You heard it here first. Andrew Ferguson predicted a month ago in these pages that the return of Republicans to the White House would mean "the reemergence of all kinds of things we haven't seen since -- well, since the old President Bush was in the White House. Avarice and selfishness are just the beginning. Say hello to homelessness, for instance: We are about to see a horrifying deterioration in the plight of our nation's street people. We haven't heard much -- anything, really -- about the homeless since, oh, roughly January 20, 1993. As it happens, the number of people living on steam grates has remained pretty much constant from the middle 1980s, when they filled the airwaves and graced the cover of countless magazines, to the present day, when they are all but forgotten. They are about to be remembered."
As if on schedule, the Washington Post ran a front-page story on February 16, "Indicators Show D.C. Homelessness Getting Worse." The two photos accompanying the article showed Nancy Hill, "who said she . . . has been homeless for three years" and James Johnson, "homeless for five years." Now they tell us.