Study: War on Poverty Sees More Hungry, Homeless

Despite a war on poverty that began more than four decades ago, the ranks of the hungry and homeless in the United States are increasing even as government funding declines, a study released on Tuesday found.  The National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness surveyed 900 providers of emergency food and shelter in 32 states and found that government cuts to social programs caused nearly one-fourth of the emergency food agencies to turn people away. More than three-quarters of shelters had no place for people to stay. The Bush Administration proposes in its new budget to cut millions of dollars in funding to the three largest federal food programs: food stamps, school lunches and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in an October 2004 report, said that 36.3 million people lived in households without enough food in 2003. The Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C., found in a 2000 survey that 3.5 million people in the United States were homeless.  Oates is on the waiting list for Section 8 housing, the federally funded affordable housing program. The wait is more than a year now, said Sister Peter, but, she added, "It looks like it's going to be a lot longer." The Bush Administration has proposed billion dollar-cuts to that program.  Texas has stopped taking Section 8 applications.   Minimum wages in the United States do not go far toward eliminating homelessness.  The U.S. minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, but a separate survey by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that in 2004 there was no place in the United States where a person earning as much as $9.17 an hour could afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. [more]

• Pictured above: Vendor Joseph Walker stands on a street corner in Washington selling copies of 'Street Sense,' February 1, 2005. The newspaper is for, by and about the homeless in the nation's capital. Despite a war on poverty that began more than four decades ago, the ranks of the hungry and homeless in the United States are increasing even as government funding declines, a study released on Feb. 15, 2005 found.