No one looked my way. Then quietly and without turningnhis head, the most bearded and the most tattooed of the mennsaid, “Free.” End conversation.nMost Willies are white. But in Nashville, at least, therenare also many blacks. Again, no surprise. You would expectngroups to be represented on the street in proportion to theirnshare of poverty and economic marginality. So you findnmany whites, many blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans.nA real polyglot, the street is also the true melting pot.nBut then it struck me: there were no Asian Willies. I sawnAsians everywhere I looked — in stores and shopping centersnand parking lots and grocery stores. I saw them workingnas clerks and packers. But I saw no Asians on the streets or innthe shelters or in the food lines. They, among all minorityngroups, have few advantages to offer the strange Americannsystem. There is a relatively large number of them around.nYet, I found none on the street. Why? I suspect the answernto this question would go far in serving as the basis of a sanenpolicy for our communities.nWhy, for example, aren’t there street people innMurfreesboro? . . . The answer is simple: there are nonservices for the homeless in Murfreesboro. As soon asnservices are established, there will be street people.n18 / CHRONICLESnExcept for a handful of articles in journals almost no onenreads, I have never seen any objective studies of hunger andnhomelessness. Social scientists who stress methodologicalnrigor react completely emotionally to the issues. Yet, notnonly did much of the pioneering work in sociology andnsocial work develop in direct response to the needs of thendestitute, but the empirical study of poverty has been anmajor subject in these disciplines. Mountains of researchnhave accumulated, and methodologies have been sharpened.nStill, none of these objective technologies are appliednto current studies.nIt seems reasonable that sociology and social work wouldninclude detailed contemporary studies of street people. Butnthey don’t. The sad news is that our students are acquiringnall their information from TV and the daily paper. We thennsend them out to administer programs aimed at helping angroup of people they completely misunderstand, and tonrecommend therapy based on a false diagnosis. If medicinenwere practiced that way, most of the patients would die.nIf the street people are to be aided, we need accurateninformation collected and shared—something more than anTV special called The Streets of Despair or a study by thenState HHS Department indicating that “35-40 percent ofnthose persons seeking shelter have suffered recent economicnsetbacks.” Regardless of some anecdotal remarks to thencontrary, the street folks come from the lower class, andnalways have. It now appears from the small number of validnstudies done about 1980 that two factors, often in combination,npropelled onto the streets those who would havenremained in a “stable” status otherwise. These powerful andndevastating social forces are family dissolution and alcoholnabuse. So long as the low education/few skills part of thencommunity could share resources with a caring family, theynnncould generally make it. But with divorce, remarriage,ndesertion, moving-in — the currents of family dissolution forna decade now — they end up with no one to turn to fornsupport, in good times or bad. For example, I went with annewfound street buddy to Traveler’s Aid for him to get a busnticket to Georgia. The agency was very willing but justnwanted the telephone number of someone at the destination,nto verify that my friend had a place to come home to.nHe could not give them one, even though he told me laternthat three of his grown children by his first wife, his mothern(who was deserted by his father), two brothers, and a sisternall lived there. If current trends continue, this destabilizationnof the family will sweep onto the streets an even greaternnumber of the disadvantaged in every community in thenland.nIn the mid-70’s the number of patients in public mentalnhospitals in the state of Tennessee was about 7,400. At lastncount it was 1,300. Now, 6,000 persons did not get well.nNor did the 5,000 new cases of severe mental illnessnreported since the mid-70’s. In the first instance they werentransferred to the street, then to jails, prisons, and nursingnhomes. Many made the ultimate trip — from the institutionnto the streets, then to the cemetery. They were reallyndeinstitutionalized. Members of the second category arenroaming the streets of our communities, sometimes armednwith knives and guns.nA recent inquiry revealed that 63 percent of the nation’snchronic mentally ill are at large in the community. Still,nfunding for the states’ mental health resources hasn’tndiminished. Unfortunately, the money hasn’t followed thenpatients. The inequity of care is reflected in the upwardnspiral in the staff-to-patient ratio which now exceeds 1.5 to 1nin public and private mental health hospitals nationwide.nThat means that there are 150 staff members for every 100npatients. I do not know what the ratio is in Tennessee; itnwould be a telling statistic.nOne of the saddest sights I frequently see on the streets isnan obviously mentally ill person struggling among thenhorde, confused and alone. Some know not what they neednnor where to get it nor how to use it even if it is forthcoming.nTrying to stay warm, huddling in the most likely places, theynhave been tagged the “Grate Society.” Even so, I havenheard social workers take pride in being part of thenmovement which emptied the mental hospitals.nThe Nashville Union Rescue Mission has become thenlargest mental institution in the state. There are morenseverely mentally ill roaming its halls and sleeping in thencorners of its rooms and on its floors than in any other singlenplace in the state. The old-line bums and winos no longerngather there — it’s too crazy and dangerous.nAccording to the best evidence I am able to collect, therenare Streetniks only in the central cities of the four largestnmetropolitan areas. Why, for example, aren’t there streetnpeople in Murfreesboro? Murfreesboro is one tenth the sizenof Nashville. It should have one tenth the number ofnhomeless —if Nashville has 2,000, that would be 200. IfnNashville has 900, that would be 90. Yet Murfreesboro hasnnone. Neither do any of the other medium-size and smallntowns in Tennessee. The answer is simple: there are nonservices for the homeless in Murfreesboro. As soon asnservices are established, there will be street people. It’s calledn