ABSTRACT
The tattered ranks of America's homeless are swelling, and the economic recovery that made this Christmas merrier than last for most Americans has not brought them even a lump of coal. In Detroit, auto sales are stronger but the city estimates homelessness is up 50 percent. The bedraggled homeless are walking emblems of poverty and suffering—the only poverty many Americans ever see. But solutions for their plight are not easily found. The chairman of the city's Board of Health says that an average of one homeless person a day is now found dead in the streets. The paradoxes of homelessness are practically endless. Coping with homelessness requires melding public and private efforts in ways that help street people but don't hurt taxpayers. The homeless are not welcome in Arizona. Police scour homeless haunts with German shepherd dogs, and one church soup kitchen will be sued as a public nuisance.
