Home on the Grate?

MISDIRECTED AND IRRELEVANT: these are the two bests terms to describe the recent controversy over the Leverett House steam vents. Those who criticized the installation of the grates over the vents seem to feel that the grate issue is symptomatic of widespread disregard for the needs of the homeless; but the fact that controversy was generated over the issue at all is the real indication of a general insensitivity to the homeless's real problems.

It isn't accurate to call the homeless the bottom rung of society; they are off the ladder altogether. They are the dispossessed, the outcasts. People may be driven onto the street for any number of reasons, but once they're there, it's difficult for them to leave. Christopher Blanchard, who spent two years on the street and now works for the Coalition for the Homeless, says "Many street people feel they are subject to forces beyond their control." Locked in a cycle of despair and helplessness, they tend to rationalize their position, trying to convince themselves and others that they "want to be on the street."

Unfortunately, some people seem to believe this claim. One Harvard student pressing for the removal of the grates said that she was angered by the installation because the homeless "have their place, and that's where they stay." This kind of thinking categorizes the homeless as a special class of human being whose natural environment is the street. Thus the best way to provide for them is to make the streets as comfortable as possible, by taking steps such as providing ample steam vents.

But although the homeless live on the street, that is not "their place." It is not the place for anyone. Obviously it would be no help to Lowell House residents if the homeless were actually encouraged to return to the steam vents; but more important, it would be no help to the homeless themselves. It is not the environment of the homeless which must be improved, but the environment which creates homelessness in the first place.

THE PROBLEM OF HELPING the street people is a difficult one; not only do many of them claim to want to remain on the street, but there is a general lack of consensus as to why they are there in the first place. A study published by the United Community Planning Corporation of the Massachusetts Association of Mental Health claims that 83 percent of all homeless people either suffer from drug dependency, are mentally ill or retarded, or suffer from a character disorder. However, Steve Kalar '88, co-director of the homeless shelter of the University Lutheran Church, thinks that the figures are inflated, "a by-product of the fact that the study was conducted by psychologists." Blanchard also thinks the actual figure is much lower, and that the homeless are on the street mainly for economic reasons. He says that when he was on the street, it was "easier to get help if you said you were an alcoholic."

What, then, can be done? One constructive step would be to increase state and federal welfare funds, but in this era of universal cutbacks in public spending, this is not likely to happen. There are, though, other ways to deal with the problem. The homeless, more than any other group, must be dealt with as individuals; for, accurately speaking, they are not a group at all, but a collection of lonely people. What they need is not money, but attention: training, perhaps treatment, and opportunity to work and be integrated into society as much as possible. Kalar envisages a nationwide system of small halfway houses where the mentally ill and homeless could help one another get back on their feet. It is a helpful suggestion, but no one answer will solve the problem. In all likelihood the problem will never be solved. But so long as we encourage the homeless to wander from shelter to steam vent, we are not helping them; we are forsaking them.