abandoned missile site nearby, the area is pastoral. “Grass and underbrush,” she writes, “cover the burial ground. A noisy band of geese keep year-round watch.”
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Conversation in Martinique Hotel, December 1985; follow-up conversations, March, November 1986.
Peter and Megan were interviewed in a television documentary, “Down and Out in America,” first aired in 1986. Certain background information and some dialogue are adapted from the film. Some details are disguised. Information on this superb documentary: Joseph Feury Productions, Inc., 610 West End Avenue, New York, NY 10024.
Hotel rental of $3,000: Peter’s estimate. See notes for
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.
Number of homeless children in America: Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless. (Telephone interview, August 7, 1987.)
The population of Atlanta is 452,000; Denver, 493,000; St. Louis, 453,000. (1980 census.)
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“This is a new population …” All quotations not attributed to documented sources are from author’s interviews, 1985 to 1987.
Fifty percent of individuals served by city shelters were seeking shelter for first time (New York City and national):
The Growth of Hunger, Homelessness and Poverty in America’s Cities in 1985
, U.S. Conference of Mayors,
January 1986;
Hardship in the Heartland: Homelessness in Eight U.S. Cities
, by Dan Salerno, Kim Hopper, and Ellen Baxter, Community Service Society of New York, June 1984;
The Making of America’s Homeless: From Skid Row to New Poor, 1945–1984
, by Kim Hopper and Jill Hamberg, Community Service Society of New York, December 1984.
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Increase in number of homeless children:
A Status Report on Homeless Families in America’s Cities
, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Washington, D.C., May 1987;
Safety Network
, National Coalition for the Homeless, October/November 1986.
Newsweek
(January 6, 1986) reports that two thirds of the children of homeless families surveyed in Boston, in a study conducted in 1985, were under five years of age. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors (January 1986), “Families with children comprise 80 percent of the homeless population in Yonkers. Sixty-six percent of New York City’s homeless are families. In both Chicago and Boston, 40 percent of the homeless population are parents and their children.”
Numbers of homeless individuals and families, New York City: Conversations with Robert Hayes and David Beseda, National Coalition for the Homeless, 1987. According to the New York City Human Resources Administration, 18,219 family members, including 11,972 children and 6,247 parents in 4,962 families, were given shelter by New York City in June 1987. (“Monthly Report,” New York City Temporary Housing Program for Families with Children, Crisis Intervention Services, HRA, June 1987.) Crisis Intervention Services identified below as “CIS.”
Average age, homeless children and parents, New York City:
A Shelter Is Not a Home
, Report of the Manhattan Borough President’s Task Force on Housing for Homeless Families, March 1987. (Identified below by name of Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins.) See also press release by Mr. Dinkins, March 24, 1987.
Massachusetts statistics:
Streetlife
, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, September/October 1986;
Safety Network
, December 1985;
Newsweek
, January 6, 1986.
Children are 40 percent of poor, 26.8 percent of total U.S. population, according to the
New York Times
, May 23, 1985. See also Daniel P. Moynihan,
Family and Nation
, San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.
Children in poverty, increase in numbers, decline in welfare benefits:
New York Times
, November 20, 1985.
700,000 children in New York City live in poverty: “Children of Poverty,” by Andrew Stein,
New York Times Magazine
, June 8, 1986.
100,000 New York City children have no health insurance:
Newsday
, September 26, 1986.
Increase in percentages of New York City children in poverty:
The Changing Face of Poverty: Trends in New York City’s Population in Poverty: 1960–1990
, by Emanuel Tobier, Community Service Society of New York, November 1984.
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Denver and Cleveland:
Hardship in the Heartland
, cited above.
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Milwaukee Journal
, December 29, 1982.
Governor Milliken declares “state of human emergency”:
Hardship in the Heartland
, above.
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Take-home pay of $450 a month: At minimum wage of $3.35 per hour, gross income from 160 hours’ work (four weeks) is $536 before deductions.
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Homeless people living in caves: Many instances are cited in cities as diverse as Pittsburgh and Atlanta and, most recently, even in New York City. See
Homelessness in America, A Forced March to Nowhere
, by Mary Ellen Hombs and Mitch Snyder, Washington, D.C.: Community for Creative Non-violence, 1982.
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Increase in homeless families, Washington, D.C.:
Waashington Post
, January 8, 1987.
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Number of homeless in America:
The Faces of Homelessness
, by Marjorie Hope and James Young, Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1986;
National Neglect/National Shame: America’s Homeless: Outlook—Winter 1986–87
, National Coalition for the Homeless, September 1986;
Homelessness: A Complex Problem and the Federal
Response
, U.S. General Accounting Office, Washington, D.C., April 1985;
HUD Report on Homelessness, II
, Subcommittee on Housing and Community Development of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, Washington, D.C., December 4, 1985.
In discussion of HUD’s number count, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, “Chairman Gonzalez said that the HUD report was intended to squelch outcries by advocates for the homeless and certain members of Congress…. Gonzalez concluded that the report was not only ‘sloppy’ but intentionally deceptive and prepared with ‘malice aforethought.’”
(Safety Network
, January 1986.)
HUD’s pressure on consultants: “The Housing Part of Homelessness,” by Chester Hartman, in
The Mental Health Needs of Homeless Persons
, ed. by Ellen Bassuk, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.
Dorothy Wickenden, in the
New Republic
(March 18, 1985), states: “Most studies judge the correct number to be two or three million.” The
New York Times
(March 5, 1987) estimates “three million homeless in the United States.” Additional discussion of numbers’ debate:
Boston Globe
, September 6, 1986;
Newsweek
, December 16, 1985.
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17,000 families doubled up, New York City, 1983:
New
York Times
, April 21, 1983.
35,000 families doubled up, New York City, 1986: According to David Dinkins, “approximately 20 percent” of the New York City Housing Authority’s 175,000 units “are home to more than one family.” The
New York Times
(June 22, 1986) reports that “at least 35,000 families are living doubled up illegally” in city-owned apartments.
According to estimates cited by the New York City Council, between 100,000 and 150,000 families were doubled up in public and private housing in New York City in 1986. See
Report of the Select Committee on the Homeless
, chaired by Abraham Gerges and researched by committee counsel Robert Altman, prepared in November 1986, released January 22, 1987.
Number of persons doubled up in New York City: According to Cathy Bezozo, Office for Policy and Economic Research, HRA, the average family on welfare in New York City includes 2.9 persons. The average homeless family includes 3.7 persons. (Telephone interview, August 17, 1987.) The average size of families doubled up falls between these figures.
According to
Newsweek
(January 2, 1984), “the number of American families sharing quarters in 1982 was up 58 percent—the first such increase since 1950.”
Doubling up: In 1978, 1.3 million families were doubled up in the United States; the number rose to 2.6 million by 1983. (The
Making of America’s Homeless
, cited above.) By 1985, the National Coalition for the Homeless estimated as many as 10 to 20 million persons (approximately 3 to 6 million families) doubled up in the United States.
(The Search for Shelter
, by Nora Richter Greer, American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C., 1986.)
According to David Dinkins, 50 to 60 percent of families entering New York City shelters were previously doubled up. The New York City Council study estimates 57 percent of homeless families in New York City were previously doubled up.
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Number of people in danger of eviction: “Seattle’s Mayor Charles Royer noted in May 1985, ‘For every homeless person in Seattle, there are ten others who are at risk….’” (
The Search for Shelter
, cited above.)
Rentals and mortgage payments compared to family income: Chester Hartman, cited above.
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Loss of rental units, increase in rents, persons paying nearly three quarters of income for rent:
Hardship in the Heartland; The Making of America’s Homeless
.
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Statistics for Boston:
Boston Globe Magazine
, December 15, 1985.
Vacancy rates for San Francisco, Boston, New York City:
The Making of America’s Homeless;
U.S. Conference of Mayors, May 1987;
The Nation
, April 4, 1987;
Christianity Today
, October 4, 1985.
Evictions and welfare rent ceilings in New York City:
The Making of America’s Homeless
and David Dinkins.
Decline in federal support for low-income housing: New York City Council study, above.
HUD official: quoted by Hartman, above.
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Hartman: See above.
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The U.S. Conference of Mayors (January 1986) cites statement on dying industries from officials in Chicago.
Job-market transformation: “MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour,” PBS, April 7, 1987;
Sacramento Bee
, March 15, 1987;
The Nation
, April 4, 1987. The American Institute of Architects’ study, cited above, reports that New York City lost 80,000 blue-collar jobs between 1980 and 1985. The U.S. Conference of Mayors (April 1987) predicts a loss of 36,000 jobs in auto manufacturing plants in the Detroit area: “Only about a quarter of [these jobs] will be replaced by the end of this decade.”
According to Senator John Heinz, “The General Accounting Office … found that, between 1979 and 1984, approximately 2.4 million workers were dislocated annually…. When workers lose their jobs due to a plant closing, two years after the job loss, only about 50 percent of them find another job…. Those who do find another job earn 30 percent less than their pre-layoff earnings.”
(Washington Spectator
, September 15, 1987.)
Jim Hightower, commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, observes: “Nearly half of the new jobs created from 1979 to 1985 pay less than a poverty-level wage—$180 a week.” (
New York Times
, June 21, 1987.)
John D. Kasarda, chairman of the sociology department at the University of North Carolina, states that, in the 14 years preceding 1986, New York City “lost almost 500,000 jobs in those industries where the average job holder has not completed high school.”
(New York Times
, October 22, 1986.)
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“If anything,” officials in Boston told the U.S. Conference of Mayors, “the recovery has exacerbated the situation as the increased attractiveness of the city has tightened the
housing market.” Officials in San Francisco added this: “The ‘national economic recovery’ has not addressed the causes of homelessness. In fact, the so-called ‘recovery’ denies the existence of such problems.” (U.S. Conference of Mayors, January 1986.)
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The Federal Response to the Homeless Crisis, Third Report
, House Committee on Government Operations, Ninety-ninth Congress, Washington, D.C., April 1985.
Homeless crisis will intensify: “Unless major new initiatives are begun, New York City by the year 2000 is likely to need 372,000 housing units more than it will have,” according to a study by a mayoral commission. (“Housing Needs Will Get Worse, Study Predicts,”
New York Times
, July 20, 1987). Relatively affluent Westchester County spent $750,000 for emergency housing in 1983, has budgeted $32 million for 1987, and predicts that this expense will rise to $90 million by 1988.
(New York Times
, July 19, 1987.)
New York City spends $274 million in 1987 (projection):
New York Times
, January 10, 1987. About $150 million for homeless families: See notes for
this page
.
Growth in number of families sheltered in New York City: Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore, lecture to Federation of Protestant Welfare Workers, New York City, April 24, 1985;
Struggling to Survive in a Welfare Hotel
, by John H. Simpson, Margaret Kilduff, and C. Douglass Blewett, Community Service Society of New York, 1984;
New York Times
, December 4, 1985;
Newsday
, November 28, 1986. See also notes for
this page
.
Prediction of 6,000 families sheltered in New York City by summer 1988:
New York Times
, October 30, 1986.
2.3 children in each homeless family in New York: New York City Council and David Dinkins. The average homeless family sheltered in New York City contains 1.4 adults and 2.3 children, for a total of 3.7 persons. See notes for
this page
.
Nationally, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors (April 1987), 30 percent of homeless families are headed by two parents.
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The population of Laramie, Wyoming, is 24,410. The population of Key West is 24,292. (1980 census.)