Homelessness

Houseless and Homeless. The estimate of the New York Housing Conference Secretary, Mr. Edward P. Doyle, that it will take half a billion dollars to overcome the present housing shortage, is probably not an exaggerated presentation of the plight New York is in in this respect. Furthermore, the housing-shortage conditions of New York reflect, proportionately, the conditions prevalent in almost every large city in the country. We seem to be threatened with widespread houselessness and homelessness, for the pitiable makeshifts to which so many are driven by house shortage, and the consequent exorbitant rents, are appalling travesties of what American homes should be. Just what Mr. Walter Stabler, Comptroller of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, meant when he said that "unless radical action is taken something drastic will happen," is not quite clear. "Something drastic" is a pretty vague term. Mr. Stabler could hardly mean riotous invasions of the premises of the "ins" by infuriated mobs of the "outs." Houselessness is undoubtedly a breeder of lawlessness, but it is not open to direct-action remedies of the bread riot variety which sheer hunger not infrequently precipitates. If people have not a place to lay their heads at night, not because they are penniless but because there are no roofs to shelter them, about the only thing they can do is to camp in parks and suburban fields. It has even come to that in Newark, and it may come to that elsewhere unless there is relief of some sort.

The devastating effect of the violence is illustrated by the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that caused deaths, homelessness, despair, poverty, political instability, and economic stagnation in this country.