The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news today were two presidential actions. President Reagan signed the farm bill into law, and he said the U.S. would continue to observe the SALT II arms treaty. Also today, new reports showed consumer spending and personal income up, and seven whites died in a South African bomb explosion. We'll have the details in our news summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: On the NewsHour tonight, we take a look at that historic farm bill and just how much it will help the nation's hard-pressed farmers. And we begin the first of a two-part series on the homeless with two documentary reports on what life is like on the streets. New York City Mayor Ed Koch defends his controversial program for the homeless, and a key federal official and a member of Congress debate what the federal government should be doing for the nation's homeless. News Summary

LEHRER: The farm bill became the farm law today. President Reagan signed it into existence at a White House ceremony this morning. The legislation continues subsidies and other farm programs that are expected to cost about $169 billion over the next five years. Mr. Reagan said he had some problems with parts of it, but it was headed in the right direction.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: This legislation will help put America's farmers back into a competitive position in world markets. America's farmers are the most productive in the world. This bill will help unleash their enormous productive capacity and will help America reclaim lost markets. Under this bill farmers will be eased into a market-oriented policy with generous income supports to ensure the viability of the transition. I believe more progress could have been made in keeping down costs, but I recognize that many members of Congress made a good-faith effort in this regard. With the signing of this legislation we're moving away from the failed policies of the past. On the negative side, it maintains costly and counterproductive government intervention in the dairy industry, encourages surplus production and mandates export subsidies which could well backfire on us. It will hurt sugar-producing nations that are our friends and allies, and, ironically, it could actually provide taxpayer subsidies to our adversaries.

LEHRER: The legislation passed both houses of Congress by large margins, but there was outspoken criticism all the way, particularly from farm state Democrats who complained it really did not do that much for farmers. Mr. Reagan also signed a separate bill today that would help rescue the financially strapped Farm Credit System. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: The Reagan administration also announced today that the United States would continue to abide by the terms of the unratified SALT II nuclear arms agreement after it expires December 31st. But in a written report to Congress the administration also accused the Soviet Union of scoring military gains by violating treaties governing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The President said that such violations were ongoing and were of increasing importance and serious concern. In Moscow, Soviet officials called the allegations a fresh propaganda fraud and accused the United States of secretly working on ways to penetrate antiballistic missile shields.

LEHRER: Americans' income was up last month, and so was their spending. The November increase in income was 0.6 on average, according to the government today. That was the largest increase in seven months. But consumer spending was up even higher, the increase in it being 0.9 . Government economists believe the two figures, taken together, may mean a healthy Christmas shopping result, which would be a sign of further economic recovery and confidence.

HUNTER-GAULT: In South Africa today, seven people were killed when a bomb ripped through a crowded resort area shopping center near Durban. Forty-four others were injured in the blast, the second in the area in three days. For more on the story, here's Michael Buerk of the BBC.

MICHAEL BUERK, (BBC) [voice-over]: The bomb went off in a shopping center crowded with tourists at the busiest time of the morning. It had been planted next to an ice cream stall that was a focal point for children. Flying glass cut down dozens of people. Three people were killed on the spot; two of them were children. More than 40 were reported to have been injured; four more died between here and hospital or after they were admitted. This was the latest in a series of bombs in this area and by far the worst. It struck at families, fathers and mothers left behind when their children were injured and killed. It was some time before they were helped. The people here and the police immediately blamed the outlawed African National Congress.

HUNTER-GAULT: Congress, which has been responsible for other bomb blasts, said it would not comment. Meanwhile, South African activist Winnie Mandela flew to Cape Town today after being released on bail by a Johannesburg court. Mrs. Mandela was arrested after defying a government order to stay out of her Soweto home. She is scheduled to return to court on January 22nd. In Washington the Reagan administration deplored the arrest and lodged a formal protest with the South African government.

LEHRER: The Pacific Northwest is having some terrific problems with fog. Holiday travelers in and out of Seattle-Tacoma, Washington, airport were among those most affected. The airport normally handles about 600 flights a day, and thousands of holiday travelers were stranded by the dense fog. Most commercial planes can take off in the fog, but only the latest model Boeing 757s and 767s can land. This morning visibility was down to 1,000 feet and there was no hope of normal operations until the fog lifted.

And finally in the news of this day a jury in Los Angeles decided it was not the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company's fault a cigarette smoker died of lung cancer. The family of John Mark Galbraith had sued for damages on grounds that tobacco company was liable for his death. Galbraith had smoked 60 cigarettes a day for 50 years, according to trial testimony.

HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead on the NewsHour we review what President Reagan's historic farm bill is going to mean for the nation's hard-pressed farmers, and we begin the first of the two-part series on the homeless as New York City Mayor Ed Koch defends his controversial plan and a federal official and a congressman debate national policy toward the homeless. Farm Bill

LEHRER: It was a long and arduous journey for the farm bill, the one President Reagan signed into law today. The journey and the end result are what we explore first tonight with Judy Woodward. Judy?

WOODRUFF: After almost a year of struggling to get the bill through Congress, farmers will now begin to find out how much good it will do them. At a price tag of some $169 billion over the next five years, the bill includes everything from farmer assistance to food stamps. It reduces government support to farmers for major crops like wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and cotton, the first time price supports have been cut since the 1930s. It encourages dairy farmers to go out of business, providing federal monies to purchase their herds. The bill also offers a new soil conservation program, paying farmers to idle almost 45 million acres of land that's starting to erode. Critics say the bill will cost taxpayers more than anyone is admitting now, and that it's not at all certain it'll help the farmers who are most in need. Despite that, President Reagan defended the legislation today at a teleconference in Washington with farm reporters from across the country.

Pres. REAGAN: I believe that the 1985 farm bill will bring about a long-awaited rebirth and renewed opportunities for American agriculture. It is clear that Congress has heeded the message that our farm policies need fundamental reforms. This bill begins that reform.

ORION SAMUELSON, WGN-Chicago: My question deals with costs, Mr. President, because your administration has been concerned about cutting the budget and budget deficits. How do you reconcile that concern with spending $52 billion, $2 billion over your limit, on government farm price support programs?

Pres. REAGAN: Well, because this is what is necessary if we're to do the job, and I would have to tell you that we have in this administration, these last few years, while we have been trying to reduce government spending elsewhere, we have spent more with regard to the farm problems than has ever been spent by any American government heretofore. This particular bill, the $52 billion, is over a three-year period, and it's true, we had set the figure at, as we said, $50 billion. But we believe that we can live with an increase of this particular amount. But also it is necessary, if we are to solve the farm problem in the right way and that is, as I said in my remarks, to get farming more market-oriented and less of the heavy hand of government. But since it's government that's been responsible for many of the farmers' problems, it's also only fair that government now not just abandon but make an effort to help the farmers through this transition.

BILL KILBY, Jacksonville Journal Courier: Mr. President, will this farm legislation benefit the small family farmer, or will it simply further subsidize the large-scale farming operations?

Pres. REAGAN: We believe it will help the family farmer. I could turn to Jack to see if he's nodding yes here on that. It will, and it is aimed at doing precisely that.

WOODRUFF: After President Reagan left the teleconference, Agriculture Secretary John Block explained why the administration is not entirely happy with the new bill. Among other things, it places new restrictions on sugar imports, and allows dairy prices to remain artificially high.

JOHN BLOCK, Secretary of Agriculture: In the case of dairy, certainly, there are some portions of that bill that we didn't like. We are not happy with the assessment. We didn't think it was the appropriate approach, and farmers don't like the assessment. And there are some provisions in sugar, we really think that that should be addressed differently than it is, that supports for sugar have created tremendous distortions in sugar markets and sugar industry, and of course some of those export-subsidy mandated programs, I think, frankly, think are inappropriate. I think they're just plain wrong because they get us into the business of subsidizing exports places where we shouldn't be subsidizing exports, and they get us into the business of competing against countries that don't subsidize. But I've been through this before. But, nevertheless, take these sections that we're not altogether happy about. This farm bill is a good farm bill. This farm bill has a lot of positive aspects to it.

WOODRUFF: With us tonight to talk about the farm bill is the first reporter you heard asking the President a question. He is Orion Samuelson and he covers farm issues for radio and television for station WGN in Chicago.

Mr. Samuelson, how much money is this going to cost? We're saying $169 billion over three years; the President's saying $52 billion over three years. Which is it?

ORION SAMUELSON: Well, it's both, I think, because the farm bill encompasses so much more than just government farm support programs for farmers. Over the years we've seen that government bill for the U.S. Department of Agriculture encompass a lot of our needed food programs -- the food stamp program; along with that the special lunches for children. The Forest Service is included in that bill, inspection services that benefit all of the consumers. So there is a lot more than just the government price support program in the bill. But the best figure that we've been able to come up with is that when you sort it out, $52 billion is the price tag for three years on programs that are designed to directly benefit farmers and the remainder of the amount that you talked about is there to benefit all consumers, and particularly those who need help with food.

WOODRUFF: What is your view? What do taxpayers get out of this bill? Are we going to get lower food prices, or what?

Mr. SAMUELSON: No, I don't think that we'll see lower food prices. As a matter of fact, I think taxpayers who are not in the 3 of the people who produce food in this country probably have two alternatives. They can continue to subsidize their food at low prices -- and a lot of people may not agree with that, but I think when you compare the percentage of income that Americans spend for food in many of the other countries that I visited over the last year or two, we spend far less percentagewise. And so we can go one of two ways. We can continue to spend money as taxpayers to support a government farm program and keep what I call the cheap food policy in effect, or we can go the other way and do away with farm programs and then probably end up paying a lot more at the supermarket for the food that ultimately gets to our dinner table.

WOODRUFF: How much more do you think prices would go up if we were to do away with all these programs, or is that just totally speculative? Probably is.

Mr. SAMUELSON: Totally speculative. I just wouldn't have any idea. But I think there certainly would be an increase.

WOODRUFF: Which farmers are going to be helped by this legislation?

Mr. SAMUELSON: Well, I'm not sure which ones will be helped. I think those farmers who are in financial trouble and they're expecting this farm bill to bail them out are living with false hope. I don't think that this farm bill is going to bail out anybody who is already deeply in financial trouble because of the combination of falling land values and high interest rates and falling prices because of a world market that just isn't there the way it was back in the '70s. We did some, what I think, foolish things in government by embargoing sales that gave Brazil an opportunity to get into the soybean business, and Argentina an opportunity to get into the feed grain business, taking away much of our market activity, and that is still hurting us and still hurting us today. So those farmers who are paying the penalty on that, and because of, perhaps, in some cases, management decisions or other factors outside their control such as weather, just, I don't think, are going to be helped by this bill. I don't often make predictions on what Congress will do, but a year ago when they started the debate I said we'll have a year of debate, some of it acrimonious, a lot of rhetoric, and when it's all done and signed by the President, I don't think farmers will notice much difference from the standpoint of government farm programs. There will not be a magic wand, and Secretary Block has said many times that there just is no magic wand to change this farm situation.

WOODRUFF: Well, would you agree with the President's characterization, and I guess Secretary Block's as well, that this moves us a step closer to market policy for the agricultural industry in this country and away from subsidies, or not?

Mr. SAMUELSON: I think it is a step in that direction. Whether or not it will be allowed to continue is the question. I thought it was interesting that the President said that his administration has spent more money for agriculture than any previous administration, and that's true. As a matter of fact, in 1983, with the PIK program and the other support programs in place, we pumped a lot of government dollars into the rural economy, and yet look where we are today. And that's what bothers me the program, because I think we are still producing for a government market. And the government market is a false market. Government doesn't drink milk, doesn't eat bread, doesn't eat pork, and ultimately what goes into the hands of government must come out onto the marketplace, keeps farmers' prices depressed, gives that additional load on taxpayers. I only wish I had the answer. That's the frustration here. We know the problem, but to come up and find that all-magic answer is the frustration.

WOODRUFF: I read an editorial today that called this virtually a bailout for wealthy farmers, that what all this argument all year long in the Congress was was an argument among one group of farmers versus another group of wealthy farmers over who was going to get the most subsidy.

Mr. SAMUELSON: There might be some argument over whether there are any wealthy farmers at all today. But whether or not it's going to help the big farmer, the thing about government farm programs, when you need to cut back on production, then you need to get to the big farmer involved, because he's producing a good part of that total supply in this country. And if you design a government program to take acres out of production and you design it only for the small farmer, whatever limit you set on that, then the big farmer is left out because people say, well, he ought not get all this government money to cut back, and yet many big farmers I know have debt problems that percentagewise, or comparatively speaking, are as large, if not larger, than a smaller farmer. One thing I'm convinced of, the family farm will survive. It won't be in the form of that 200-acre dairy farm that I grew up on in Wisconsin, and it probably will be a corporate farm, because families are incorporating for inheritance and tax purposes, but I still think the family farm -- it'll be larger and different, but I still think it'll be our basic unit of production.

WOODRUFF: Just quickly, your prediction: are we going to see the farmers coming back in another year or so asking for more, or not?

Mr. SAMUELSON: Well, I think certain segments of them will come back asking for more. Probably the dairy industry will not be very happy with what this bill is going to do to them. But on the other hand, I think with some of the budget deficit legislation we may see Congress going back into the bill in '86 saying, we're going to have to take more away from you.

WOODRUFF: Orion Samuelson, thank you for being with us.

Mr. SAMUELSON: Thank you. Helping the Homeless?

HUNTER-GAULT: As most of you know, this is the time of year when the streets are more crowded than ever, mostly with Christmas shoppers. But at the end of the day most of the shoppers go home, leaving the streets to those who have no homes to go to. No one knows for sure just how many homeless people there are, but two million is an estimate often cited in stories about them. What is known is that the numbers are growing, and so are the problems associated with what to do about the real live people who make up those numbers. Tonight we begin a two-part series on some of those problems, beginning with a look at what's happening in New York City, which has one of the largest homeless populations and one of the most controversial new plans for dealing with them. Correspondent June Massell reports.

JUNE MASSELL [voice-over]: Every night in New York City thousands of homeless people go to city shelters. This shelter is in an old part of Bellevue Hospital. Administrators say they have 300 so-called residents here. People share rooms and three meals a day are provided by the city.

[voice-over] While estimates of the homeless vary, some say there are as many as 60,000 homeless people in New York City. While many go to city shelters, many stay on the streets all night long. Thousands sleep outdoors in front of buildings or in quiet cubbyholes. In November, New York's Mayor Ed Koch announced a new policy regarding the homeless. When the temperature drops to 32 degrees or below, city officials declare a cold-weather emergency. Police go into the streets and ask the homeless to go to shelters. If they refuse, they can be taken involuntarily to city mental hospitals for a psychiatric evaluation.

HOMELESS WOMAN: Take your hands off me!

MASSELL [voice-over]: A few weeks ago Nella King, who had been living in a doorway at the Chase Manhattan Bank, was placed on a stretcher and taken against her will to a mental hospital, where she spent the next three days. It was part of the mayor's new policy.

EDWARD KOCH, Mayor of New York City [Nov. 13, 1985]: We believe that anyone who chooses to be out on the streets in freezing weather when offered the opportunity to have a shelter, we believe that that person is not competent to make such a decision.

MASSELL [voice-over]: The Koch policy has received a lot of criticism, from both the Coalition for the Homeless, and the New York Civil Liberties Union.

NORMAN SIEGEL, New York Civil Liberties Union: We think that it's a diversion from the real issue. The real issue is low-income housing. Until the city comes up with effective policies that will create affordable low-income housing, the homeless population is going to get larger and larger. In addition, our objection is on the presumption. The presumption states that everyone who refuses to go to the shelter is mentally ill. You can't make that presumption.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Jerrold is one of those who refuses to go to a shelter.

JERROLD: Because of the fact that it's overcrowded, they treat you like you're in jail, you know. You have to be searched, then they line you up, you know. You really don't have any rights.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Jerrold hangs out at Grand Central Station until it closes, and then he goes to a secret cubbyhole he considers his own space. Twenty-six-year-old Andrew Bayard has been homeless for nine years, ever since he was 17 years old. He too prefers the streets to shelters.

ANDREW BAYARD: I was forced to either go into the streets or to go into shelters, and nobody goes into shelters because it's hell in shelters. It's crazy. I mean, most people go home to their living rooms and they get away from the world. When you go to a shelter, you're not getting away from the world; you're walking into a jungle, into a cage.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Bayard carries a sleeping bag for when it's really cold.

Mr. BAYARD: I get inside my boxes and I go to sleep. And, well, once you're inside a sleeping bag you stay warm anyway, you know? Your body heat keeps you warm.

MASSELL [voice-over]: The Civil Liberties Union has organized a freeze patrol to advise the homeless of their rights.

NYCLU ADVISER: You have a right to a bed in a New York City shelter.

MASSELL [voice-over]: They hand out leaflets in Grand Central Station telling people no one can force them to go to a mental hospital. At 1:30 in the morning, Grand Central police, not New York City police, close the train station.

POLICE OFFICER: There's a van outside for the shelter.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Many of the homeless voluntarily pile onto the vans that will take them to city shelters. Others just walk by into the night. As the weather gets colder and the winter continues, the problem will continue to confront both the Koch administration and the thousands of men and women homeless on the streets of New York.

HUNTER-GAULT: For more on New York City's policy we have with us its architect, Mayor Ed Koch, and one of its critics, Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Mayor Koch, that 60,000 figure. How accurate do you --

Mayor ED KOCH: Totally inaccurate. Let me demonstrate why. We have 8,500 people last night in our shelters. There are not thousands of people out there. When the winter started there were 7,500, a carryover from the summer. A thousand or so people came into the shelters, and our policy is that when the temperature goes down to 32 degrees a cop on the beat will go over and ascertain whether this person is competent, in the same way that you'd go over and if you found a child lying on the sidewalk to take that child to a shelter.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, how can a cop do that?

Mayor KOCH: I'm going to tell you what a cop does. If a cop decides -- here, this is what the cop's under.

HUNTER-GAULT: Summarize if for us, Mayor.

Mayor KOCH: I will. If the cop says, do you have a place to sleep and the fellow -- generally it's a fellow; about 10 are women -- says no, he says, then come, come to the shelter voluntarily. He says, I don't want to go. If the cop makes a determination that this person is incompetent -- you know, cops make these determinations all the time -- he then calls a sergeant. The sergeant comes. If the sergeant decides that the person is incompetent to make such a decision in the same way a 10-year-old is incompetent to make a decision to freeze out on the streets, they will take the person against his will to a hospital, and then a doctor decides whether or not that person should be admitted. Now, the Civil Liberties Union apparently goes out and tells people -- I saw some of those people lying there in the street or in Grand Central, "Now, you don't have to go," well, sure, you don't have to go. But are they really doing that person a great service? We don't take them against their will unless the two people, the patrol officer and the sergeant, believe the person is not competent of making a decision for himself, herself, and is in danger of hurting himself by sleeping out on the streets. Would you say that a child should be allowed to be on the sidewalk, or can we take in a child? If the person is an adult with a child's mind, don't you think the police officers can take that person to the hospital, even against their will, and then have a doctor decide whether they should be held there?

HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Siegel, you answer that question.

NORMAN Mr. SIEGEL: Well, it sounds like the mayor is singing a different song this evening. We've seen in the papers, we also saw on the clip on the film footage before, the mayor was making a presumption. He was making the presumption that anyone, when the weather gets below 32 degrees, who doesn't want to go to a shelter, he presumed them to be mentally ill. And that's what we thought his policy was. If he's saying now the policy has changed --

HUNTER-GAULT: Was that your policy?

Mayor KOCH: It's still the presumption, but the cop will only -- the cop goes over and asks someone, do you have a shelter? Where are you going to stay tonight? And the person says, I have none. The presumption is that if they're going to sleep out on the street that they're not competent to make it, but then the cop decides by calling a sergeant, is this person capable of making such a decision?

Mr. SIEGEL: I've been out there in Grand Central, and the cop last week who was there said to me he thought the policy was kidnapping. I think that I'd like to see the mayor and I'd like to see city officials out there, bcause when you make that presumption -- I've had homeless people who have told me that cops have come by and said, if you don't get in the van we're going to break your legs.

Mayor KOCH: Oh, please!

Mr. SIEGEL: The idea -- this is what homeless people are saying --

Mayor KOCH: Oh, but --

Mr. SIEGEL: The mayor all the time wants to dismiss these people as real people. I've been out there for the last three weeks on seven or eight occasions. I haven't seen the mayor, I haven't seen people from the city. These are real people. They're people very often who, four or five years ago, had a home. They lost their job and they lost their home. They're also people of color, black and Puerto Rican. The gentrification that has occurred in Manhattan has created a lack of affordable, low-income housing, and that's the real issue. The mayor would like to sit here and debate the 32-degrees issue in opposition to that, but the real issue -- and the policy he's suggesting is disingenuous because it misdirects and makes us focus on a narrow point. The real issue is low-income housing.

Mayor KOCH: Can I answer the fact of the matter is that the federal government is responsible for low-income housing and they reduced their expenditure from $30 billion a year to $10 billion nationally, and so the money isn't being spent. So what shall we do? Just let them be out on the streets? That's the first answer to his statement. The second is this. The population out on the streets, one third of them, have had or currently have psychiatric problems that have required hospitalization. One third of them are currently or were alcohol-addicted, had alcoholic problems. And one quarter, 25 , are drug addicts or were drug addicts. That's 90 of the people who are out on the streets. What we're simply saying is they need help.

Mr. SIEGEL: Housing. First of all, the mayor is creative, he's energetic. I'd like to see him create some city policies. With regard to public funds, forget that. Boston and San Francisco have a housing development trust fund where they ask developers to pay for low-income housing --

Mayor KOCH: This is such idiocy! Such idiocy! The fact of the matter is he doesn't know what he's talking about, and I'll demonstrate that. The fact of the matter is that in the city of New York we have rehabilitated and created 170,000 housing units over the last eight years, and for low-income people. And San Francisco doesn't hold a candle to it, and anytime people cite that, it simply means they don't know what the facts are. I'm not putting down San Francisco, but he simply doesn't know what the facts are.

Mr. SIEGEL: Do we have a housing development trust fund in New York?

Mayor KOCH: We have more than a housing development trust fund.

Mr. SIEGEL: No, but do we just have that? Answer my question, sir.

Mayor KOCH: Listen to me! Listen to me! We use our capital funds. It happens that in San Francisco a developer will pay about $6,000 for an apartment. You know what it costs? It costs $65,000 to create an apartment. So they don't create an apartment with the $6,000. They do it in the city of New York with capital funds.

Mr. SIEGEL: Mayor, with all due respect, we don't have enough low-income housing --

Mayor KOCH: Well, of course we don't!

Mr. SIEGEL: And we have to do something about it.

Mayor KOCH: But you don't know why we don't!

Mr. SIEGEL: I understand very well. Take the SRO. Ten years ago --

HUNTER-GAULT: That gets into too much detail. Let's just get back to the --

Mr. SIEGEL: About the people, the people that are out there. I would invite you to come with us and start talking to people --

Mayor KOCH: I've been there!

Mr. SIEGEL: I haven't seen you, Mr. Mayor.

HUNTER-GAULT: Now, just a minute, Mr. Siegel. The mayor cited some statistics. One-third of the people are alcoholics, one-third are -- that generally they are in --

Mr. SIEGEL: The mayor in this policy that he's talking about, the cold-weather emergency policy, what he'd like to do is to give the impression to the public that everybody out there is mentally ill. That's just not the case.

Mayor KOCH: I didn't say that!

Mr. SIEGEL: Or even the statistics that he's citing. I have been out there the last few weeks, and I have been very impressed and surprised. The two gentlemen that you had on the television so far, Mr. Bayard and Jerrold, they weren't mentally ill. They were coherent, they were articulate.

HUNTER-GAULT: What about these people --

Mayor KOCH: I saw that. He says --

HUNTER-GAULT: And those are the people who say that the shelters are a jungle.

Mayor KOCH: -- that young man said that. He said nobody goes to a shelter, it's a jungle. And the city streets are safer for him? It's ridiculous. We wouldn't take that guy against his will and put him into a shelter. No cop would say that that guy was mentally incompetent. But what I'm saying is, he is saying something that is so foolish. He says, you want to go home to your living room. You know, we don't provide a living room, but we do provide recreation space, we do provide medical care --

HUNTER-GAULT: Isn't that better than these people freezing to death, Mr. Siegel?

Mr. SIEGEL: Well, the issue is not freezing to death. Nobody wants --

Mayor KOCH: What else is it?

Mr. SIEGEL: Nobody -- Mr. Mayor, nobody wants anyone to freeze to death. When I'm out there I'm talking to people about their right to go to the shelter. Even on his policy very often there's not enough transportation for people to go to the shelters. I have seen on two occasions at Grand Central Station a woman there wanting to go to the shelter, and there's only a bus for men.

Mayor KOCH: Aw, come on. Listen --

Mr. SIEGEL: There was no transportation for the woman.

Mayor KOCH: Listen!

Mr. SIEGEL: So even his policy doesn't work.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, we have to move on --

Mayor KOCH: -- is absolute nonsense!

HUNTER-GAULT: Quickly.

Mayor KOCH: I'm sorry to say.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, we'll come back. Jim?

LEHRER: New York City and the other big cities of the Northeast do not suffer alone from the problems of the homeless. We move this story now to the Pacific Northwest, to Portland, Oregon, where the problem has developed a new ingredient, homeless women. Our story is by Marilyn Deutsch of public station KOAP-Portland.

MARILYN DEUTSCH, KOAP [voice-over]: Morning in Portland, Oregon. The city wakes up. This year's estimate of the homeless in Portland and in Multnomah County, roughly 3,000 people. The numbers are getting larger in part because more women are joining the ranks: about 500 women, almost 15 of the homeless population, women who have lost their means of support -- jobs, boyfriends, husbands.

DONELLE YELLI: My story, I got married, me and my old man, my three kids, came out here for a vacation and we split up. So I decided to stay out here. He went back to Wyoming, and that's the last time I've seen him.

REPORTER: Where are your kids?

Ms. YELLI: My kids are up in Seattle in foster homes.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: The Multnomah County Department of Human Services finished up a year-long study on the county's homeless women. The report paints a statistical portrait of just who these women are.

BETSY SKLOOT, Multnomah Department of Human Services: They're young. The average age is 32. Two-thirds of them have children, and one-third of them actually have children living with them. They're not drifters. Just about a half of them have lived here for five years or more.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: There are other facts, too, from the almost 200 women interviewed by the county. A fth have been hospitalized for mental illness; a quarter attempted suicide. Half have been out of work for a good six months. And of those women with children, most live on less than $2,000 a year. But most also find emergency shelter in Multnomah County, like Lorraine Buckley and her two children. They moved into the West Women's Hotel after Lorraine lost her job.

LORRAINE BUCKLEY: Because I applied for welfare and wasn't able to go in until the 9th and so I didn't have noplace to go and I didn't have no money to pay the rent for another month.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: Debbie Stavig's also taking shelter at the hotel. Out of work, she and her husband shoplifted. They were caught. Now pregnant and just out of jail, Stavig's remorseful and waiting for her husband to finish his sentence.

DEBBIE STAVIG: I really don't know where I would have gone. I know I couldn't stay with anybody in my family 'cause they, you know, they're on a limited income, too. And so I really couldn't go there. So I don't know what I would have done. It may have been the streets or back to jail.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: Others call bed the cold, hard ground. If you live in northwest Portland, Mattie Huff's your neighbor. But here's another cold, hard fact. Like one-third of the county's homeless women, Mattie's an alcoholic.

MATTIE HUFF: Yeah, I'm a drunk. And I don't believe -- excuse me. I don't believe people saying they're alcoholics. Um?

COMPANION: Once you're drunk you're always a drunk.

Ms. HUFF: You're a drunk.

PASSERBY: Aw, Christ! Look at that!

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: Two-thirds of the women on the streets have been physically abused. Twenty-seven-year-old Lisa Keller was born in Pendleton, raised in Portland. The day before we met Lisa, she'd spent the evening with a friend.

LISA KELLER: I can't take any more of this. You think I'm looking good today for what I've been -- who I've been with and putting up with? I'm not looking that good, am I?

PHYLLIS PHYLL: Can you find out who he is, what he's doing in Portland or something like that and bring that information back to me?

DEUTSCH: I sure can.

[voice-over] It was late September when a passing stranger threatened to murder Phyllis Phyll.

Ms. PHYLL: He is the ugliest man -- he has the ugliest face I had ever seen in my life, and I told him so.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: Pfyll has lived on the streets of Portland off and on for nearly a decade. She's turned down offers of mental help. A genteel lady with a Texas accent, no one's quite sure how or why she lives the way she does. She sometimes gets by on a Social Security check. The homeless can make money, find food, even find a place to clean up, but social workers say with the help that's now available, the homeless cannot do more than survive.

SUE JEFFRIES: And if I see someone throwing a can away I'll go up and pick it up, you know? I've had a lot of smart remarks saying, well, ugh, look at that, you know, tramp, but you know I look at it this way. It's money, it's legal, I'm not having to sell my ass or anything for it. It's strictly -- you know, it's clean money, and that's what counts.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: To put food in her belly -- Tina La Goy is two months' pregnant -- La Goy works 45 minutes a day at the Sisters of the Road Cafe. It's a barter arrangement. She washes, then she eats. La Goy's been on the streets almost two years. She also used to work the streets.

TINA LA GOY: I quit that. I couldn't handle that no more. So I do this to keep myself alive. I've got more friends here in this cafe than I've had in my whole life. It's my family now.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: Others earn a wage. At the plasma center you can donate twice a week. If you have the heart for it, the homeless say, you can make it.

MICHAEL STOOPS, social worker: Now they're trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, and unless something is done now they're going to be the bag ladies, the people on the streets, the alcoholics, the mentally ill people on the streets 20 years from now.

DEUTSCH [voice-over]: Social workers say it will take more -- counseling, training, rehabilitation. That's a lot of tax dollars, and many doubt whether society is willing to pay.

LEHRER: That report by Marilyn Deutsch of KOAP-Portland. There are those who believe that because the problem is a national problem found in Portland as well as New York, Houston and New Orleans as well as Philadelphia and Boston and so on, there is a national responsibility to help solve it. Congressman Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and a member of a House subcommittee on housing and community development, believes the Reagan administration has shirked that responsibility. He is with us tonight from public station WGBH in Boston. Here in Washington to disagree with him is June Koch, the assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development who oversees government programs aimed at helping the homeless.

Congressman, how has the administration shirked its responsibility on this question?

Rep. BARNEY FRANK: Basically by ignoring the problems of the homeless. You heard a discussion earlier today on this show about how much money we've thrown at the farm program. Tens of billions of dollars have been sent to the farm program to subsidize farmers, some of whom are in great need, some of whom are fairly wealthy. We spend a pittance on the homeless. We've got fiscal problems in this country, but let me give you an example of what seemed to me the very distorted priorities of the administration here. We have a new program that came under Ronald Reagan, brand new, not something he inherited. It's called the National Endowment for Democracy, and it spends over $200 million a year to send American politicians traveling to make speeches to other countries; it's supposed to aid democracy, most recently by giving money to some French unions. That's more than three times as much as we're spending on the homeless. We are spending $70 million to try and provide emergency help to the homeless, and that was over the administration's objection. The House earlier this year passed legislation sponsored by Bruce Vento from Minnesota, Mary Rose Oakar from Cleveland, to get beyond just the emergency situation with housing to try and actually provide physical space for these people. It's been opposed by the administration.

LEHRER: And you say it's the federal government's responsibility to do this?

Rep. FRANK: Oh, absolutely. And shared responsibility. New York City, Boston, Chicago, the people who are homeless there didn't grow up and weren't born necessarily there. You saw that in your Portland segment. Any big city is the magnet for people with those kinds of problems. To burden the particular residents of a particular city with that I think is very unfair. I think there ought to be, in this very wealthy nation, some national response. The Reagan philosophy has been the rising tide will lift all boats. Give us overall economic prosperity and that'll take care of things. Well, we saw the people who were standing on tiptoes, and that rising tide doesn't do much for them.

Mayor KOCH: Secretary Koch, how do you respond?

JUNE KOCH: The scope of the problem is, since we did a study at HUD to look at what the national problem is, probably in the range of about 350,000 homeless, and we think that that was an accurate study.

LEHRER: Not two million, as has been reported?

Sec. KOCH: Not two million. And that's the only study, the only statistical study that's been done. What was more interesting in the study was what was the nature of the homeless people, and we found probably that's a conservative estimate, that well over 50 are chronically mentally ill, and that there was a new growing underclass of battered wives, women, who are coming into the homeless. Now, what can be done? On the federal level there has been money provided through FEMA, and that's been over 200 --

LEHRER: FEMA. That's the Federal Emergency Management Administration, right?

Sec. KOCH: Yes, sorry. We have, however, tried to address this. We provide permanent housing, so we said if battered wives are now a part of this, let's put them on our priority list, so we can get them into our permanent housing, and we're running that regulation through the department now. But, on the other hand, you have to look back and see why we have a homeless problem, and it's been two decades in the making, and it's not because of Reagan administration policies. There have been policies that began in 1963 that deinstitutionalized the chronically mentally ill. It was supposed to be a commitment on a state part when they let out a lot of people who were chronically mentally ill that they would put money into local community centers. That money hasn't materialized. They pay probably 8 of costs, and that's a lot more expensive than that. There have been rent control policies in over 200 cities in our nation which have led to the abandonment of a lot of low-cost housing, so there isn't low-cost housing available for poor people. There have been redevelopment policies begunin the '70s taking down all the single-room-occupancy hotels. We lost about a million units in the '70s. So that the kind of low-cost housing that used to be available isn't available in some locations.

Rep. FRANK: May I respond to that?

LEHRER: Just a moment. Let her finish her response.

Sec. KOCH: One of the interesting things you had a plug from -- you know, the film you had on Portland. We've been working very closely with them. They're reversing. New York is knocking down its hotels. Portland has asked us for money and asked us for waivers so they could put up and they could rehabilitate single-room-occupancy hotels to deal with their problem.

LEHRER: In a general sense, do you feel -- what do you feel the federal government's responsibility is, for whether it's 350,000, as you say, or two million, as others say, to these homeless?

Sec. KOCH: We make money available through a lot of our programs. We, for example, in the community development block grant program, we called and wrote to every mayor and said you could use those funds. You need any help, those funds are available. And funds have been used. Over $75 million of those funds have been used nationally. We also are doing something very creative now. We've just begun a program with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, announced this week, focused on the chronically mentally ill. We will make 1,000 housing certificates available, which are rent certificates, to help people pay rent. Over the life of that program that's $78 million. They will give private funds of $28 million, cities will apply, and cities will put together packages of public-private sponsorship of community resources for the chronically mentally ill. We will give them the housing that they need. Those are the kind of things the federal government can do -- spark public-private relationships, because the problems on the local level are different everywhere, and they need local solutions.

LEHRER: Congressman Frank?

Rep. FRANK: I agree with that, but I'm very disappointed in the assistant secretary's response. First of all, this blaming other people, yes, a lot of other people deserve the blame, but I don't think that's a very appropriate response for a federal official when we've got human misery today on our streets, to blame people in the '60s and the '70s. Sure, there's a lot of blame to go around; blaming people isn't going to put anybody in a warm bed where they ought to be. Secondly, it is true, Assistant Secretary Koch said $200 million has been spent; that's at about $50, $60 and $70 million a year, over the objections of the Reagan administration. That money was never requested by the administration. This administration, which has been busting the budget for the Pentagon and creating the National Endowment for Democracy, has fought us in putting that money forward.

LEHRER: In other words, you're blaming -- but you're blaming -- you're doing just what you accused her of doing, right?

Rep. FRANK: No, but I'm not talking about it historically. I'm doing something very different. I'm not talking about where we were historically. I agree that people deserve blame in the '60s and '70s, but what I'm talking about is that, unfortunately, that attitude of the Reagan administration is still a problem for us today.

LEHRER: But you said that is not --

Rep. FRANK: The House of Representatives has passed a bill and we're trying to get it through the Senate -- the administration is opposing it -- to put more money into this. And we're not talking billions. We're talking tens of millions.

LEHRER: What about the congressman's point? That everything that has been done has been over the administration's --

Rep. FRANK: And could I just add? They've cut the programs that June Koch talked about. They've cut CDBG. They've cut the other programs. They've cut the housing programs. She talks about making them available. Yes, she has said you can have more and more problems taken care of with less and less money.

Sec. KOCH: The reason I brought up the historical perspective is because you have to know what the problems are to know what the solutions are. It can't be done just on the federal level. Localities have to work with their state governments --

Rep. FRANK: Of course.

Sec. KOCH: About five states, New York, Maryland, have just begun to put some money into this whole problem. The federal government, working together, as we are in this demonstration program. The other thing about what we have cut, just look at the housing program because in the section you have Mayor Koch and how much was cut. we, by the way, put in well over a billion dollars for housing assistance to New York alone last year.

Rep. FRANK: Figures we voted.

Sec. KOCH: We came in and we were providing 3.1 million units for low-income assistance. Four years later, four million units. Our budget -- and I'm talking outlays, not big budget authority figures but how much we actually spent. In '81 we were spending $5.7 billion; now we're spending $9.7 billion. There has been an increase. We haven't cut back in the basic program.

Rep. FRANK: You tried to and weren't allowed to. Now, that's just dishonest, June. You asked to rescind that money.

Sec. KOCH: It's not a matter of --

Rep. FRANK: That was previously voted money. The Reagan administration --

Sec. KOCH: Barney, we were not trying to cut back --

Rep. FRANK: You asked to rescind it. You did!

Sec. KOCH: What we have asked is to change the direction of the program --

Rep. FRANK: No! You asked to rescind those programs you're taking credit for.

Sec. KOCH: Sure!

Rep. FRANK: You're being dishonest. You are talking about money that's being spent over your objection.

Sec. KOCH: Barney! Let me answer you.

LEHRER: Hold on, please. Go ahead.

Sec. KOCH: Okay. We have not asked to rescind any of the basic programs --

Rep. FRANK: That's dishonest.

Sec. KOCH: We changed the basic program because now we house two people for the price of one, because we no longer build expensive new construction. We give people rental subsidies. We rehabilitate our housing. There shouldn't be miles of abandoned housing in a city. You have to rehabilitate what you have. So we've changed the direction --

Rep. FRANK: You've cut back on funds for that. You've tried to cut back public housing as a resource for the very poor. This administration has tried to cut back on the funds that go for rehabilitating public housing.

LEHRER: Congressman, I don't think we're going --

Rep. FRANK: This is dishonest.

LEHRER: We're not going to resolve that one. Let me ask you about her point that it isn't two million people; it's only 350,000 people and half of those are people with mental problems.

Rep. FRANK: There are a lot of people with mental problems. I'm not sure of the relevance of that. If the suggesting is that they don't need a place to stay I think that's wrong. In fact, it suggests, when you're talking about people with mental problems, that probably more resources are needed so that you have not just physical shelters, but the kind of supervision in those shelters that will make them habitable for other people. Secondly, as to the number, no one knows the number. No intellectually honest person -- let me repeat that. No intellectually honest person pretends to know how many homeless there are. The 350,000 figure came from a HUD report that many people who were consulted and cited in the report said, "They misled people because that's not what I meant." No one genuinely knows. The 350 seems to me a low estimate, but I think that's an effort to kind of minimize the problem. And the fundamental point is this. The Reagan administration -- and this has to be stressed -- the very programs June Koch was talking about, community development block grants, the Reagan administration has cut those back and cut those back while it's been wasting money at the Pentagon.

LEHRER: You say that's not so?

Sec. KOCH: No. We have maintained pretty much the level of assistance and we have increased the housing assistance.

Rep. FRANK: Not in community development block grants. You know that.

Sec. KOCH: And the reason I wanted to bring up the chronically mentally ill is because it is an important element in the population that needs very creative solutions. Can't just be done at the federal level. The private sector is in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the state working together, and the states are in that progbram, and the Conference of Mayors is in that program. You need a kind of creative, cohesive joining together to solve these problems.

Rep. FRANK: No one denies that.

Sec. KOCH: Not one level of government.

LEHRER: Let me just bring New York back into this. Mayor Koch, how do you see the federal government's role in helping you solve your problem in New York?

Mayor KOCH: I'm really disappointed in the Secretary for her statement as it relates to helping with the housing. You know, if you give people a certificate to rent an apartment and there are no apartments, you've given them nothing. The fact is that they have gone down from the high under the Carter administration of an expenditure of $30 billion a year to currently a little bit less than $10 billion, and in that $10 bilion it's not for any new, low-income housing units, it's simply to rehabilitate, and they want to, according to the President's proposal, remove about $8 billion of the $10 billion heretofore authorized. Now, the dimensions of the problem. Every night now we are providing shelter for 8,500 single individuals and 4,000 families. That's another 16,000 individuals. So we have close to 25,000 people that we are providing for. We're not ashamed of what we are doing. We are not saying that we are not without fault. But we're saying we're doing so much more than any other city in the country and that the federal government has let us down. Now, when my friend from the Civil Liberties Union says --

LEHRER: Let you down in what way? Because of the housing?

Mayor KOCH: There's no question about it.

LEHRER: All right, let's ask --

Mayor KOCH: The obligation of the federal government traditionally has been to build low-income housing. That is not a local responsibility, and just the other day the President says he not only doesn't want to build any more low-income housing, he wants to sell the FHA.

LEHRER: Secretary Koch?

Sec. KOCH: The President did say he wants to sell FHA, but to build low-income housing nationally when there is no low-income national availability problem is crazy, inexpensive [sic] and inefficient.

LEHRER: What do you mean? No local --

Sec. KOCH: We have done enough research, and the Rand Institution has done research, and the President appointed a housing commission to look into this whole issue. We were building, nationally, units across the country that went as high, costing $175,000 per unit. There is no availability problem. What the real housing problem is is affordability. Too many people are paying too much of their income for rent. And so we are targeting for that problem. We are targeting so that they get a housing voucher so that they don't pay over 30 of their income for rent, because in most areas there is housing that you can rehabilitate that doesn't have to sit there vacant and turn to disuse.

Rep. FRANK: Could I break in?

Sec. KOCH: Again, if a city reevaluates -- again, that's why I brought up the historical perspective. The cities ought to look at their rent control policies; the cities ought to look at their development policies. Is it wise to knock down and put up grand condominiums and office buildings and knock down single-room occupancy --

Mayor KOCH: Aw, come on! It's nonsense what you're saying.

Sec. KOCH: It's nonsense?

Mayor KOCH: Nonsense. Let me --

Sec. KOCH: You create the problem.

Mayor KOCH: -- tell you why.

Sec. KOCH: There's no low-income housing available. You're creating a problem where people have no place to live.

Mayor KOCH: Let me tell you why it's nonsense.

Sec. KOCH: And in fact, as you take people off into the shelters you're making more people homeless.

Mayor KOCH: Let me tell you why it's nonsense. In the city of New York we have a 2 vacancy rate, which means practically no vacancy rate --

Sec. KOCH: Mayor Koch --

Mayor KOCH: Hold on! Hold on. We have 175,000 families in the New York City Housing Authority's low-income apartments, and another 170,000 families that have applied, and it may take them 10 years to get into our apartments. So when you have the nerve to say there is no demand for low-income housing, I feel like throwing up!

Rep. FRANK: Can I get into this?

LEHRER: Go ahead, let the secretary respond.

Sec. KOCH: Your vacancy rate is predicated on the fact that everybody politely ignores miles and miles and miles of abandoned housing that anybody who's gone up past New York City sees. And you used some of our community development block grant funds to put up decals in those windows to deal with the problem of the abandoned housing. The problem has grown over the years with city policies.

Rep. FRANK: Could I respond to this, because I think there's a lot of dishonesty here. In the first place, the rent control argument is a red herring because this problem exists in cities that have never had rent control as well as cities that have. Secondly, I think we ought to be clear how inconsistent Assistant Secretary Koch's argument is. On the one hand she says there is no availability problem. It's not that we lack the physical units. Then she turns around and blames the cities for having knocked down the physical units. So --

Sec. KOCH: I said there's no national --

Rep. FRANK: Right, she says no national problem. No, I want to respond to this. Yes, now let me respond to your national argument. What you mean is I should tell the homeless in Boston, rejoice because in Wyoming there's a nice condo for you, there's an apartment for you. When you say no national availability of housing, you mean if you average everything out, we've got an excess of housing, perhaps, in Tucson, and we have a shortage in Pittsburgh. And these people are not so mobile as to be able to get from the one place to the other. The facts are, as Mayor Koch has said it, yes, there have been problems in the past. But this administration has consistently cut back on every program, every single program to build any housing for lower-income people while they've been gold-plating the Pentagon, while it's created the National Endowment for Democracy, while wealthy farmers have gotten a lot of money.

LEHRER: That's a very serious --

Rep. FRANK: Other people have made mistakes, but that's the central thrust of the problem today.

LEHRER: Secretary?

Sec. KOCH: The figures are as I have cited. What has been cut back is the rate of growth.

Rep. FRANK: No, June, you're lying, because --

Sec. KOCH: The rate of growth --

LEHRER: Hold on! [crosstalk]

Rep. FRANK: You are lying!

Sec. KOCH: Under Carter, in 1976, it was the peak of the rate of growth -- 300,000 new units added a year -- and he cut that back in '77 --

Rep. FRANK: June, don't you --

Sec. KOCH: -- and '78. We've cut that back to 100,000 new units a year.

Rep. FRANK: These are units that were voted previously!

Sec. KOCH: -- new units put on line, 100,000 a year.

Rep. FRANK: We have to explain the dishonesty here.

Sec. KOCH: There's no dishonesty here.

Rep. FRANK: The dishonesty is this. Units, you don't build the house right away. Units that were previously voted in other administrations are still being built. What the mayor quoted --

Sec. KOCH: No, no, no.

Rep. FRANK: -- the $30 billion and 10 is the new units.

LEHRER: I'm very sorry.

Rep. FRANK: They are not asking for any new units.

LEHRER: Congressman Frank in Boston, Mayor Koch, Mr. Siegel in New York, Secretary Koch here in Washington, thank you all very much.

Sec. KOCH: You're very welcome.

Mayor KOCH: Sure.

HUNTER-GAULT: Next up is tonight's cartoon, Lurie's look at the farm bill.

[Lurie cartoon -- drowning farmers reach to congressional ship for rescue. Reagan tosses a dollar over the side and keeps sailing; the farmers keep calling for help.]

Once again, the main stories of the day. President Reagan signed the farm bill into law. The President said the U.S. will continue to observe the SALT II arms treaty. Consumer spending and personal income were both reported higher in November, and seven whites died in a bomb explosion in South Africa.

Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Charlayne. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.