There have been a few success stories among the homeless in the 10 years or so since Americans first recognized that, besides discharged mental patients and vagrants addicted to alcohol and other drugs, thousands of their fellow citizens were living on the streets because of economic circumstances beyond their control.

Jack's story, in many ways, is typical--except that it has a happy ending.

Unable to find work in the Midwest where he grew up, Jack heard about jobs in Colorado. On the way there, his old car broke down and he finished the trip by hitchhiking. Finally, he was dropped off at the bus station in Denver.

"I had $2 and some change in my pocket. I was in a position in my life that I'd never been in before: I had no idea what to do," said Jack, who wouldn't give his last name because he doesn't want fellow workers to know about his past.

"I prayed that night, I'll tell you," he recalled. Then, in a lottery for limited space, he won a bed--and a new start--in a shelter called Samaritan House.

The shelter's employment program helped steer him into temporary work moving furniture while he looked for a job with a future. Samaritan House helped him save money, too, through budget counseling and by allowing him to stay on after he began earning money.

These days, Jack has his own apartment. He is shopping for furniture. He is a manager at a fast-food restaurant. Now, Kathy Rembert at Samaritan House said, "he calls me when he has openings."

At the same time, there have been setbacks, even tragedies. Last November in Boston, a war veteran got off the streets and into a nursing home--after his frostbitten hands and feet had to be amputated.

The problem of homelessness is visible on the streets of every major city and hidden in the country in shacks without heat or plumbing. It persists after billions of dollars have been spent on shelters and emergency aid, after polls have shown that Americans want an urgent response from the government.

President Bush has called homelessness a national tragedy.

After years in which advocates for the homeless accused the government of indifference, the Bush Administration has pressed for full financing of programs under the Stewart B. McKinney Act, the main homeless-aid effort, which Congress passed in 1987, and has proposed other ways of reaching out to homeless mental patients, alcoholics and other addicts.