---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 10:05:51 -0800
From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: So what's a little hunger among friends?
The Daily Telegraph 16 December 1997
US POOR LEFT HUNGRY IN BOOMING ECONOMY
By Hugh Davies in Washington
Demands for food and shelter for the poor are rising in America
despite increasing evidence of prosperity, with a booming economy and
fewer people out of work than ever before.
A survey of 29 cities by the US Conference of Mayors said hunger
appeared to be growing, with demands for emergency food rising by 16 per
cent in the past year, the largest increase since 1992. The number of
requests was so great that a fifth went unfulfilled. Only two cities,
Alexandria, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, said they could
adequately cope with the rising need.
Blame was being put on low wages and the continuing high cost of
housing, although requests for emergency housing rose by only three per
cent, the smallest increase in the history of the survey.
Almost all the cities surveyed - from Boston to San Francisco,
which has to deal with an unusually large number of homeless women -
expected the demand for food would become greater next year. Officials in
St Paul, Minnesota, reported that they were having to tighten the rules for
giving people emergency shelter.
Figures indicated that 47 per cent of the nation's homeless are single
men, 36 per cent families with children, 14 per cent unmarried women and
four per cent juveniles.
Cities surveyed included Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit,
Kansas City, Los Angeles, Louisville, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville,
Norfolk, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, New Orleans, St Louis, Salt Lake
City, San Diego and Seattle.
