"They Said I'D Get Used to It"

By Henry Cisneros and Ann Blackman

The Clinton Administration's point man on the homeless issue is Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, who talked recently with correspondent Ann Blackman. Some excerpts:

Q. TIME: Why did you decide to make homelessness your No.1 priority?

A. Cisneros: The second week I was in Washington -- it was last January -- I went out on a cold, cold night with volunteers who take sandwiches and hot tea to the homeless. We found a lady who was eight months pregnant sleeping on the lawn of the Justice Department. And veterans of the Gulf War sleeping on a subway grate across from the National Archives. I talked to them, and I asked why they weren't in shelters, and they told me they were afraid. They talked of tuberculosis, of being robbed and beaten. People would say, "Man, I just need a job." But you could smell the alcohol on their breath. They were sad stories.

I decided that you had to go beyond offering passive services like shelters and actually reach out. When you peel away the layers, you find that a family is broken up or they've had a nervous breakdown or they have a permanent personality disorder that keeps them from holding a job. It's never as simple as just housing. It's going to require some real skill in outreach.

Q. TIME: What has been your biggest frustration?

A. Cisneros: I came to this job because I believe that time is running out on the American way of life as we know it. I don't want to be overly pessimistic, but how long can we go on with random killings and a permanent underclass and the homeless? I'm 46 years old, and I remember when there were no homeless people. I remember when my parents took me to Mexico and I was appalled that there were beggars and people on mats in the street. This was a Third World phenomenon. Now officials in my department say to me, "Oh, you'll get used to it." I had one conversation with officials from several Cabinet departments, who, when I described the President's commitment to the homeless, said, "Oh, he comes from Arkansas; it's a small state. After he's here for a while, he'll get used to it."

Q. TIME: You're a seasoned politician. Is this job what you expected?

A. Cisneros: No, I thought that there would be more latitude. There is little discretion. Most everything is a formula program, and you simply administer the formula. I thought that there would be more of a direct line between our programs and what I was trying to do. It's frustrating.

Q. TIME: How so?

A. Cisneros: You can't move this massive machinery or relate it to massive machinery in other departments real easily. You move with concrete blocks tied to your arms and legs. I can't believe how gridlocked the system is, how it runs counter to common sense sometimes, how irrelevant it is to things that are happening out in the country.

Q. TIME: Give me an example.

A. Cisneros: We'll spend hours talking through a strategy of meeting all the objections to try and move our homeless initiative through the Office of Management and Budget and through congressional committees. We'll spend hours talking about how to please this or that person. Meanwhile it's dusk. And people are starting to bed down for the night -- for one more night in the park outside the window. And we could go on for days talking and never get one step closer to the people who are using cardboard for beds in the nation's capital.