What To Do With The Homeless?

Dean Esmay over at Dean's World has posted an interesting article and corresponding question. The article is about a plan in Columbus, OH to spend approximately $1000 per homeless person to give the chronically homeless a nice place to live. Dean isn't questioning the idea of helping the homeless, he just questions the way of disclosing the costs. As he points out, $1000 per head doesn't really tell us the cost. How many homeless are there?

The discussion surrounding the question is excellent, as it usually is over there, but I'm left with another quandry. Of the 10% of the homeless that are chronically homeless there is a segment that is homeless due to factors beyond their control: mental illness being the most common. And I absolutely agree with helping those folks. Through no choice of their own they ended up in a terrible situation. If you told me it would cost $10,000 per person to better serve them, I would have no problem. It is the other large group of hardcore homeless, the drug addicts and alcholics - the ones who chose the prediciment - that I have no desire to help.

I've heard all the arguments for why we should help the addicted: the drug is too powerful, they have some kind of mental illness that causes them to make poor decisions, it's their parent's fault, etc. I know a member of the hardcore drug-abusing homeless. He has absolutely no interest in reforming or becoming a viable member of society. He has robbed us blind and taken advantage of every kind gesture we have offered. If you were to provide him with a free to low-cost apartment, as proposed here, all that you would be doing is to create another perpetually dependent leech on society. He drains enough away as it is, giving him more is not going to be more cost effective or beneficial.

The problem is that most of the drug associated hardcore homeless are undesiring of putting in a day's work. They wouldn't want to work to pay their rent. They wouldn't want to work to buy food. They wouldn't want to work to clean their home, to do basic upkeep, or even to prepare food. For many of them, unless it comes with a poptop or can be consumed with a flick of the Bic they are completely and totally uninterested. If it's free, and their body is craving for it, they might partake. But they will only expend energy and resources on their chosen vice.

Yes, I'm conservative. Yes, I get ticked off by people that I perceive as not being willing to give an honest day's labor. But I'm also a softy when approached with a personal story. It is much more difficult to say "no" when the beggar is standing in front of me crying. But I am so thouroughly disgusted and appalled by the complete lack of, well, everything - morals, ambition, conscience - that I have actually gotten to the point of refusing help or shelter, even when the temperature is dipping into the freezing range. I can no longer (and haven't been able to for quite a while now) justify helping those who will not put forth even a shred of effort to help themselves.

For those who are mentally ill and incapable of taking care of themselves, I really think that the closing of the state run institutions was a terrible tragedy. Yes, the conditions were sometimes bad. Yes, there were some people there who probably shouldn't have been there. But for many, the institutions were the best alternative available. And they should still be available. For those who required their services, they were, and still are, the only viable option for keeping them off the streets. Bringing back the institutions would help a large part of the chronic homeless problem, and would help them in a positive way. I'll grant that there is a basis for debating who should be in the institutions and the manner in which they are run, but I don't really believe that there is much room for debating their need. Their elimination eradicated one set of problems, but created a whole set of other problems which have left the patients in a much worse condition than when they were institutionalized. We've tried it both ways. The no institution method isn't working. It's time to start helping these people again.

The only real quandry I see is what to do with the people who are chronically homeless by choice, but who are sincere in wanting to change for the better. I'm not so callous as to believe that they don't exist. They do. And they deserve a helping hand from society. We should never completely shut anyone out. But how do we address them and seperate them from the hardcore, unrepentent, homeless?

I don't think that using completion of a rehab program is sufficient enough as many of the hardcore homeless will complete a program during the winter if they believe that it will keep them warm and out of the snow. Demonstation of a work ethic might be one method, but there is also truth to the difficulty associated with a homeless person getting that first job to begin with. So how do we do this?

I think that this is where the private sector can come in to help. What's going to be needed, I think, is one-on-one interaction. Someone will need to be there to help the homeless person through an assessment, to help them with finding a job, to help with keeping the job, and to help with fighting the temptation to relapse. None of this will be easy and it is beyond the scope of anything short of a monsterous public bureacracy. I think that the private sector would be much better able to shape individualized programs, to provide the crucial one-on-one interaction, to make the necessary business world contacts.

I would gladly and willingly pay $1000 or more per qualified homeless person to either help them through mental health services and institutions or through a screened private program. Fund it through a combination of stringless federal grants and private donations. This, I believe, could be legitimately defined as a common public good.

What I cannot support, however, is a plan that gives an apartment, food, job placement assistance, or anything to the person who has no interest in becoming a productive member of society for any time period longer than required to obtain a twelve pack of beer or a crack rock. I can find no level of sympathy that makes me believe that it is a good idea to give to someone who is simply going to abuse the help and use as a way of enabling their destructive habits. I just can't.

I will go out of my way to help my fellow man who truly wants and/or requires help. I will not lift a finger to help a leech.