Some were friendly and some were not, and you tried not to offend either. Still I felt that even when they were polite they hardly saw me, that they would have begged the pardon of Jack the Bear, never glancing his way if the bear happened to be walking along minding his business. A recent census of the homeless in Mobile put the number of homeless individuals in the city at over 700. Nationwide, roughly a fourth of the homeless are children, about half of whom are under age five. It is one of the ironies of the 1990s that the strong economy has actually contributed to the amount of homelessness in some cities by driving up rents.
Homelessness is a complex issue, and one that is difficult to deal with.
The first requirement, however, is that as a society we stop pretending not to see the homeless, and give up some of the myths that make people feel better about the homeless but prevent anything being done to alleviate the problems. The shame of homelessness in a nation as wealthy as the U.S. is that as a society we know how to deal with these issues, but have chosen not to, preferring to cling to the myths. We collectively close our eyes to the problem just as we individually close our eyes to the people we encounter on the streets. The recent conference sponsored by the Homeless Coalition of Mobile was a laudable effort to turn the spotlight on the issue of homelessness and to raise public awareness of some dimensions of the problem and possible solutions. Letters to the Editor Dear Editor, Gore and Bush are asked the same old questions.