On the Street

Magharebia reports that there are between 5,000 and 7,000 homeless children in Casablanca, a city of approximately 3.5 million.  In contrast, in Chicago, a city of  2,896,016, there were approximately 26,000 homeless children as of 2001, of whom 12,000 were "chronically homeless," according to a study by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.  In both cities, public and private resources fall far short of meeting the needs of these children.  

To me, it seems both an indictment of the American way of life and a symptom of how intractable a problem homelessness is that a major American city of comparable size to Casablanca faces a worse homelessness problem than that of the bidonvilles of Casa.  Although we clearly lack sufficient resources and a sufficient commitment to addressing the problem in both countries, it seems to me that perhaps we need new ideas for coping with the problem as well.