URBAN INSTITUTE STUDY PUTS NUMBER OF U.S. HOMELESS AT CLOSE TO 600, 000

A new study by the Urban Institute concludes that the number of homeless people in the United States is between 567,000 and 600,000.

That is far lower than estimates by some advocacy groups but substantially higher than the 250,000 to 350,000 estimated in a controversial 1984 report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The number of homeless in the United States has been bitterly disputed. HUD was sharply criticized by advocacy groups as deliberately attempting to understate the problem of homelessness with its 250,000 to 350,000 estimate. Harvard Prof. Richard Freeman, who in 1986 estimated 350,000 homeless based on his own study, also was criticized.

Maria Foscarinis, Washington counsel for the National Coalition for the Homeless, said yesterday, "No one can present an accurate count; all we can do is estimate." She said the Urban Institute figure "is probably a low estimate. Our estimate is 3 million."

Mitch Snyder, head of the Community for Creative Non-Violence here, said that "just about everybody in America who is involved thinks the figure is 2 million to 3 million."

Martha Burt, coauthor of the new study with Barbara Cohen, said they conducted an extensive survey of more than 400 soup kitchens and homeless shelters in the nation's largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles and others with major homeless problems, to determine how many people used them.

The results, adjusted for less frequent use in suburbs and non-metropolitan areas, such as Fairfax County, were then projected nationally.

The Urban Institute study, funded by the Agriculture Department's Food and Nutrition Service, included more than 1,700 interviews with homeless users of soup kitchens or shelters and found that 81 percent of the homeless were male, 54 percent nonwhite and 51 percent between 31 and 50 years old.

A fifth of those interviewed had been homeless for more than four years, but the median period of homelessness was 10 months. About a fifth received some form of government income support, and a quarter had worked for pay during the last month. About 75 percent of the homeless were single or unattached adults, 15 percent were children and 8 percent adults related to the children.

Confirming the findings of other surveys that the homeless have severe mental and physical health problems, the survey found that 20 percent had been in mental hospitals, a similar proportion had tried to commit suicide and about half were rated as being in severe emotional distress based on a standard scale measuring depression and demoralization.

About a quarter had been convicted of serious crimes and a third had been patients in a detoxification or alcohol/drug treatment center.

More than half had physical health problems such as high blood pressure, difficulty in walking and joint problems.

The survey found that most of the homeless eat 1.9 meals a day and that more than a third reported that they regularly went without food for at least one day a week.

Another 142 homeless people who do not use soup kitchens or shelters and were encountered in parks, alleys, culverts and train stations also were interviewed and were found to be "hungrier, sicker, more likely to have histories of institutionalization and mental illness and receive less benefits and work less" than the service-user population, Burt said.

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