Sunday, January 27, 2013

Homelessness in Colonial America

"Sturdy Beggars"


(Article published in Street Speech by the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless) 

The problem of homelessness in America is not new.  As a matter of fact it is as old as the settling of the country by the colonists.  Just like today, people became homeless for a variety of reasons and stayed homeless for varying lengths of time during America’s first two centuries.  The first arrivals in the New World came from a broad cross section of English society and included many of England’s wandering homeless, vagrants, criminals, the mentally ill and misfits of all sorts.  Intent on increasing the population of the new colonies, English officials routinely offered criminals the choice of boarding ships headed for America as an alternative to going to prison.  Thus the potential was there from the beginning for the problem of homelessness to be introduced into the colonies by some of the new arrivals.  Many knew no other way of life and were ill equipped for survival on their own.  But not all new arrivals were reprobates.  Some who came were mountain men, hunters, trappers, and fur traders.  The movie Jeremiah Johnson accurately depicts this type of rugged individualist.  Others were seeking freedom, especially religious freedom or land and a chance at a better life.
 
The colonists needed hard workers to tame the wilderness.  Trees had to be felled, houses built, and land cleared for farming.  A strong community spirit quickly developed where everyone pulled together for the common good.  Those who were not willing to pitch in and do their part were called “sturdy beggars,” an English term for those who were fit and able to work, but begged or wandered for a living instead.  Since taking care of them put a serious strain on the meager resources of new communities, they were mostly left to fend for themselves and often starved or froze to death. 

As the colonies became self-governing communities, they enacted laws to keep order, levied taxes to generate revenue, and elected officials to manage town affairs.  Early welfare practices were modeled on the English Poor Laws enacted by the British. This included cash assistance known as “outdoor relief.”  Those eligible were usually long- time members of the community who had experienced a personal calamity like an injury, a long-term illness or the death of the family breadwinner.  The elderly, widows and orphans were also looked after.  Because local communities had to pay a special poor tax in order to provide this relief, assistance was neither generous nor frequent.  

Just as colonists believed they had a duty to care for their neighbors in need, they also believed they had the right to refuse aid to “outsiders.”  This led to the common practice of “warning out.”  It consisted of a notice ordered by the Board of Selectmen of a town, and served by the constable upon any newcomer who was likely to become dependent on town resources.  Communities thereby pressured or coerced undesirables to settle elsewhere or wander from colony to colony in search of aid.  The first “warning out” was recorded on June 6, 1654 in Plymouth Colony.  

As more and more settlements were established, skirmishes erupted.  As early as 1675 there was an Indian uprising known as King Philips War.  The effects of warfare quickly became the biggest cause of homelessness in colonial America.  It was a major consequence of the French and Indian Wars of 1756-63 and later, the American Revolution.  The classic, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, is a story about the conflict between the French and the English that takes place in colonial America.  It paints a visceral picture of this period in history.  It was not a safe time for homesteaders living in isolation in the wilderness.  When war forced them to flee their homes they usually lost everything.

Another contributing factor to homelessness at this time was the economy.  What early colonial prosperity there was resulted from trapping and trading in furs. In addition, fishing was a primary source of wealth in Massachusetts and from 1612 tobacco was grown in Virginia. But throughout the colonies, people lived primarily on small farms and were self-sufficient.  If crops failed or market prices on commodities fell, hard times followed.  The colonial economy suffered one such downturn in the 1720’s and 30’s which led to a rise in the homeless population. 

Immigration of poor people to the colonies also led to a rise in homelessness.  Immigrants often arrived penniless, having spent their savings on the trip to America.  Many also arrived sick and could not find work.  Some cities, like Philadelphia, responded by passing a law allowing local authorities to expel arriving indigent immigrants.  In 1719 the arrival of hundreds of improvised Scotch-Irish refugees led authorities In Boston to order one ship of immigrants to leave the community at once. 

While the “wandering poor” could be found throughout the colonies, it was in the cities where they were most conspicuous.  Some cities established workhouses where inmates could be whipped if they refused to work or they were put in jail and subjected to hard labor.  In the colony of New York it was customary to inflict various types of corporeal punishment on convicted vagrants, including stockades, pillory, ear-cropping, and branding.  The Puritan work ethic supported this punitive approach to vagrancy, a view which was strangely at odds with the Puritan belief that charitable giving was a religious duty with no distinction made between the deserving and undeserving poor. 

Boston passed an act requiring their homeless to be ‘bound out’ to families needing laborers or servants.  This was a form of indentured servitude dating back to the early years of the American colonies. Workers or servants were not paid wages, but received food and shelter and clothing instead. All of these approaches were based on the belief at the time that the “idle poor” were unlikely to work unless forced to do so.  Public policies like these kept the growth of homelessness, for the most part, within manageable proportions. 

Prior to 1700 homelessness was considered a minor problem in the colonies.  Compared with many parts of Europe where the number of beggars in rural areas reached massive proportions, itinerant beggars here were not yet a serious problem.  The growth of homelessness in urban areas was much more significant, but even in our most populous cities like Boston, Philadelphia and New York, they did not compare to London or Paris.  Homelessness in young America would not become a significant problem until well into the next century.  


Thursday, January 17, 2013

Homelessness and Addiction: A Double Jeopardy Explored


(Article published in Street Speech by the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless)

I grew up in New York City where my father was a fireman. My first exposure to the homeless was at around the age of twelve when my father took me with him to the Bowery Mission. He, along with other firemen and policemen, belonged to the Christian Alliance of Policemen and Firemen. They served meals and presented the gospel to the homeless alcoholics who came into the mission for sustenance, and perhaps a bit of human compassion.

The Bowery area of lower Manhattan reminded me of a wasteland buried in a corner of an otherwise vibrant, thriving city. As I think of it now, the images it evokes are of broad streets, empty of traffic on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Only when you looked for them, or when pointed out to you, did you notice the bodies slouched in doorways, most clutching bottles wrapped in brown paper bags. They were so still; as if props placed there for a movie set depicting the morning after some invisible plague had struck. This was the face of homelessness I saw back in the sixties and it had a strong impact on me.

Has this image changed over the past decades? I think we would all agree that it has. Today the face of homelessness has expanded to include men and women of all ages who have been released from psychiatric hospitals and have “fallen between the cracks” of our current community mental health system. It also includes young Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans- men and women, who are now joining the Vietnam-era veterans who are still homeless. Families have increasingly become homeless due to the current economic recession. Children who have run away from home for various reasons and sometimes women escaping from abusive situations also contribute to the new face of homelessness. In other words, there are as many reasons for homelessness as there are homeless people.

What hasn’t changed, however, is the fact that substance abuse continues to be the most significant problem connected to modern homelessness. Drug and alcohol abuse can cause people to fall into homelessness but the struggle to stay alive on the street often drives homeless people to drugs and alcohol. It’s a chicken and egg scenario.

A 2008 survey by the United States Conference of Mayors asked 25 cities for their top three causes of homelessness. Substance abuse was the single largest cause of homelessness for single adults (reported by 68% of cities). Substance abuse was also mentioned by 12% of cities as one of the top three causes of homelessness for families.

Emergency shelters, soup kitchens and job training help the homeless to regain their independence. But it is critical to develop resources with the focus of resolving not just homelessness, but addiction as well.

Public perception concerning homelessness and addiction is also a problem. Both are issues that do not elicit much public sympathy. For many people, providing support to homeless individuals who use drugs is counter-intuitive. This negative bias coupled with the economic disadvantages of people suffering through both homelessness and addiction can make it difficult or impossible to seek and obtain proper help. With resources already stretched thin in most communities, homeless people with addiction problems are generally not a priority.

Street Speech helps change that negative bias by providing public education about the complex issues of homelessness. It also puts a human face to an otherwise impersonal societal issue. Vendors connect with their customers and share a bit of themselves over time so that they both come away with an appreciation and respect for each other. I felt the same way about the exchanges at the soup kitchen in the Bowery with my father and the homeless he was there to serve.