Quote:
Originally Posted by Ark2
How so? The belief that giving someone a home without having earned it and without any conditions placed upon it should be questioned shows you what, exactly? Let's be honest here: you could have put together a well thought out post, but instead you chose to be glib and lay on the hyperbole. Don't try to back track now. Why do you feel that some people should simply be given something for nothing while others have to work hard for very same thing? I'm not trying to be closed minded, but so far you have offered nothing but nonsense and condescension. Perhaps that is all you have to offer?
|
Fair enough, the Cole's notes of my opinion on this:
You have a person, likely with mental illness, and also likely with an addiction problem. You can have all the free programs in the world designed to help this person, but a large portion of these people will never seek out help.
Often they engage in crime to feed their addictions, and there is a whole other class of people (the drug dealers etc) that are part of the economy of the lifestyle many homeless people bring.
These people are costing all of us money in two ways. They don't contribute to the economy, and they drain it by the existence of shelters, police officers, victims of crime, insurance claims for crime etc.
I think we can agree throwing money at a lot of the programs we have doesn't do much to solve the root of the issue, but only serves to keep these people alive (shelters, soup kitchens etc).
So if we can spend $X of government funds to keep Y% off of the street, and put them in an environment where self esteem and pride are restored, and a smaller yet Z% seek help and treat their mental illness and addiction problems, we very well might save more than the initial $X spent when you look at the long term life cycle of the project.
A native reserve is a pretty good example of what can happen when you have kids growing up in bad conditions to addict parents, rinse, repeat. People don't find their way out of these things easily, the cycle will continue. If you spend a ton of money in a way that will actually inspire major change in a generation, you set yourself up for a ton of savings in the future.
Imagine the property values of the NE side of downtown if it wasn't crawling with zombie hobos? How many less CPS would we need to chase these guys around all day? How much less prison space? How much would they be able to contribute to the GDP? What could we do with the lands currently used for our massive abomination of a homeless shelter and where could the funds used to operate it be better spent?
Forget the human aspect, the money alone makes it worth giving some new approaches a try.
You and I who grew up in good houses without mental illness are perfectly capable of going to work to pay for our houses, so we should continue to do so and just be glad we live in a city/country that is trying to address the problem.