“Cambridge is exceptionally well-intentioned and well-staffed, but frankly they just lack the resources to do it,” he says.

Semonoff, a 1975 Harvard Law School graduate, agrees that it is “almost futile” for one city to expect to end homelessness, but she stresses that the plan can be used to call attention to the extensive programs that already exist in Cambridge.

With a shrinking supply of affordable housing, inflexible federal regulations, and a steady flow of low-income individuals into the city from neighboring communities, Cambridge can’t go at it alone.

But Mangano says there is “an unprecedented level of political will in this country around ending chronic homelessness.”

“It’s not a wistful notion,” he says. “If Mayor Daley is saying he can do it in Chicago, if Mayor Bloomberg is saying he can do it in New York, if Mayor Newsom is saying he can do it in San Francisco, I would trust that my good friends in Cambridge believe they can do it too.”

Still, many members of the homeless community view such rhetoric with disdain.

With a broad brush-stroke, Joubert paints politicians from the local to the federal level as “crocks of shit.”

She says they have failed to respond to the homeless population’s most immediate needs.

“They don’t have no places around where anyone can take a shower,” she says.

—Staff writer Anna M. Friedman can be reached at amfriedm@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.