Brother, Can You Spare a Voucher?

On Christmas morning a nearly frozen John Steward crawled out from the cardboard box across the street from Columbia University. He has lived there for two years, but because it's not a valid address, he can't collect welfare. The lone nickel inside his coat pocket would hardly get him breakfast. But Steward wasn't worried. While he was panhandling for spare change the day before on upper Broadway in Manhattan, someone handed him a booklet of vouchers good for a dollar's worth of food at any of seven local stores. Trading them in for a bagel and coffee at a nearby deli,...

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