I think the federal government is in a position to create a network of homeless shelters.
Already, during the coldest months, they make half-empty armories, etc. available.
But too much is left to local politicians, who have their own agendas, some to sweep the poor away, some to deal with children only, or the aged only.
I think homeless shelters are essentaially a band-aid treatment. Many if not most people are homeless for reasons other than the strictly economic. Mental illneses, drug addiction, other problems and simple choice create homelessness.
While having people freeze to death on the street is not a way to solve these problems there is not an inexhaustible supply of money, and there are perhaps better places to spend the money than simply giving people something in the hope the problem will no longer be visible.
I believe and ran on the position that it is incumbent on the government to ensure that:
I think having people freeze in the street is the PERFECT solution for the problem.
I have to take that back. If we did away with homeless shelters some of them would migrate to the south. Already enough homeless people wandering around Dallas.
I suppose if you can find to apply interstate commerce you could make a case for it.
Marc
Matt - I hope you are having a great Christmas.
I can feel the warmth of the season permeating this discussion can’t you?
All I can say is that I hope some people get some coal in their stockings.
Badtz - I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that you aren’t posting from an alley or your car. I bet you are warm and cozy wherever you are in Dallas. You might not even have a clue what real cold is. My furnace is running because it’s -17 here.
I consider myself fortunate to be able to bitch about the high cost of heating fuel because there are way too many people out there who haven’t got a home to heat tonight. I bet they are thankful just to have somewhere warm to sleep.
Merry Christmas.
We have a few things going on here in the States which influence the Homeless dramatically.
One is the increasing rift between the haves and the have-nots. The gap between those making 6 figures a year and those working for the low 5 is becoming enormous. Unfortunately, the economy is starting to favor those in the 6 figure range.
The second is that the majority of the Homeless are mentally ill and the once well funded State and Federal mental institutions and therapy clinics are still working on budgets from the late 70s, while privately funded therapy clinics cater to those who can afford expensive treatments.
The government fights adequate funding to the institutions with a resolve similar to their reluctance to provide adequate budgets for schools. Though there is ample money for parks, museums, saving wild lands, corporate welfare for car companies, Walmart, McD, Burger King and so on.
Most homeless don’t vote, so the politicos ignore them.
I mean, look at the over all mentality of the officials who could help. Every time there is an economic crunch, the first things to lose funding are the social programs, the hospitals, fire departments, police departments and schools. In New York City, the current mayor cut the funds to the Trauma Systems and staffing of the major hospitals, which caused staff to quit and indirectly probably killed people who needed help from services no longer easily available.
In view of such governing mentalities, the Homeless do not have all that much of a chance of getting off of the streets.
Merry Christmas my ass.
Nice how “the season of giving” in this thread equates to “let’s take from the have’s.”
Always an easy solution, isn’t there? That’s right, we just haven’t given the poor enough yet. Come on, comrade, give until it hurts.
Hope to see you during Hate Week. Forget Goldstein, we’ve got millionares.
Hey, you’re right! Let’s do it the other way around instead. Let’s have a season of giving where we shake down the homeless for their second-hand blankets. That way Cosco can make a killing recycling them into bulk toilet paper. Yeah, and let’s force people raising kids on minimum wage to give their kids’ presents to the Cheney family. I hear they lost a few mill on the stock market recently and it’s kinda spoiling their holiday cheer. While we’re at it, let’s kick Tiny Tim out onto the street. And let’s downsize over at Scrooge and Marley Co.: some Chinese chick can do Bob Cratchet’s job for a bowl of rice.
"Always an easy solution, isn’t there? That’s right, we just haven’t given the poor enough yet. Come on, comrade, give until it hurts."
Hey, way to go anyrandlover. Keep on pointing the finger at all of those commies. Like that Christ guy with all his talk about brotherly love. What a pinko! Good thing they crucified the bastard. And what about all those socialist freaks in the 18th century who thought a democracy was based on equality. Man, they sure needed a good talking to.
Ah well. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a visit from Scrooge. Many returns of the day, aynrandlover. Hey, and don’t let the Ghost of Christmas Future bite you on the ass.
Madenstam, I think the point she was trying to make is that people should give, not rely on the goverment to give. Btw, feeling guilty does not make you a better person than someone who doesen’t.
Well, to address the OP, I don’t think we need yet another federal program. I mean, [heavy sarcasm] look at the good job they’re doing on all the other tasks we, the People, have given them. Shucks, let’s put one more task on their plate!
I don’t know what to do about the “homeless people” problem, but I really don’t think handing it over to the Feds is going to help. How far can we go, expecting the Gummint to hold our hand and clean the toilets and make everything safe for us?
Homeless people are on the street for a reason; just giving them shelter from the elements isn’t going to fix what’s wrong.
And besides the inevitable bureaucratic headaches that come with any federal agency running things, I can see big practical problems. Where are you going to put these shelters, for one thing? What size city is going to be required to have them? Population of more than–what, 1,000? 2,000? 30,000? Cities can get mighty creative with their numbers, if their census shows that they’re borderline. “If we had 500 fewer residents, we wouldn’t have to have a homeless shelter. Hmm…”
Also, not many downtowns have suitable facilities available for use by the homeless. Are they going to be required to build them? Most downtowns are pretty crowded–are they supposed to knock down an office building to make room for a federal homeless shelter? And you certainly can’t put them out in the 'burbs–the NIMBY syndrome will kick in powerfully, from the first mention in the local papers.
Asmodean, I think I understood exactly what aynrandlover meant. If his point was that charity is a better alternative than the welfare state, saying “Haven’t we already given the poor enough” is a strange way of making it. Moreover, charity also consists in “haves” giving to “have-nots.” (This is not at all to say that I favor charity as an alternative to effective and democratic social welfare policies. Only that I recognize this view as distinct from the purer brand of Scroogery that aynrandlover, in this instance, expressed.) Finally, guilt’s got nothing to do with anything I said.
I personally give free, one-way Greyhound tickets to Dallas to homeless people.
I tell them, in glowing terms,of the mild winters and southern hospitality.
Say “hi” to Beetle and his old lady for me, would ya?
Peace,
mangeorge
Mandelstam if your statement had nothing to do with being guilty then it probably wasent directed at you:) I probably should have made that clearer.
Nah, not communism. Just a little distopian reference. Re 1984. You know the drill: room 101.
Thanks, Asmodean. That’s exactly what I meant 
Sorta.
[sub]and I am a “he” 
shhhh :D[/sub]
More or less, I am agreeing with other posters…handouts aren’t going to fix the problem. The spirit of Christmas is giving, not taking. I give when I can.
Mand, it’s not about “doing it the other way around,” it’s about doing it right in the first place and not being a Robin Hood.
Amazing how compassion nowadays always comes from the barrel of the government’s gun.
We are all agreed that poverty and homelessness suck. We can agree that those who cannot help themselves, such as the mentally ill, and those who are in direst need, such as women with children, need help. But what am I to make of being shaken down for money by three homeless guys at the ATM on Christmas Eve? I work hard for what I have. I am not rich; hell, I can’t even afford to buy a car. So why am I supposed to feel guilty because I am not homeless and on the streets? And I sure don’t need to have three guys lying on the floor of the ATM (which is supposed to be locked so only card-holders can get in) threaten me into giving them money.
Nobody has handed me a damn thing. I put myself through college by working part-time jobs and full-time in the summers. I didn’t just fall into a job by luck; I worked hard and I earned it. That’s right, comrades, I ** work** for a living!
You want to end homelessness? Put the insane into institutions, finance job training and temporary housing for those who want to work, and provide emergency shelter for women and children fleeing abuse. We need to find a way of providing low-cost housing for the working poor. anyone who wants to work and provide for themselves should be encouraged and helped as much as possible.
But not one penny for lazy, shiftless men who would rather live off of others than work for a living.
It’s my considered opinion that goboy said the only sensible things in this thread so far. I would just add:
. . . and the more it can be done through private action, or even local- and state-level action, rather than Federal action, the better it will be for all involved. IMHO.
A few weeks back, I was in the Newrk NJ, international airport, waiting for a flight. My connecting flight was delayed due to a mechanical problem, and took some time for the mechanics to fix. At any rate, a went to the snack bar for a cup of coffee, and was met by a “homeless” man-he told me that he had been living at the airport for the past 3 years. This guy appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and had no obvious disabilities. he was neatly dressed, and was wearing a new pair of NIKE sneakers. I did not question him about why he chose this life, but he did tell me that most of the food stands in the airport would give him regular free meals. How he managed to do laundry, I have no idea. But consider this-this guy manages to live without working-granted it is not an ATTRACTIVE lifestyle (to me at any rate), yet he appeared to be in no danger of starvation. I certainly would not give such a person any money-he appeared to have chosen this lifestyle himself. I guess that given the general affluence in the USA, some people can get by quite well by being “homeless”-anybody care to respond?
aynrandlover [hereafter ARL], I do understand where you are coming from; and where Goboy is coming from when he says that he worked hard to pull himself up by his bootstraps so others should too. But there are a number of things we have to get straight if we’re really going to debate this kind of issue without any misunderstandings.
1). Actually, ARL, there is big element of robbing from the poor to give to the rich. Taxpayers subsidize the Dick Cheneys of the world everytime that we bail out a savings and loan that has earned them huge profits; or subsidize their tremendously lucrative speculations by bailing out stock market hedge funds; or allow their companies to evade paying taxes (recently documented by the New York Times); or build giant stadiums at public expense for the enhanced profitability of sports/entertainment concerns that they own and we don’t. If any of this is news to you, you might want to take a look at Time Magazine’s award-winning series on corporate welfare. (I think it was published in 1997; does anyone have a link handy?)
2). Goboy’s welcome endorsement of providing job training, emergency shelter, low-cost housing etc., is right on. But, like any other social programs, these cost money and therefore piss off taxpayers. Unfortunately what taxpayers don’t realize is that b/c of the corporate welfare cited above, their resentment is part of a vicious cycle. Because the very rich feed off of the middle-class and working poor, the middle-class and working-poor feel too overtaxed to help the very poor and indigent to help themselves. Ironically, Goboy illustrates the way this cycle works himself when he endorses the kind of programs that Ralph Nader supports but follows up with: “But not one penny for lazy, shiftless men who would rather live off of others than work for a living.”
Goboy, it’s not as though welfare fraud doesn’t exist. But you’re much more likely to find a major expose of welfare fraud than you are to see an in-depth report of the millions of Americans who are working hard and still unable to afford decent housing, healthcare, sometimes even decent food. Sensationalistic welfare fraud gets obsessively covered by the 6:00 news whereas boring old poverty and hunger do not. Social programs can be designed so as not to encourage laziness. But what we have today is a Catch-22: people are so brainwashed into believing that the typical beneficiary of a social program is a lazy fraud that, even though they see the wisdom of progressive social policies, they’re unwilling to fund them. Once again, this feeling of being ripped off by the poor is exacerbated by the fact that as every year goes by we are increasingly ripped off by the very rich. So we end up in a situation where we won’t pay for Head Start but we pay for jail (which costs more per year than sending someone to Yale!) Hence, further down the downward spiral: more resentment, more cynicism towards the government, more disaffection from politics, and (not incidentally) more wealth and power for Dick Cheney, et.al.
Not surprisingly this ends with people, like our very own grienspace advocating a return to whipping.
But, of course, that’s not how it works. The military budget is the single most unaccountable aspect of government spending; it just grows and grows even as less and less is spent on helping poorer people to help themselves. (Notice how despite all the military fat, there’s never enough money to pay ordinary soldiers a decent salary.)
I do realize, ARL, that you seem to think charity is the way to go for social progress rather than taxation. This would basically be (like whipping) a return to the nineteenth century. Historically, the problem with charity is that it leaves a huge amount of discretion in the hands of the donor. Church X agrees to give Citizen G. job training if she converts to Religion X and refrains from A,B,C and D (all of which Church X deems to be immoral). In other words, where charity is the only source of social welfare, it tends to be authoritarian, anti-democratic and paternalistic. There are some experiments being done right now to give taxpayer money to churches if they agree that the social services they provide will come with no strings attached. Early studies suggest that this is a very tricky thing indeed.
Happy Boxing Day to all!