Homelessness is an issue which has emerged as an important one, locally and nationally, over the last six years in a classic “agenda setting” fashion. Public awareness has increased, and public policies developed (at every level of the political system), as the number of homeless persons has increased, and changed character to include more young people, women and children, and intact families. This awareness has been stimulated by events as different as the Community for Creative Non-violence in Washington, D.C. inviting members of Congress to join them in sleeping overnight on outside vents and steam grates to “experience” homelessness to now-annual surveys by the U.S. Conference of Mayors of member cities to gauge the seriousness of the problem and to undergird the requests of increasingly desperate mayors for assistance. The U.S. Congress finally passed the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act in July, 1987, to make $355 million available to states and cities under 15 different program elements, after six years of cutting federal outlays for assisted housing by a cumulative 60 percent from what it would have been based on an FY 1981 baseline budget.

Local government reactions to homelessness have been quite varied. Los Angeles passed an ordinance in December, 1987, at the request of its Venice Beach residents, prohibiting overnight sleeping on beaches. New York City initiated a policy of street “sweeps” intended to forcibly remove and treat 500 of the most severely mentally ill people on the city streets in the next year.