Reflections: Conversations, Essays, and Other Writings

Robert Hayes and the National Coalition for the Homeless

In 1989, the plight of America’s homeless was just beginning to receive national attention. Robert Hayes and the National Coalition for the Homeless “In Nazi Germany, they would have known what to do with him.” The speaker was a well-dressed woman looking down at a homeless man asleep on the sidewalk.The implication inherent in her remark, of course, was that this man was somehow undeserving of life. He was unproductive, morally bankrupt, and society would be better off if he were eliminated so no one would be forced to see or smell him again. By contrast, there are thousands of Americans who quietly tend to our nation’s homeless.Teachers help young homeless children learn how to speak.A nun in Brooklyn ignores her own battle against cancer to run one of the most nurturing family shelters in the world. Rampant homelessness has elicited painfully little in the way of a response from our national political leadership.But it has inspired countless men and women, who start out as volunteers and become staunch advocates for practical solutions. Robert Hayes is one of those advocates. Born in Brooklyn and raised on suburban Long Island, he began work in 1977 as an attorney at the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he specialized in antitrust and securities law. “Back then,”Hayes recalls,“I shared the common belief that homeless people were living on the streets by choice.Then, gradually, I began to talk with them and learned they were there because there were no viable alternatives.The city shelters had too few beds and were ill-run,incredibly filthy, and dangerous. I also learned that these men and women on the streets were human beings, and that was surprising to one as obtuse as me.” In 1979, Hayes brought a class action against the city of NewYork, obtaining a consent decree requiring it to provide clean safe shelter to REFLECTIONS 159 every man who sought it. Subsequent litigation expanded that right to homeless women. Then, in 1982, Hayes left Sullivan & Cromwell to found the National Coalition for the Homeless—an advocacy and directservice organization dedicated to the principle that decent shelter and sufficient food are fundamental rights in a civilized society. Financed by corporate contributions and modest state-government funds,the coalition now has an annual budget of two million dollars,a full-time staff of twentyeight , and active members in fifty cities across the country. MarkTwain once observed,“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”To many, that axiom could just as easily apply to America’s homeless crisis. But now, finally someone is doing something about it. Hayes is forging a national movement and seeking national solutions. Q:The common stereotype of a homeless person is of a panhandler or a mentally ill person screaming obscenities at innocent bystanders.How can you get people to overcome their revulsion to such an image? HAYES: That’s one stereotype; but like most stereotypes, it’s far from accurate.In most big cities,whether your experience with homeless people is personal and direct or through television news, homelessness is equated with people who are adult and seriously mentally ill. People who act out, sometimes aggressively, sometimes quietly. People who wear coats eight sizes too big all year round, argue with invisible adversaries, and carry what appears to be garbage around in shopping bags. But you have to remember, if you’re homeless trying to exist on city streets, there is an enormous premium on disguising your homelessness. If you don’t look homeless, you can sit in a coffee shop for the price of a cup of coffee through a cold day.You can go into a store and use a bathroom to wash yourself up.You won’t be harassed by the police.You won’t be viewed with fear and suspicion by passersby.So,in fact,if you went up to our dinner program in NewYork at Grand CentralTerminal where we feed 350 people every night, you would probably see about 10 percent of those people as recognizably homeless. Most homeless people you pass by, you can’t tell they’re homeless, because they’re going to do everything possible to hide that for reasons of survival.Obviously,if you have some news story 160 THOMAS HAUSER and you send a television crew out to get eight seconds of footage...