Discusses homelessness in the United States and efforts of the George W. Bush administration to solve the problem of chronic homelessness. Statistics on what is being spent by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency for permanent housing; Lack of support at the federal government level for creating affordable housing and strengthening programs that attack the causes of poverty; The issues of temporary homeless shelters and government assistance; Profiles of families and how they became homeless; How cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Dallas are managing vagrancy and begging.