“I have slept on the Embankment (河堤),” wrote ...

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“I have slept on the Embankment (河堤),” wrote George Orwell in 1933, adding that, despite the noise and the wet and the cold, it was “much better than not sleeping at all.” Under the nearby Charing Cross bridge, Orwell reported that “50 men were waiting, mirrored in the shivering puddles.” Nine decades on and Charing Cross and the Embankment are once again full of rough sleepers, even during the coldest days of December. Across London their numbers have more than tripled since 2010.

It is a pattern found in much of the rich world. Almost every European country is seeing a rise in the number of homeless people. Homelessness across America is in decline, but it is soaring in its most prosperous cities. And roughly 5,000 people live on the streets of San Francisco, a 19% rise in just two years.

However, some rich, successful cities, including Tokyo and Munich, have few people living on the streets. These places offer lessons on how to reduce homelessness. One is that tough love can sometimes work. Conservatives argue that softer policing methods in the 1970s, including not being strict to public drunkenness, were in part responsible for the rise in homelessness. The world could learn something from Greece, where strong family networks ensure that those down on their luck find someone to take them in. Many experts argue that it is counterproductive to give money to someone begging on the street.

Yet stricter methods will ultimately do little if housing costs remain high, which is the underlying reason for rising homelessness. Few Americans lived on the streets in the early post-war period because housing was cheaper. Back then only one in four tenants spent more than 30% of their income on rent, compared with one in two today. The best evidence suggests that a 10% rise in housing costs in a pricy city causes an 8% jump in homelessness.

The state can do something to help. Cuts to rent subsidies for Britain’s poor are probably the biggest reason why Charing Cross has so many people sleeping on the streets once again. Making such subsidies more generous might actually save governments money in the medium term — after all, demands on health-care services and the police would decline. People would also be more likely to land a job.

Another option is for the state to build more housing itself. In Singapore, 80% of residents live in government-built flats which they buy at knock-down prices. While many countries have been privatizing their stock of public housing, Finland has been building more of it, giving the government the necessities to put homeless people in their own apartments rather than warehousing them in shelters. In Finland the homeless numbers are moving in the right direction.

The most effective reform, however, would be to make building more homes easier. In many countries NIMBYist (邻避主义者) planning rules vastly inflate the market price of shelter. Such rules should be abolished. Japan loosened planning rules, prompting residential construction to jump. Since then, the number of rough sleepers has fallen by 80% in 20 years in Tokyo. Until cities elsewhere let the buildings go up, more people will find themselves down and out.

1.The writer quotes the words of George Orwell in Paragraph 1 to __________.

A.describe the poor situation of the homeless in 1933.

B.emphasize the large number of the rough sleepers.

C.unveil the difficulty of solving the problem of the homeless.

D.introduce the current problem of homelessness in the rich world.

2.Which of the following is the main reason for rising number of the homeless?

A.prosperity of the rich world. B.generosity towards the homeless.

C.outrageous housing cost. D.privatization of the public housing.

3.Which of the following is Not True, according to this passage?

A.In Finland and Singapore, the number of the homeless was reduced by building more public housing and apartments.

B.Greece prioritized offering tough love over giving money directly to the beggars to comfort them.

C.NIMBYist supported the government to abolish the inappropriate housing rules and make building more houses easier.

D.British government’s cutting the rent subsidies for the poor contributes to the increasing number of the rough sleepers.

4.What is the main idea of the passage?

A.Reasons for the rising homeless in the rich world.

B.Ways to cut homelessness in the world’s priciest cities.

C.Different reaction of different countries towards the homeless.

D.Comparison of the housing cost in impoverished and rich countries.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题