
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 7, 1990                   TAG: 9007100421
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MITCH SNYDER

MITCH SNYDER lived a troubled life. If the evidence of his suicide this week is to be believed, he died a troubled death. Snyder was a zealot; he reduced complex problems to simple questions of right and wrong. As Robert Hayes, founder of the National Coalition for the Homeless, put it: "Balance was not a great value to Mitch." But when Snyder focused his energies, he got results.

Though his public protests began during the Vietnam War when he met the Berrigan brothers in prison, Snyder became famous for his work for the homeless in Washington, D.C. He walked out on his family to serve street people. On the eve of the 1984 election, he forced the Reagan administration to donate a $6 million building to his Community for Creative Non-Violence.

At the same time, he was instrumental in the passage of Initiative 17, which provided shelter for anyone who needed it in Washington. Snyder was the subject of a favorable profile on "60 Minutes" and he was played by actor and activist Martin Sheen in a television movie.

At his best, Snyder made people recognize and confront the problems that were so clear to him. In these days of instant and fleeting celebrity, visibility is at least half the battle. Still, though few would argue with the rightness of his goal - that no one in America should be forced to live on the street - Snyder's tactics probably angered as many as they persuaded.

His main weapon was the hunger strike, an unsubtle form of political blackmail. Snyder combined it with a flair for publicity and street theatrics. In recent months, his vocal refusal to cooperate with census-takers at his shelter was blatantly counterproductive.

Perhaps that intransigence reflected the frustration that any zealot must eventually suffer when dealing with a world that refuses to change at the proper speed.

by CNB