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Kathleen Turner gets her 'Virginia Woolf'
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By Jesse Green
- March 22, 2005
NEW YORK — To prepare for a mammoth role like Martha - the heavy-drinking, husband-bashing, guest-molesting, child-inventing termagant wife of a history professor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" - some actresses might train with a boxing coach, consult textbooks on marital abuse or study cockfights.
Kathleen Turner had her right knee replaced. "I wanted to be ready," she said in her whiskey baritone - it's inevitably compared to some kind of liquor - over lunch one day last month in Boston, where the play was trying out. (It opened on Broadway, at the Longacre Theater, on Sunday night.) "But really, I've been getting ready ever since college. Back then I told myself, when I'm 50, this is my role. And guess what, the week I turned 50, last June, they gave it to me."
What to Watch
Fall TV Preview: Old Hits Return, New Worlds Open
By Mike Hale
- Sept. 6, 2013
All dates are subject to change.
September
BOARDWALK EMPIRE (HBO, Sunday) Who knew Prohibition lasted this long? In its fourth season, Terence Winter’s Atlantic City gangster drama will add Jeffrey Wright (as a Harlem boss) and Patricia Arquette (as a shady Florida businesswoman) to its cast.
THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW (Syndicated, Monday) “Beavis and Butt-head” came back after 14 years, “Doctor Who” after 16. Mr. Hall has them both beat: it’s been 19 years since his late-night talk show ended. Technically, this new series isn’t the same show, but it’s the same host, the same title and largely the same competition (Leno and Letterman). Woof!
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U.S. Homelessness Edges Higher Again After Six Years of Declines
Lack of affordable housing fuels the problem in major cities, though L.A. makes progress
A person sleeps in a New York City subway station. Homelessness nationwide has risen in the past two years, reversing a trend.
PHOTO: RICHARD B. LEVINE/ZUMA PRESS
By Laura KusistoFollow
and Nour MalasFollow
December 17, 2018
Homelessness nudged higher in 2018 for the second consecutive year, as cities struggled to get people off the streets even as many ramped up building and poured millions of dollars into potential solutions.
The increase was slight—just 0.3%, according to an annual report to Congress by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be released Monday. But after six years of declines, the small rises over the past two years are a troubling reversal at a time when unemployment is at a near 50-year-low and wages are rising.
“There is a critical shortage of affordable rental housing in every jurisdiction across the country,” said Barbara Poppe, who oversaw the federal response to homelessness under President Obama. Ms. Poppe said a lack of affordable rental homes spurred the homeless crisis that began in the mid-1980s and has underpinned homelessness since.
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HUD Secretary Ben Carson said he believes his agency can help by taking steps to promote more housing development. Mr. Carson noted that given escalating home sales and rental prices, for homelessness “to be relatively flat is actually pretty good.”
Expensive metropolitan areas have struggled with how to tackle homelessness at a time when limited new housing supply is being created, and what does get built tends to be very expensive. Nearly one-quarter of the nation’s homeless population lives in New York or Los Angeles.
Rents in Los Angeles have increased 35% since 2012, while New York rents have grown 20%, according to Reis Inc. Rents in Seattle, another place grappling with homelessness, are up 64%, Reis said.
Overall homelessness in New York increased 2.8% this year, driven by an increase in people living in the city’s shelters, while the number of people sleeping on the streets declined.
In the nation’s largest city, the rise in homelessness in recent years has been a political challenge for Mayor Bill de Blasio. His administration has redoubled efforts to tackle homelessness but has at best managed to stabilize the problem.
The city increased spending on homeless services by about $172 million in 2018, which officials said was focused on improving living conditions and security in existing shelters and opening new shelters. Steven Banks, the city’s social services commissioner, said more than 100,000 people have been connected with permanent housing through city programs, a sign that the city’s “strategies are taking hold.”
In Seattle and surrounding King County, the number of homeless rose 4% this year, raising pressure on local officials spending tens of millions of dollars annually on homelessness to show more progress.
In Los Angeles County, a 4.7% decline in the number of homeless this year marked a breakthrough after four consecutive years of rises, showing how major investment on multiple fronts—preventing homelessness while improving shelters and building housing—can turn the tide.
Officials said the dent in numbers was the culmination of a recent boost in funding and coordination that just kicked in last year.
L.A. city voters in 2016 approved a $1.2 billion bond to help build 10,000 units of housing for the homeless over 10 years. A countywide sales tax passed last year generates about $350 million annually for services ranging from homelessness prevention, such as rental assistance, to help for the already homeless, such as mental-health support.
“We are seeing the results of investment that voters have made, and we are doing better with the resources we have,” said Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
In Los Angeles, entire blocks have given way to tent cities far beyond the few locations where they were once concentrated. Recognizing a mismatch between the long haul of building homes and a proliferating population on the streets, Mayor Eric Garcetti this year dedicated special funding for every city district to set up temporary shelters.
Mr. Garcetti said in a statement: “We were encouraged to see that we have fewer people on the streets than in previous years, but we’ll keep pushing forward as aggressively as possible until we can bring this crisis to an end.”
Corrections & Amplifications
Homelessness in the U.S. declined for six years before 2017. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated it declined for seven years. (Dec. 20)
Write to Laura Kusisto at laura.kusisto@wsj.com and Nour Malas at nour.malas@wsj.com
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Appeared in the December 17, 2018, print edition as 'Homeless Problem Worsens'.
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