2038 Homeless--can we find a better word?

Dr. Helen addresses the topic of homelessness in this post. She comments on what I've often thought--not having a "home" really isn't the problem, is it? It's as though (in their bleeding hearts) if someone stepped up and paid the rent, it would all go away. I remember when the do-gooders put the mentally ill and retarded on the street in the 70s (with a temporary stop in group homes or half-way houses). I remember talking at church one day with a former pastor who was so excited that the blind, deaf and retarded people (i.e., they had all three disabilities) he worked with were finally going to have their "right" to live in society:

"No, it is not a "war" against the homeless. It is poor forethought and planning for the homeless when good Samaritans opened the mental institutions and turned the mentally ill out onto the streets--a large portion of the homeless are mentally ill-in some studies up to 50%. In addition, the gentrification of downtowns by urban yuppies and city planners caused a rush of condeming, closing or knocking down Single Room Occupancy Housing (SRO) which was devastating to the poor who lived in cheap housing. For example, in New York City in 1960, there were 640,000 people living in SRO's and rooming houses and by 1990, there were only 137,000. No wonder there are so many homeless there." Dr. Helen