HOUSE CLEARS MEASURE TO AID HOMELESS

$50 MILLION TRANSFER APPROVED FROM DISASTER RELIEF APPROPRIATION

The House approved and sent to the Senate yesterday an emergency transfer of $50 million in disaster relief funds to a federal program that provides food and shelter to the homeless.

House Republicans, charging that the Democratic leadership was ramming through a supplemental appropriation without holding hearings, demanded a roll call vote in which opponents of the measure were overwhelmed, 296 to 79.

The bill's supporters said the number of homeless in the country, including growing numbers of families, was "a national shame."

"There is nothing political or partisan here," Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in response to the GOP charges. "This bill is desperately needed to reduce the terrible suffering on the streets of America. We can't afford to wait and if we do wait, Americans are going to die."

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.) said he expected the Senate to approve the emergency transfer resolution "immediately."

The measure would transfer $50 million from the disaster relief program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the same agency's emergency food and shelter program. This would be in addition to the $70 million provided to aid the homeless in the current fiscal year.

Distribution of the aid is handled by local governments and private, nonprofit organizations.

The $50 million had been appropriated earlier and the transfer to the homeless program was not technically a new appropriation. However, supporters of the measure conceded that the $50 million taken from the disaster relief program will probably have to be replaced in a supplemental appropriation later this year.

Republicans led by Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.) said the transfer would deplete disaster relief funds and questioned whether the $50 million could be spent effectively this winter.

"We are out here playing politics with the plight of the homeless," Walker said.

Lott said the lack of hearings on the measure left too many questions unanswered.

"Who are these people?" he said of the homeless. "Do they really want to be brought in off the streets?"

House leaders decided to move the $50 million measure early in the legislative session in part because of the prodding of Mitch Snyder, Washington activist for the homeless, whose supporters maintained a vigil at a monument to the homeless they placed near the east entrance to the Capitol.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.