One home at a time

摘要

Handing a homeless alcoholic the keys to a free furnished flat may seem foolish, unfair or both. That was certainly what Ted Clugston, the mayor of Medicine Hat, a Canadian town of 61,000, used to think-but experience has changed his mind. No-strings housing offers have helped bring the town within sight of a goal it set itself five years ago: to end home-lessness by 2015. At the time over 1,000 people passed through its homeless shelters each year, many between spells on the street. If the municipality succeeds, it will be the first in North America to do so.