Although the average income for women, especially black women, rose in the ’70s and ’80s to become more equal to that of men,[52] the number of single mothers living below poverty levels doubled.[53] The Republican wave, spearheaded by Newt Gingrich with his manifesto “Contract with America,” reasoned that welfare and child support just encouraged people to have more children. When benefits were slashed, it did not achieve the desired result of fewer single mothers, resulting only in poorer ones. Between 1980 and 1990, their spending power was cut in half.
There was small economic upheaval in the mid-’80s, but the number of homeless kept rising. According to Jencks, this is when the crack factor came into existence. The new drug appeared on the scene around this time, and had a devastating effect on the poor black communities as if it were a chemical weapon specially designed to eliminate the poor black underclass. More than half of the black population subscribes to this conspiracy theory. “The increasing popular view… is that they, as poor people are… superfluous and expendable, and that they are being killed off in a sort of triage operation,” writes Williams in Crackhouse.[54] In the ’90s in New York, it was easier and cheaper to get crack than to buy the relatively harmless marijuana.[55]
Before this, alcohol had been the traditional drug of choice for the down and out. For a few bucks, one could buy a six-pack of beer, a flask of whiskey, or a bottle of Night Train—the cheap, strong wine traditionally favored by vagrants. A small bag of weed cost only five dollars. Heroin and cocaine, with street prices of fifty to sixty dollars for a portion, were out of reach for the poor. In surveys among the shelter population in the early ’80s, no one even bothered to research the prevalence of these drugs. By the mid-’80s, however, the strongly addictive crack came onto the market in small capsules or vials of ten dollars. Later, the prices dropped even further to three dollars a portion.
Heavy smokers don’t know when to stop and can consume dozens of portions a day. Dealing crack became a common survival strategy in the poverty-stricken inner cities. Its use spread explosively within a few years.
Another plague that hit at around the same time was the AIDS epidemic. Just like crack, it hit hardest amongst the poor underclass. Blacks have an HIV rate three times higher than whites.[56]
In the mid-’80s, when infection rates soared, and ignorance and hysteria soared even higher, evictions of HIV-positive tenants were common. Landlords didn’t want infected people living in their properties. People got fired for having the virus. Those able to hang onto their homes and jobs were confronted with sky-high bills for medicines and care. Those who were hospitalized could at a certain point no longer afford it. The New York State Department of Health concluded in 1987 that 9 percent of the homeless population was HIV-positive.[57] The Coalition estimates that in 1994, 20 to 30 percent of the New York homeless population was infected.[58] Finally, there is the relationship between housing and homelessness. It is an extremely complicated discussion in which rent control, the real estate market, federal housing subsidies, and low income housing projects have to be taken into account. Some advocacy groups say that federal cutbacks on housing subsidies are the main reason for the increase of homelessness. On the other end of the spectrum, conservatives state that the housing subsidies proposed by progressives are to blame.[59]
The Coalition mentions in its 1994 annual report that in New York alone, one million cheap apartments, or so-called single room occupancy (SRO) units, disappeared during the ’70s and ’80s. The city had decided to subsidize landlords to fix up their dilapidated buildings. Beautiful but expensive apartments were the result.[60]
According to Jencks, any direct relationship is hard to establish. Rather, he focuses on what he calls the “destruction of Skid Row.” Skid Row, with its abundance of cheap rooms and hotels, was traditionally a safe heaven and refuge for the poorest of the poor who could not afford an apartment.
After World War II, the vagrant population dwindled and so did its favorite kind of lodging houses—the so-called cage and cubicle hotels which got the name because the rooms of 30 square feet aren’t much bigger than birdcages, and often have a ceiling of chicken wire. Most of these flophouses were torn down, because of gentrification, new building regulations, and the economic laws of supply and demand and were not replaced. Jencks states that between the 1970s and 1990s, some four hundred thousand cheap rooms disappeared this way.
The few remaining flophouses could thus raise their rents, so by 1994, a night at the Sunshine Hotel on the Bowery, one of the last remaining cage hotels, cost about eight bucks. A comparison of spending power and wages: in the ’60s, ten hours of work at minimum wage could pay for one month of rent. By 1994, it had risen to forty to sixty hours. In the ’60s, a bed for one night was a quarter of the price for a six-pack of beer. Now a room costs twice as much as a six-pack, “making oblivion cheaper than privacy,” writes Jencks.[61] The cage hotels were not an ideal place to live, but were still more humane than the shelters.[62] In interviews with homeless people, the prison scores higher on issues like personal safety, food quality, privacy, and cleanliness. It is only on the point of freedom that a shelter scores higher.[63]
The above chapter is a discussion of external factors. But human beings are not passive objects riding the waves of fate. In part, each of us is responsible for his or her own fate, even the homeless. How big a part we play is, of course, the question. It is the age-old metaphysical debate between voluntarism and determinism, which roughly translates in our modern days into the political debate between the right and the left.
16. THE TRULY CHOSEN
Bernard was right. Tony hasn’t changed a bit—still full of plans to conquer the world with his designs. Now, his ambitions have become even bigger. His designs will not only be on T-shirts, but on ties, socks, pajamas, and yes, even on wallpaper. One evening I am in his bunker, and Tony shows me his latest designs. Before, I had seen orchids and marijuana plants. These are inspired by tropical fish with big fluttering tails that Tony has colored with markers in all colors of the rainbow. “Actually, you’re looking at forty-thousand-dollar pieces,” he says. He closes his sketchbook with a bang and a significant expression. After the fire, Tony moved into a new bunker, adjacent to Bob’s. In fact, it is actually two bunkers joined together. The first one is the entrance that he uses as storage space. It is now full of bags, cans, and cases of bottles that still need to be sorted out.
Tony lost all of his possessions in the fire, but he has managed to fill up his sleeping room with new junk in no time. The walls are covered with clothes hangers carrying sweaters and coats, paintings of poetic rock landscapes with rippling streams, and the colorful calendars given away by Chinese restaurants.
The central point in Tony’s place is a small table in the corner. A mirror and two candles sparsely light his room; an extravagant and huge ashtray, filled to the rim with cigarette butts, takes up the rest of the table. With a small statue of the Madonna beside it, the ashtray looks like an altar dedicated to the Nicotine God.
54
Williams,
55
Bernard told me the closest crack dealer was one block and a half from the tunnel. To “score a dime bag of weed” he had to walk at least fifteen blocks. For an interesting exposé on the crack culture and economy, see Levitt and Dubner,
59
See the chapters “Budget Cuts and Rent Control” and “Do Shelters Cause Homelessness?” in Jencks,
62
In the summer of 1987, I stayed for a week as a low budget tourist in the Sunshine Hotel. The rooms were small, dirty and noisy, but at least one had privacy and an undisturbed night of sleep. See also Hopper
63
Rossi,