Stories by Ellen L. Bassuk

For the first time since the Great Depression, large numbers of families are homeless. Recent welfare revisions will put even more women and children on the streets

Single women with young children constitute the most rapidly growing segment of homeless persons. Emergency shelter can only partly ease the physical and psychological devastation experienced by these families

Many of the homeless people wandering the streets of American cities and crowding into emergency shelters are mentally ill. They require adequate housing and appropriate psychiatric care

The resident population of large mental hospitals has been reduced by two-thirds in 20 years, but chronic patients are being discharged to a lonely existence in hostile communities without adequate care