ABSTRACT
During the 1980s, homelessness emerged as a significant public problem. It attracted a great amount of news coverage and became the target of public and private efforts at the national, state, and local levels. This chapter examines how the homeless have become a public problem at the national level, and as a local issue in the city of Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, local businessmen aided in pushing the homeless forward as a public problem. The chapter describes the homeless in a historical perspective and speculate about the historical significance of the emergence of this issue. If the homelesss were considered a welfare problem, the city had ultimate responsibility. The chapter discusses the homeless as a public problem reflect the conservative drift in public policy symbolized most graphically by the Reagan administration's attack on the poor. The legitimization of the homeless is an example of the contestable character of public problems.
