"It's not my belief that the city should be inthe business of providing shelters," said Healy."In terms of social justice the city has done morethan any of the surrounding communities," headded.

David Whitty, executive director of Shelter,Inc., a program that helps homeless families andrecovering alcoholics, said Healy has implied thatthe homeless do not belong in Cambridge and thatthey fit the stereotype of the willfully dirty andobnoxious bum. "If he had said those things aboutany other group of people there would be outrageand calls for his resignation," Whitty said.

City officials estimate the number of homelesspeople in Cambridge at about 250, but numbers aremeaningless, according to Whitty and David Angel'87, a supervisor at the University LutheranShelter who is writing a Social Studies thesis onthe homeless. "You'll never know how many homelesspeople there are until they're all broughtindoors," said Angel.

Few Options Now

Cambridge's homeless people now compete for 85walk-in shelter beds. Of these, 50 belong to theCambridge and Somerville Program for AlcoholRehabilitation (CASPAR), which accepts onlyinebriated guests.

The University Lutheran Shelter, staffed byHarvard students, provides 23 beds from Novemberto April and a new shelter at First CongregationalChurch on Garden St. provides 12 more.

Shelter, Inc.'s Central Square building has 20more places, but accepts only families andrecovering alcoholics referred to them by socialworkers and other shelters