Last week, the recently-formed Concord Coalition to End Homelessness met to work on bringing together city officials, churches, social service organizations and others interested in averting a disaster. The people on the frontlines of social services say the city's few homeless shelters are already filling or full. Unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates are high. Demand for city welfare services has surged.

The state's campgrounds are closing. More people will begin living in cars or in places without heat. More of the homeless, and those with housing who must forgo medication or miss meals to pay rent or a mortgage, will be children. They will miss school, fall behind and begin hardening to a life of reduced aspirations.

With colder weather there may be a need to use public buildings as emergency shelters or to subsidize heating costs for churches and other organizations willing to make space for the homeless. Food pantries will need donations. So will utilities that use the money to keep the lights on in the homes of those who can no longer pay their bills But none of that will be enough. Public officials in New Hampshire and Washington must also work quickly to create housing policies that help renters and those who lose their homes and will soon compete with them for space during what's already a shortage of affordable housing.

In good times, most of the homeless are people battling problems that aren't solely financial - mental illness, chronic substance abuse or a disability that prevents employment. Today, many seeking shelter are employed, but their earnings have become inadequate to meet mortgage payments or pay rent. They are homeless for the first time.

Home ownership has been an American dream that's expected to come true for all who are willing to work hard and save. But that dream faded for millions as real incomes fell while home prices, until recently, kept rising. The truth is, home ownership may never have been a dream that everyone could fulfill.

When the real estate bubble burst, the foreclosure wave hit and banks went bust, Congress and the Bush administration engineered a rescue of lenders and investors. The debate has now turned to how to help people about to lose their homes. But nothing is being done to help renters. They tend to be the Americans with the fewest resources and the greatest likelihood of losing their jobs in a sinking economy. They too need help.

Congress must recognize that for some people, renting rather than owning is the right choice, and for many, it's the only option. Though housing prices have fallen, rents driven up by a shortage of affordable housing remain high. Current plans to restart the economy do not recognize that reality.

Tax policies allow homeowners to deduct the interest they pay on their mortgage - a huge taxpayer subsidy - and even to deduct the interest paid on loans used to buy large boats and recreational vehicles. But the IRS does not give a similar break to renters as they work to keep a roof over their heads.

At least a decade ago, federal housing policy turned away from subsidizing the construction of affordable housing and giving Section 8 housing allowances to the poor in favor of ever greater subsidies to increase home ownership. In 2006, three-quarters of the nation's $199 billion in housing subsidies targeted homeowners: less than one-quarter benefited renters. The wait for space in Section 8 housing remains years long. That must change. Congress shouldn't continue to give greater subsidies to the more, rather than the less, affluent.

Sometime in 2009, New Hampshire will get $20 million from a Neighborhood Stabilization Program launched under the federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The great majority of that money must be used to help people with very low incomes. The money could help housing trusts purchase foreclosed property and help people buy homes.

But much of it should be used to help people who need a place to live but have scant hope of ever owning a home. (next page »)