FOR YE HAVE THE POOR ALWAYS WITH YOU...

As might be expected from the Clinton administration, a report from 12 federal agencies has concluded that homeless Americans need help -- and that help needs to come from the federal government. This, of course, is pretty much the solution to every problem, real or imagined, among liberal Democrats.

But take a time-machine trip back just seven years. In 1993, after Bill Clinton took office, the so-called homeless problem pretty much disappeared off the political radar screen. For the next seven years, the Clinton administration scarcely bothered with those individuals who, either by choice or because of circumstances beyond their control, were living on our urban streets or seeking food and warmth in a city shelter.

So now comes the federal report showing that most homeless people want to work, but it will take more government programs to find them jobs. One of the most surprising findings of the study was the fact that 55 percent of the 4,200 street people who were surveyed don't have health insurance. Which means that, on a percentage basis, as many homeless people have health coverage as working Americans who pay their own premiums and receive no government help.

There is no getting around the fact that there are homeless people and they have been on city streets throughout the Clinton administration. The challenge is to discover why some people choose such a rootless lifestyle and what might be done to prevent the causes that put others on the street.

Older generations will remember when hobos, tramps and down-and-out families would show up at the kitchen doors of homes all across America. In most cases, there would be someone at home who would find sandwiches or leftovers to share.

Nowadays, there is no one at home to answer the knocks of poor souls who might show up. Instead, those seeking handouts go to any number of privately funded agencies. They go to churches. And they go to government-sponsored agencies. As a matter of fact, there are nearly 12,000 programs across the country that specifically serve the homeless.

So why the sudden interest within the Clinton administration in the homeless? It's simple politics. The mayor of New York City has taken a fair but firm approach to that city's homeless: Find them jobs if they are able to work, arrest them if they have broken the law and give them medical attention if they are ill. But Mayor Giuliani wants to be the next U.S. senator from New York. So does Hillary Clinton. And the games begin. The mayor's attempts to address the homeless are characterized by Clinton supporters as heartless and cruel.

At least Mayor Giuliani has been doing something about the homeless. What have the Clintons been doing the past seven years?