Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilyclub
Most are homeless because they want to be. It's a lifestyle choice. There are already options out there that they tend to ignore. You can't force someone to a shelter or temporary housing, but you can move/arrest them when they are breaking the law.
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Very true. It is a choice, and it is a choice easily made because WE, not they, pay for it.
Perhaps, rather than thinking about compassion, we should be thinking about "tough love"--which I believe is really more compassionate than handing out freebies. As I've posted before I've asked my wife what the welfare system was in Thailand, and her reply "simple. If you don't work, you don't eat" has a lot of both wisdom and truth in it. Of course there are homeless people who are in the situation they're in because of mental illness, and they should receive treatment on our dime, but of the rest, how many would remain homeless if they had to choose between starving or actually working? Not many.
It has been done before. There were many homeless in America in the dust-bowl days of the 1930's. Not by choice; many forced off their land. Many gravitated toward the Hoovervilles that sprang up near the larger cities. I recall Dad talking about it: the government did what it could, instituting programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and other like programs which were essentially make-work programs providing minimal wages and basic accommodations for manual labor. But along with the pay and accommodations it gave these men a sense of self-worth; rather than begging or stealing they were getting paid for actually accomplishing something. They could have hung out in the Hoovervilles and eaten thin soup at various soup kitchens, but they didn't. The hardship suffered in the depression days gave birth to what we today call The Greatest Generation.
Are we really doing these homeless a favor by enabling them? Not really. I think the tough love route would have MUCH better results.