Miami Herald - Thursday, December 20 1990
Robert A. Rankin, Herald Washington Bureau

McCann, 67, sports a dirty white beard, a tattered overcoat and a Navy blue watch cap. Scrubbed up he could pass for Santa, but McCann's gnarled fingers and the ravaged lines in his crusty face revealed what Santa would look like if he, too, had wandered Washington's streets for three years.

McCann's few belongings were crammed into a plastic garbage bag he kept behind his bench in Lafayette Square. He lunched on a cup of yogurt, then calmly talked about the United Nations plot that left him homeless, about how government agents will move him to Russia.

McCann is but one of many tens of thousands of homeless, and their numbers are rising rapidly, according to a 1990 survey of 30 major cities released Wednesday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The survey shows three clear trends: the number of hungry, homeless Americans seeking help is rising fast; the ability of America's cities to provide help is not keeping pace, and in many places is declining; and the public's attitude toward the homeless is shifting from compassion to intolerance and even hostility.

Specifically, the survey showed that in 1990, compared to 1989, on average in the 30 cities:

* Requests for emergency shelter increased 24 percent overall.

* Requests for shelter by homeless families increased 17 percent.

* Cities were unable to provide shelter to 19 percent because they lacked sufficient resources.

* Of the homeless, 28 percent were mentally ill, 38 percent abused drugs or alcohol; 6 percent had AIDS or HIV-related illness; 24 percent worked full or part-time; and 26 percent were veterans.

* Requests for emergency food aid rose 22 percent.

* Emergency food requests were rejected 14 percent of the time for lack of sufficient resources.

"We're talking about basic human needs and dignity," said Charlotte Mayor Sue Myrick. "Everyone should be entitled to have a roof over their heads and . . . food in their stomachs."

Boston Mayor Ray Flynn was not speaking about John McCann, but he might as well have been.

"You can't go a block here in Washington, D.C., where people don't come right up to you and say to you, 'Give me a dollar, give me some change,' " Flynn said. For many "it's not their fault. It's just that they are suffering from a very serious mental problem.

". . . And American people who are probably experiencing economic problems themselves, they are probably trying to figure out how they can pay their Christmas bills this season, you know, they probably say to themselves, why doesn't this guy go out and get a job like the rest of us do?

"And the point of the matter," Flynn stressed, "is this guy can't go out and get a job because he is physically incapable of holding that kind of a job. He needs medical care."

For about 20 years America's psychiatric hospitals have discharged mentally ill people back into the streets. America's cities don't have adequate facilities or enough money to provide them the necessary medical care, Flynn emphasized, as did reports from most cities surveyed.

CAPTION: PHOTO John McCann in Washington park (HOMELESS MAN)

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