A new face is emerging in today's changing American society. It is the sad, tragic face of the hungry and homeless, and it no longer belongs to just the bearded, grimy indigent on Skid Row. Today's needy include single mothers with children, abused wives with nowhere to turn, mentally ill turned out on the streets, displaced factory workers caught in the transition of an evolving industrial world, third-generation farmers who cannot afford the economics of high-tech agriculture, and whole families whose income does not meet their basic needs each month. These are the faces of the "New Poor."
On May 25, 1986, an estimated 5,602,960 people - grasping hands over a 4,124-mile route, with an additional 1.5 million in off-route states - participated in Hands Across America (HAA). The project was designed to raise awareness, funds, and activism to new levels on behalf of the hungry and homeless in the United Stats. The millions of participants - representing all races, religions, and political persuasions - publicly demonstrated a unified concern about these issues in their own country. They expressed their spirit by linking hands, and expressed their generosity by making donations.
It was an exhibition of historic proportions, yet it was only a beginning.
Certain quarters question the need for a Hands Across America project at all, although the event garnered nearly across-the-board support from Democrats, Republicans, independents, activists, non-activists, small and large businesses, and many others in between. President Reagan, often criticized for his administration's policies on the issues of hunger and homelessness, came out of the White House with Mrs. Reagan to show his support and link hands with the millions.
Even taken as a symbolic gesture, the high degree of participation in the United States proved not only to the American citizenry but to the rest of the world that the issues of hunger and homelessness are worthy of attention.
Various studies estimate that there are between 10 million and 20 million Americans who go hungry sometime each month. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, one out of every five children lives in poverty while 24 percent of children under the age of six are members of poor families.
The U.S. Census Bureau says that half of all black children in America are living in poverty, with 33.8 percent of the entire black population of this country living below the poverty line.
A report issued in April 1985 by the General Accounting Office highlights a variety of factors that contribute to a rise in homelessness: cuts in public assistance programs, decreasing availability of low-income housing, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and alcohol and drug abuse.
Rising need
The first reports about an increase in demand for food and shelter assistance came from the religious and medical communities. These are people who have direct contact with the poor and were surprised at the sudden upsurge of need. Without political motivation, thousands of frontline providers from across the nation
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