The homeless population continues to rise. According to information released by the US National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, more than 3 million people were homeless in the United States in 2002 (Homeless and Poverty in America, www.nlchp.org). Washington D.C. has the highest rate of homelessness of any city in the United States, with an estimated 20,000 people having experienced homelessness and nearly 400 families having applied for emergency shelters in 2002 (A snapshot of Homelessness in the Metropolitan, www.naeh.org). In April of 2002 alone, 38,476 peoplein New York spent their night in aid centers, including 16,685 children. According to a survey released by the US Conference of Mayors in December 2003, requests for emergency shelter assistance rose by an average of 13 percent in the past year; 88 percent of the cities surveyed predicted that the situation would be even worse in 2004.
Recently, the US Christian Science Monitor reminded the United States that it should regard "a home for every American" as the most rudimentary human right. Chicago Coalition for the Homeless said the government was unable to provide the basic subsistence guarantee for people, and that the local government had violated international human rights law by forcibly taking over 8,000 localresidential houses in five years.
There is a lack of work safety. According to US laws, only the accidents of industrial injuries resulting from "intended" violation of safety rules by the employers are eligible to be submitted to the judicial authorities. Even when alarming cases occur, the employers are seldom confirmed as "intended" and rarely face public prosecution. The New York Times quoted a surveyed report of the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration as saying that in 20 years from 1982 to 2002, there were 1,242 cases involving the death of workers caused by the employers' "intended"violation of safety rules,yet 93 percent of the cases were not brought to the court. In these two decades, there were a total of 2,197 accidents caused by employers' violation of safety rules andresulted in death of the workers in the United States, and the combined prison terms for employers involved were less than 30 years.
The situation of health insurance worsened. According to a report released by the US Census Bureau in September 2003, the number of Americans without health insurance climbed by 5.7 percent over 2001, to reach 43.6 million in 2002, the largest single increase in a decade. Overall, 15.2 percent of the Americans were uninsured in 2002 (see Washington Post on Sept. 30,2003).
Based on a survey, the ratio of employees uninsured in big US companies rose from seven percent to 11 percent during the 1987-2001 period (see Wall Street Journal on Oct. 22, 2003). More and more people cannot afford medical treatment. In Nebraska,250,000 single mothers lost free medical care they previously enjoyed, andin Arizona, approximately 60,000 children were no longer covered by free medical care (see Spain's El Mundo on May 19, 2003).