Addressing one of the nation's most intractable social problems, President Clinton unveiled a $411 million grant program Wednesday to aid thousands of homeless people.
He announced 187 grants to cities and nonprofit agencies in 44 states that will provide shelter and services for a variety of homeless persons, from families who lost homes because of unemployment to individuals suffering from AIDS, mental illness, and drug or alcohol abuse.Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs Henry Cisneros said the money would provide housing for more than 11,700 homeless individuals and families. Estimates of the nation's homeless population range from 600,000 to 3 million.
Clinton told more than a dozen mayors and homeless advocates at the White House that homeless-ness is "one of our most painful and, as a country, one of our most embarrassing problems." Despite federal aid, Clinton said, some of the homeless may have such severe mental or alcohol- and drug-related problems that "we may never find the answers."
Nevertheless, Clinton said, "in plain English what we're trying to do is take people who are battered, bruised and broken, but who still have a lot God's grace left in them, and find a way to bring all that back to the surface."
Cisneros said that homelessness remains his department's top priority and that Wednesday's funding announcement represents the largest single award of grants for homelessness ever.
Pointing to the death of a homeless woman named Yetta Adams on a bus-stop bench across the street from the HUD headquarters in downtown Washington last month, Cisneros said, "The American people know we can do better."
He injected a partisan edge into the announcement, saying, "This is the first time that the White House brings this level of attention to the problem of homelessness."
HUD is budgeting $570 million for the homeless this year, an amount that includes the $411 million in grants announced Wednesday. The $570 million is $20 million higher than what the Bush administrated allocated last year.
Cisneros said HUD would seek $823 million in aid to the homeless next year and $1.1 billion in 1995.
Housing advocates at the White House ceremony echoed Cisneros' claim that Clinton is doing more to combat the problem than the Republicans did. A local advocate, the Rev. John Steinbruck of the Lutheran Place Memorial Church here, told Clinton, "It's like night has ended and day has begun."
But Anna Kondratas, who headed Bush administration programs for the homeless under then HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, disagreed.
Reached by telephone after the ceremony, she said: "The first large steps were taken in the Bush administration. She noted that funding for the homeless doubled over the course of Bush's four years in the White House. "It's kind of unfortunate that they (the Clinton officials) don't want to admit anything happened before they got there," she said.