Three bodies covered in white sheets were lying curled up in the three arched entranceways, one in each section like plaster saints in altar niches.

I knew the bodies were alive because they were surrounded by a detritus of worldly goods: old clothes and odds and ends stuffed in supermarket carts. And even in the increasing affluence of New York's Upper West Side neighbourhood, the sight of sleeping homeless people on a summer night was nothing unusual.

But to see three together in that peculiar spiritual configuration was uncomfortable. More than uncomfortable: It was a reminder of the widening economic gaps in North American society.

The ``return'' of the homeless in New York City isn't a new story. For the past year and a half, the needy have grown visible again - begging for small change in the subway, holding doors open at banks and stores in the hope of extracting pennies from rushed shoppers.

Yet no one has quite explained why this is happening in the midst of the city's most prolonged and successful economic boom in decades.

The more curious story is that, unlike previous periods in city life, few New Yorkers seem bothered. Perhaps because the reappearance of in-your-face poverty has not been accompanied by an increase in crime.

Even in the poorest neighbourhoods, crime rates have been plunging - as they have in most American cities.

The fact that extreme poverty no longer carries with it an air of menace goes some way toward explaining the dangerous dissonance at work today. We know poverty hasn't disappeared, but improvements in economic indicators like unemployment and inflation offer the consolation that things are getting better for those worse off than we are.

The trouble is, it isn't completely true.

The U.S. is probably the richest nation in recorded history, but a federal government report released in Washington yesterday noted that the U.S. ranks 25th among 38 industrialized countries in infant mortality rates.

The report by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics pointed out that America's 70 million children under the age of 18 are better off than they were a decade ago. They are less likely to go hungry and less likely to fall prey to debilitating health problems.

Nevertheless child welfare problems, as the infant mortality rate suggests, continue to be endemic. More than 18 per cent of American children are living in poverty.

A similar tragedy is buried in general economic statistics. The gap between rich and poor in America is wider than at any time since the Depression, with the wealthiest 1 per cent of American households owning over 40 per cent of the wealth while 80 per cent own just 16 per cent.

Statistics can be misleading - and numbing. But so is the image of general, unalloyed prosperity.

Take the homeless problem. Analysts used to blame the lack of adequate facilities for the mentally ill and indigent individuals, who seemed to constitute the majority of homeless people in cities.

But that was before prosperity really hit - and drove rents to astronomical heights. Now there are families without adequate shelter. The lack of affordable housing has been identified as a major cause of homelessness in 23 out of 26 major American cities.

The low unemployment rate indicates there are plenty of jobs being filled, but it doesn't tell you how much they pay. In fact, U.S. workers' wages have gone up only 28 per cent in the past decade, compared to a 108 per cent increase in corporate profits.

Which explains some other troubling phenomena, such as the increase in requests for emergency food assistance.

Those who concentrate on the wealth gap when things seem to be going well are derided as doomsayers.

The dissonance is reflected in the American presidential race. The major candidates have handled income disparities gingerly, as if a mere mention of prosperity's dark side would be bad luck. Only Ralph Nader of the Green Party has focused on the issue.

But U.S. commentators warn that an increasingly anxious ``lower'' middle class could become as important to November's elections as the fabled ``soccer moms.'' Rising gas prices have hit them hardest and an economic slowdown could further revive their insecurities.

``What's going to happen when the bells stop ringing for all our countries?'' a worried President Bill Clinton confided to a senior Canadian politician at a private U.S. event earlier this year.

For the moment, no one has an answer.

Stephen Handelman's column appears every second Tuesday in The Star.

Copyright 1996-2000 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

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