Cobbins' fears are experienced daily by millions of homeless people across the country. By one estimate, 3.5 to 4 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are homeless in a given year. But the "official" counts grossly underestimate the actual number of homeless. Approximately 11 percent of the homeless are parents with children and 84 percent of these parents are women.

Homelessness has grown dramatically over the last 25 years. Between 1981 and 1989, the rate of homelessness tripled, rising from 5 to 15 per 10,000 population. Currently, homelessness in major U. S. cities such as Detroit and Los Angeles is increasing at a rate of 20 to 25 percent per year. And, as we go to press, the ranks of the homeless are being further swelled as the government throws Katrina evacuees into the street.

What is causing this epidemic of homelessness? The "experts" cite such factors as the lack of affordable housing, and the increase in poverty and unemployment. They point to the increasing incidence of domestic violence, drug abuse and teen pregnancy to explain the growing presence of women and children amongst the homeless.

Such explanations obscure the real cause of homelessness. It's true that the government cuts in housing subsidies and the wholesale destruction of public housing units to make way for condos have contributed to the problem. It's true that the wholesale dismantling of the welfare safety net over the past 25 years has helped push many into homelessness. But the real underlying cause of homelessness is the combination of a market economy and technology that allows production without human labor, cheapening the cost of the production of life and consequently, life itself.

This market economy is based on the idea that you work and use your wages to buy what you need. But with technology wiping out jobs, for millions there is no work. And the increasing unemployment drives down wages for those who do have jobs. Many of the homeless work and still can't afford housing.

The fact is, homelessness is simply the worst manifestation of a dying economic system. And because they are the living proof that the system is dying and needs to be replaced, the government seeks to hide and criminalize the homeless. Cities and towns across the country have passed laws making it a crime to panhandle or sleep in public spaces, or even to feed the homeless in public.

The homeless form the hard core of a rapidly growing new class of poor that literally has no place in the capitalist economy. Deprived of the means to acquire even the most basic necessities, the homeless vividly expose the utter bankruptcy and immorality of capitalism. Because they are essentially outside the system, their demands cannot be met by the market economy. Their demands for jobs, for housing, for life itself - which are being expressed in rallies and protests in cities throughout the country - are a challenge to the very foundation of the system. Their demands are in the end a call for a new kind of society: a cooperative society where the productive technology we have is used to guarantee that no one is homeless or hungry.

The stage is set for society to be transformed. But for that transformation to take place, those who are struggling must become conscious that they are really fighting for a new society. The key to building that consciousness is for the working class as a whole to take up the essential demand of the poor: distribution of society's wealth according to need, not ability to pay.