WORLD VIEW : Gimme Shelter: The Plight of the Homeless in Lands of Plenty : In advanced nations, the ‘new poverty’ sends more and more people into the street.

Willie and Xenia Miles have lived across from the White House for six months now. When drug addicts overran the abandoned house they had squatted in, the fast-food cook and his pregnant wife took up residence under a flowering magnolia in historic Lafayette Park.

“The shelters would have split us up. Besides, stealing in most of them is something terrible,” Willie Miles said as they shared a cola crackers for breakfast. Sleeping on coarse gray blankets, their belongings in plastic bags beside the tree, the Mileses said they feel less vulnerable in the open.

In the capital of the world’s most powerful nation, pockets of homelessness are now pervasive. The Mileses are among about 50 people who sleep on the park’s benches and under its maples, willows and magnolias, according to the National Park Service. Hundreds more sleep around the Washington and Lincoln monuments, in the shadow of the Capitol and on the warming sidewalk grates outside the departments of Justice, Commerce and State.

Somewhere between 7,500 and 10,000 people are homeless in Washington--up from about 400 two decades ago, community groups report. About a third sleep in the open year-round.

But Washington is not unique. From Stockholm and Sydney to Tokyo and Toronto, the capitals and commercial centers of virtually every wealthy, industrialized country have experienced an unprecedented surge in homelessness since the late 1980s.

Along with hunger, homelessness is now one of the two main social problems of the West, a trend all the more damning because the resources are available to prevent it, economists contend.

Instead, many homeless in the wealthy nations of Europe, North America, Japan and Australia live as roughly as their Third World counterparts. And in the industrialized states of Eastern Europe, the new capitalism has put hundreds of thousands on the streets.

“The most extreme manifestation of the marginality and social exclusion in the midst of affluence and economic growth is the phenomenon of homelessness, which is found to exist to differing degrees in all developed countries and is growing at worrying rates,” warns an upcoming report by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, whose members are 24 of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Once limited to a tiny fringe of society, the homeless have reached staggering numbers at the end of the 20th Century.

Among the European Union’s 12 member-states, at least 2.5 million people are homeless, and the total probably exceeds 5 million, reports the European Federation of National Organizations Working with the Homeless.

In the United States, the number of “absolute homeless” is conservatively estimated at 600,000 at any given time, with as many as 7 million homeless over any five-year period, reports Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.

The homeless are now visible throughout the developed world--around the heating vents of shopping malls in chilly Canada, in the subterranean world of the Paris Metro, under Budapest’s bridges and in Warsaw’s parks, in cardboard boxes close by the glass-and-concrete high-rises of Tokyo’s financial center, and near abandoned factories in Sydney and Melbourne.

The story is not, however, just in the growing numbers and haunting conditions. As Willie and Xenia Miles indicate, the profile of the homeless is rapidly changing.

Once largely alcoholics, drug addicts or mentally impaired, the legions of the homeless are increasingly women and children, even whole families. Up to a third have jobs but cannot afford shelter, experts say. And the average age is declining. In Europe, as many as 70% of the homeless are younger than 20. In Canada, where homelessness has doubled in 10 years, 25% of the quarter of a million homeless are children, the National Anti-Poverty Organization in Ottawa claims.

“In the past, there was a pool of itinerant cheap labor that was variously called hobos, drifters or vagrants. It was perceived to remain homeless by choice,” the OECD report says. “The current homeless, which do not fit this stereotype, are heterogeneous, consisting of a number of groups who, unable to operate at the margins of the economic, social and residential life of the city, become victims of ‘the new poverty.’ ”

Willie Miles, who recently got a job at a fried chicken restaurant, is a case in point. Paid minimum wage, he says it will be a long time before he can afford the first and last month’s rent, plus security deposit, for rental housing. Until they have enough, the Mileses say, they’ll stay in Lafayette Park.

The “new poverty” has multiple causes.

“The current crisis is due to policies that ignored or misdiagnosed changes in housing affordability, the adverse impact of economic shifts around the world, increased drug use and the rising cost of health care,” said Marsha Martin, executive director of Washington’s Interagency Council on the Homeless.

“Add to that changes in family structures and the breakdown in traditional social institutions. Meanwhile, community groups, charities and churches are strapped for money. They can no longer deal with the same numbers, much less with more.”

Problem 1: Housing Squeeze

Europe illustrates the first problem of supply and demand. Homelessness has soared as governments move away from subsidized housing and other social welfare benefits. Germany, with over a million, has the most homeless in Europe, followed by Britain’s 700,000 and France’s 600,000.

Because of tighter budgets, public housing construction in Britain fell from 180,000 units in 1975 to less than 20,000 in 1992. And the private sector has not made up the difference. The result is a growing shortage of affordable housing.

“Anyone who hasn’t been here in five years would be shocked at the increase in homelessness,” said Katrina Dunbar, spokeswoman for Shelter, Britain’s main lobbying group for the homeless. “The government is so embarrassed that it recently spent money for hostels to get people off London streets so tourism won’t be affected. . . . Tuberculosis has come back in this country, first among the homeless.”

Some of London’s homeless live no better than they did in the 19th-Century days of Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” when survival depended on begging bowls, back-alley squatting and charity soup kitchens.

Although an increasingly large body of people, the homeless have few political advocates. Like the growing number of panhandlers on the streets of wealthy countries, homelessness is an issue the public and the policy-makers often prefer to ignore, experts say.

Problem 2: Uneven Wealth

Canada reflects the second problem: national wealth not trickling down to adequately cover society’s poorest. This year, the United Nations reported that Canada has the world’s highest standard of living. But better economic times have not helped the homeless. In Canada and throughout the industrialized West, the social contract between the state and the people is being redefined as key benefits are eliminated.

“We have a bizarre economic situation where growth has not been combined with a lot more jobs,” said Francois Dumain, assistant director of Canada’s National Anti-Poverty Program. He cited a Canadian oil company that recently announced a record profit--and a simultaneous layoff of 500 employees to maintain that trend.

“That says a lot about the future we face. The goal is performance without social values,” Dumain added. “We face the same pattern as the United States. In many cases, those laid off because of cutbacks are forced to take poorly paid part-time jobs.”

At the same time, social programs the poor once fell back on--welfare, unemployment insurance, health and family benefits--have been cut. So more people are falling through the safety net and ending up on the streets.

Problem 3: Social Malaise

Australia symbolizes a third and broader problem: social problems making the young, from tots to teen-agers, increasingly vulnerable. Sparsely populated Australia has 20,000 homeless under age 24 on the streets, according to Leith Greenslade, an official of the Ministry of Housing.

The three major causes include changing family structures, such as single-parent families; violent environments or physical abuse, and inability to make it on their own. Among Australians aged 18 to 24, unemployment is 20%, double the national rate.

Worldwide, up to 100 million children are homeless, depending on the definition, the World Health Organization says. Homeless children are so abundant they have nicknames, such as scugnizzi or “spinning tops” in Italy and bomzh , the acronym for “no fixed abode,” in Russia.

The young also have the hardest time re-integrating.

“The dropout rate from school is high, and many are drawn to drug or alcohol abuse, glue sniffing, prostitution or even suicide. Many runaways, or ‘throwaways,’ tire of moving from one foster group to another and are distrustful of public institutions. They adopt a transient lifestyle and have no opportunities to learn basic skills,” the OECD report notes.

Problem 4: Communism’s End

Eastern Europe illustrates the fourth and newest cause of homelessness in industrialized nations: the end of communism.

Since the Soviet Empire’s demise in 1991, up to 60,000 have become homeless in Moscow alone because of new poverty, no new housing and the absence of a permit required to live in the Russian capital. Within a year, so many took refuge in Moscow’s biggest train station that foreign doctors set up a clinic there.

President Boris N. Yeltsin subsequently signed a decree making homelessness a crime, reviving a Communist law. But the shelters he ordered built to house the homeless have yet to materialize.

Eastern Europe also faces a potentially explosive increase in homelessness. In Hungary, more than 4 million people live in substandard housing, frequently without running water or electricity, for which Hungarians pay up to three-quarters of their income in rent.

“Begin with a situation in which it’s common to find three generations sharing 500 square feet in old, neglected buildings owned by the state. Then factor in a complete change in the patterns of work and a lot of unemployment--and that nothing is guaranteed any more,” said Kalman Lorincz, director of Hungary’s new Habitat for Humanity office.

“We have private construction firms, but when you need 150% collateral for a mortgage and you pay up to 30% interest, who has the money to build? This is fairly typical in all Eastern Europe. Four years is not enough to learn what to do with freedom.”

In Poland, the symbols of the new capitalism are also often the symbols of the new homelessness. Many without shelter sleep and beg among the newly privatized restaurants and chic shops. Poland has a chronic “under-housing” crisis, with a million fewer units than it needs for a population of 38 million people, the U.S. Agency for International Development reports. The waiting list for apartments is years, even decades, long. Young couples may have to live well into their 40s with parents; some can only hope to have their own place by inheriting it.

Poland also suffers from post-Communist “pauperization,” according to Adam Krol, chairman of Poland’s Habitat for Humanity. The new paupers in Eastern Europe have lost jobs as state industries are privatized, streamlined or go bankrupt in new capitalist economies.

In rural villages, others have been forced to abandon farming because state markets and subsidies are no longer guaranteed. And old people, after a lifetime of work, are finding their pensions almost worthless in the post-socialist economies.

Yet the reality is that in both East and West, homelessness should not be a major problem. In virtually every city in the developed world, vacancy rates are high enough to accommodate all those who are without shelter--usually many times over, according to Steve Mayo, a World Bank expert.

In U.S. cities, the vacancy rate is about 7%, while “absolute homelessness” is less than 1%. The problem is that even shabby housing is increasingly unaffordable.

“Very often in the United States, the poor are spending 40% or 50% of their incomes on rent for something not necessarily safe. Given other demands on limited budgets, many can’t or choose not to spend the money on housing,” Mayo added.

Historically, policy on homelessness in the wealthy West was characterized by the stick of vagrancy laws and the carrot of charity. Either way, the homeless were usually marginalized; prospects for re-integrating into society were limited.

“The single most common pattern within the European Union is to treat homelessness as a condition to be avoided for the sake of the public good rather than in terms of individual rights,” reports the 1994 survey of FEANTSA, the European federation dealing with the problem.

Belgium still penalizes vagrancy based on an 1891 law, while Luxembourg homeless face a Catch-22: a shortage of subsidized housing makes it inaccessible to the homeless. Yet without an address, applicants often can’t qualify for minimum welfare.

In Japan, where the problem first appeared in 1989, police patrols daily destroy makeshift homes of the more than 2,000 homeless in Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama.

Some Solutions

Homelessness is proving a stubborn problem. Nevertheless, a few governments and private groups have launched initiatives:

* Denmark has an early warning system, whereby social service agencies must be notified before a family with children is evicted. Municipal authorities are also are empowered to take over every fourth apartment that becomes vacant.

* France has codified the rights of people to housing. And 1990 legislation mandated three types of help for the destitute, including a minimum income, training and housing.

* In British Columbia, community groups founded ASK, or Assn. for Street Kids, to provide housing referrals, training and counseling. Many in turn helped work with their peers still on the streets. U.S.-based Habitat for Humanity organizes volunteers to work with the needy, who put in hours of “sweat equity” on their homes and others as collateral. At least 30,000 homes have been built in 42 countries since 1976.

* The 1994 National Teacher of the Year, Sandra McBrayer, was selected for her work with homeless children in San Diego, where up to 1,500 children live on city streets. McBrayer founded an outreach school in a storefront in 1988. With a staff of 12 and a van that picks up children on strategic street corners, the school now serves up to 400 students aged 12 to 19 a year.

But for the most original solutions to homelessness, the First World may learn most from the Third World, experts say.

“Within the housing world, we’ve come to recognize survival strategies of the south will be very useful in the north,” said Ruth McLeod, executive director of Homeless International in England.

“When people can’t get formal housing in Nairobi, for example, they squat or build illegally. There’s a growing recognition that that kind of housing has to be tolerated. Because the private sector and governments are unable to provide adequate housing, creativity and energy of people needs to be supported as homelessness becomes a bigger issue everywhere.”

Among Third World concepts being explored is “planned squatting,” or laying out land for people to squat in an organized way so, when resources are available, utilities and services can be added or upgraded. Over time, outlying squatters areas can then be developed into proper suburbs--a common approach now in Brazil, planners say.

Another idea is “land sharing,” a practice worked out between landowners and squatters in Bangkok. Owners install sanitation and other facilities on part of the land in exchange for squatters moving off front areas so they can be developed for commercial use--a concept now being explored by European housing groups.

A third idea helps create new funding for the homeless without collateral for loans. In India and Bangladesh, “women’s savings groups” pool resources and lend money to each other at low interest rates.

“I recently took some British housing executives to India to show how it worked,” said McLeod, the British homeless official. “An executive from Cambridge said it was a model to use in his area, as he knows families paying loan sharks 300% interest a year because they have no access to the British banking system.”

Getting Organized

Meanwhile, the homeless are also mobilizing worldwide to help themselves.

The “Squatters’ Rights Handbook” was published in London in 1987 for homeless who have found shelter in abandoned facilities. South Africa’s People’s Dialogue on Land and Shelter, which groups 130 grass-roots organizations, has conducted exchanges with the National Slumdwellers of India.

In Washington, the largest shelter is the John L. Young Center. The government provided the building, and the city pays utilities. But it is staffed by the homeless and it nightly puts up 1,400 men, women and children. Keith Mitchell, a director, became the first homeless person to win a local election. This fall, he is running to be Washington’s shadow representative to Congress.

“They’re part of the new idea that people should take power over their own lives and homesteads. Instead of seeing them as desperate and living wherever they can, they’re seen as taking action on their own and forming their own tenants groups and trying to put a semblance of order to a disorderly issue--an idea borrowed from the developing world,” said Irene Glasser, American author of “Homelessness in Global Perspective.”

“The new theory tries to give the problem a positive cast: They’re not squatters. They’re part of spontaneous developments. Give them a chance and you’ll see they will better their lives.”

Times librarian Pat Welch contributed to this article.

Down and Out

Poor countries and wealthy countries have the most homeless, with middle-income countries having the least, one survey based on gross national product shows.

* Median homeless rate per 1,000 people; countries grouped by per-capita GNP:

Low (GNP $320): 2.69

Low Middle ($740): 0.63

Middle ($1,710): 0.93

High Middle ($5,695): 0.24

High ($21,130): 2.81

* Country income groups:

LOW

Examples: China, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa

LOW MIDDLE:

Examples: Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines

MIDDLE:

Examples: Chile, Poland, Tunisia

HIGH MIDDLE:

Examples: Brazil, Greece, South Korea

HIGH:

Examples: Australia, North America, Western Europe SOURCE: World Bank, Housing Indicators Program, 1990. Figures based on surveys of 53 cities, mostly national capitals.

Counting the Homeless

* Who are they?

Homelessness comes in many categories.

Absolute homelessness -- People without their own addresses, phones or paychecks.

Sheltered homeless -- A much larger category that includes those put up in government shelters or charity hostels.

Hidden homeless -- An even larger category that includes people forced out of housing who move in with friends, several generations living in a facility built for a single family and women who find temporary alternatives after fleeing abusive homes with their children.

Shadow housing -- Basically, squatters who move into abandoned homes. They are increasing in the developed world, sometimes setting up underground management that taps into local electricity lines and even rents apartments.

--ROBIN WRIGHT

* Homeless children

Worldwide estimates range from 10 million to 100 million. One breakdown:

(In millions)

Industrialized nations: 20

Latin America: 40

Asia: 30

Africa: 10

SOURCE: World Health Organization

* An American tragedy

A profile of U.S. homeless people:

History of alcohol or drug abuse: 50%

Single men: 75%

Veterans: 30% to 45% of the men

Children not in school: About 1/3

SOURCE: National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty

* Budget-slashing

Government spending on homeless in Washington, D.C.:

(in millions of dollars)

1985: 9

1990: 45

1991: 12

1992: 8

SOURCE: The D.C. Initiative

* Some thoughts

‘Homelessness is not unsolvable. Its causes and solutions are clear. We have confronted and continue to confront bigger problems of greater complexity in this country: cancer, AIDS, air pollution, toxic waste cleanup. We can face this one.’

-- Henry Cisneros, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

*

“Homelessness and hunger are the two most palpable indications of poverty, as well as the clearest indications of society’s inability to care even minimally for its most vulnerable.”

-- Irene Glasser in “Homelessness in Global Perspective”

*

“On homelessness, there is no fundamental difference between the North and the South. The problem of big cities is the same everywhere.”

-- European Federation of National Organizations Working With the Homeless