HOMELESS ACTIVISTS MARCH HERE

About 2,000 people -- including homeless parents with their children, fasting activists, radio disc jockey Casey Kasem, Cher and Dr. Benjamin Spock -- marched yesterday from the squalid Capitol City Inn shelter in Northeast Washington to the manicured grounds of the U.S. Capitol, where they sang, clapped and sat down in the street in an act of civil disobedience that resulted in 377 arrests.

The protest was the finale of six weeks of almost daily protests at the Capitol and a 48-day water-only fast by eight homeless people and advocates, including Mitch Snyder and Carol Fennelly of the Community for Creative Non-Violence.

All except Fennelly, who is bedridden and intends to break her fast this morning, participated in the protest, demanding that Congress restore the 75 percent of the nation's housing budget that has been cut over the past seven years.

Snyder was among those arrested for sitting in the middle of Constitution Avenue NW between New Jersey and Delaware avenues after police ordered them to leave. Protesters chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, homelessness has got to go!" and sang songs as they waited to be arrested.

The arrested protesters were charged with disorderly conduct and the majority were freed after paying a $25 fine, police said. About 10 protesters also were charged with demonstrating without a permit.

Cher was not arrested. She marched part of the way to the Capitol, then dashed off to Hecht's in downtown Washington to promote her new perfume, "Uninhibited." After greeting shoppers, she returned briefly to marchers gathered at Senate Park, telling the cheering crowd, "I'm here to tell you that we are all the same person. We all deserve the same respect." She left again before the sit-in began.

Kasem, the Top 40 deejay and network TV announcer, led the rally at the park and was arrested, along with Spock, 85, and his wife, Mary Morgan. The couple had flown in from the Virgin Islands to be part of the civil disobedience.

Spock, a pediatrician and longtime peace activist who revolutionized child-rearing in the 1940s by advocating more warmth and understanding between parent and child, said he was marching for the sake of the children, for whom he said being homeless is "almost as bad as to not have a parent." Having a home, he said, is "one of the natural rights of people, especially for children."

"This Reagan administration, of course, has been cruel," Spock said before the march. "During the last eight years, the health of children has actually gone down for the first time in the 20th century."

Along with Snyder, whose 48-day fast ends today, several other CCNV fasters were arrested. Steve Sonnone, a homeless and disabled man from Hartford whose condition was said to be grave, was pushed along the march route in a wheelchair with brightly colored balloons tied to the handles. In his lap, he held a plastic bowl in which he retched regularly along the way.

"I'll be under medical care as soon as possible," Sonnone said. "Turn myself over to the pros."

The march got off to a raucuous, somewhat unexpected start. Hundreds of marchers gathered outside the Capitol City Inn on New York Avenue NE. The crowd grew impatient; the chanting had begun.

Snyder had intended for the wheelchair-bound fasters to lead the march. But when the crowd saw Cher approach, they mobbed her and began chasing the movie star. She sought refuge in a police car. The surging crowd, however, just kept moving, providing an impromptu start to the march.

Later, when Cher marched alongside Snyder, the marchers settled down.

"Hey hey, government, the poor pay too much rent," they chanted. "Homeless, not helpless."

"This is great, this is great," said Marilyn, a 26-year-old homeless woman who would not give her full name.

She has lived at the Capitol City Inn for nine months while her three small children live with relatives. "Our rent was too much," she said. "We got evicted. We couldn't afford it."

She marched alongside Delores Reddick, 26, a year-long resident of the shelter. They were among scores from the shelter, where the District houses about 700 homeless children. Reddick, six months pregnant, lives with her four children, ages 9, 6, 5 and 3, in one room.

She said she feels "bad, terrible," about being homeless.

"There's nothing I can do. I can't afford it. I don't work," she said. "We hope and pray we get out of there soon."

Overhead, children at the Holy Name School waved from a second-floor window.

The marchers came from all over the country. Froilan Rosales, 47, father of eight, is a farm worker in Fresno, Calif. He said he drove his family across the continent to participate in the march.

Four of his children skipped along beside him on West Virginia Avenue. Rina, 8, picked flowers along the sidewalk. Fernando, 12, wore a sign that said "Homelessness is a violation of Human Rights." Asked where in Fresno his family lived, the boy said, "We don't have a house." His father said they live in a truck.

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