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Lucky Severson has this week's homeless report.
LUCKY SEVERSON: The lunch crowd at the Holy Apostle soup kitchen in lower Manhattan. On most days, 1,100 are served as guests here. The church says the majority are homeless. For many, it's their only meal of the day.
According to a recent survey, most American cities report a surge in homelessness. A new report from the National Coalition for the Homeless says that the homeless never really disappeared even during the good times of the '90s. On any given day the number exceeds 800,000, and those we see on the streets are only a tiny percentage of the homeless population. The report says the homeless have been driven underground by laws passed in many American cities, criminalizing homelessness.
Doug Lasdon runs the Urban Justice Center in New York City.
DOUG LASDON (Urban Justice Center): We've had people arrested; it's not only panhandling, but arrested for sleeping on park benches. In the Guiliani administration there were sweeps of parks at night, not when people were around.
SEVERSON (to homeless man, David): Are you homeless?
DAVID (Homeless Man): Yes sir.
SEVERSON: Have you had problems with the cops?
DAVID: Yes I have. Yes I have.
SEVERSON: For years the homeless have felt safe from crime and cops by camping out in places like the steps of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, located in one of New York's richest neighborhoods. That is, until early December, when the police arrived.
Reverend THOMAS TEWELL (Pastor, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church): They came in the middle of the night and rousted the homeless away from our building, knocking on their boxes in the middle of the night, keeping them up. We thought it was truly harassment.
SEVERSON: The police said the outdoor congregation constituted an illegal homeless shelter and public nuisance. Pastor Tewell thought it was something else.
Rev. TEWELL: I think the police and the administration in New York were a bit embarrassed to have homeless people on the steps of a church in such an affluent area. The city said to us that it's inhumane to have people staying on the streets. And my response was that it's also inhumane to just move them along to another place or to put them in a shelter where they are going to get beat up, or abused, or harassed.
SEVERSON: Reverend Tewell sued the city, saying it was the church's First Amendment right to minister to the homeless on its steps. The judge agreed. The city appealed.
We asked for an interview with the city attorney's office but were declined, we were told, because the case was still on appeal. But officials are quick to point out that the city guarantees shelter for every single homeless person in New York.
New York City has about 31,000 people living in shelters. The problem is, many homeless prefer the streets because, like Joe Vedella, they feel safer.
JOE VEDELLA (Homeless Man): You are scared to take a shower because you think you're going to get raped. You are scared to go to sleep because you think you're going to get killed or robbed or something.
DAWN (Homeless Woman): I was going to college already. I want to go back to school and get my life together. It's really hard right now.
SEVERSON: This is Dawn. Unable to live with either of her divorced parents, she's been on the streets over a year, panhandling to pay for a nightly hotel she shares with a girlfriend.
DAWN: I've been getting so many panhandling tickets and I've been arrested one time for sleeping on the sidewalk and I had to go all the way to Central Booking. And I was in there for like over 24 hours before I was released.
SEVERSON: The Coalition for the Homeless report called New York one of the country's meanest cities, along with places like Atlanta, San Francisco, and Salt Lake. Under former mayor Rudolph Guiliani, New York's "quality of life" statutes against panhandling, sleeping on park benches, etc., were strictly enforced, and many New Yorkers were grateful, but not all.
Mr. LASDON: I think it's less of an interest in solving the problem of getting people off the streets than in moving homeless people out of sight. I have clients now who sleep in alleyways instead of a park bench in a park. That doesn't really solve the problem for anyone.
LUCKY SEVERSON: The lunch crowd at the Holy Apostle soup kitchen in lower Manhattan. On most days, 1,100 are served as guests here. The church says the majority are homeless. For many, it's their only meal of the day.
According to a recent survey, most American cities report a surge in homelessness. A new report from the National Coalition for the Homeless says that the homeless never really disappeared even during the good times of the '90s. On any given day the number exceeds 800,000, and those we see on the streets are only a tiny percentage of the homeless population. The report says the homeless have been driven underground by laws passed in many American cities, criminalizing homelessness.
Doug Lasdon runs the Urban Justice Center in New York City.
DOUG LASDON (Urban Justice Center): We've had people arrested; it's not only panhandling, but arrested for sleeping on park benches. In the Guiliani administration there were sweeps of parks at night, not when people were around.SEVERSON (to homeless man, David): Are you homeless?
DAVID (Homeless Man): Yes sir.
SEVERSON: Have you had problems with the cops?
DAVID: Yes I have. Yes I have.
SEVERSON: For years the homeless have felt safe from crime and cops by camping out in places like the steps of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, located in one of New York's richest neighborhoods. That is, until early December, when the police arrived.
Reverend THOMAS TEWELL (Pastor, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church): They came in the middle of the night and rousted the homeless away from our building, knocking on their boxes in the middle of the night, keeping them up. We thought it was truly harassment.
SEVERSON: The police said the outdoor congregation constituted an illegal homeless shelter and public nuisance. Pastor Tewell thought it was something else.
Rev. TEWELL: I think the police and the administration in New York were a bit embarrassed to have homeless people on the steps of a church in such an affluent area. The city said to us that it's inhumane to have people staying on the streets. And my response was that it's also inhumane to just move them along to another place or to put them in a shelter where they are going to get beat up, or abused, or harassed.
SEVERSON: Reverend Tewell sued the city, saying it was the church's First Amendment right to minister to the homeless on its steps. The judge agreed. The city appealed.
We asked for an interview with the city attorney's office but were declined, we were told, because the case was still on appeal. But officials are quick to point out that the city guarantees shelter for every single homeless person in New York.
New York City has about 31,000 people living in shelters. The problem is, many homeless prefer the streets because, like Joe Vedella, they feel safer.
JOE VEDELLA (Homeless Man): You are scared to take a shower because you think you're going to get raped. You are scared to go to sleep because you think you're going to get killed or robbed or something.
DAWN (Homeless Woman): I was going to college already. I want to go back to school and get my life together. It's really hard right now.
SEVERSON: This is Dawn. Unable to live with either of her divorced parents, she's been on the streets over a year, panhandling to pay for a nightly hotel she shares with a girlfriend.
DAWN: I've been getting so many panhandling tickets and I've been arrested one time for sleeping on the sidewalk and I had to go all the way to Central Booking. And I was in there for like over 24 hours before I was released.SEVERSON: The Coalition for the Homeless report called New York one of the country's meanest cities, along with places like Atlanta, San Francisco, and Salt Lake. Under former mayor Rudolph Guiliani, New York's "quality of life" statutes against panhandling, sleeping on park benches, etc., were strictly enforced, and many New Yorkers were grateful, but not all.
Mr. LASDON: I think it's less of an interest in solving the problem of getting people off the streets than in moving homeless people out of sight. I have clients now who sleep in alleyways instead of a park bench in a park. That doesn't really solve the problem for anyone.
JOE VEDELLA: When you get homeless and you have to rely on other people to eat, it must get pretty dark. Especially when you have to eat out of the garbage, but you have this pride about not asking for help, because deep down you don't believe anything is going to help you, so you just wander around.
RONALD WATT (Homeless Man): The homeless on the street are not all wicked. They are not all bad, they are not criminals. 
SONYA DAVIS: How bad did you get? I got so bad that I was stealing from my mother, my family. I sold all my jewelry, I cleared out my bank account.
