Some programs to help homeless are just a waste
I strongly recommend that people read “The Tragedy of American Compassion” to get a more detailed understanding of what I say below.
There are four causes of homelessness, three of which are: substance abuse and mental defect, both of which prevent a person from holding a job that would enable him to afford decent housing, and life upset (loss of job, high medical expenses or incapacitation).
The first two are bad candidates for the cheap housing response because they can’t or won’t maintain the properties or stay in them. People who treat substance abusers know that absent an acknowledgment of their situation and a desire to correct it, substance abusers cannot be cured. As much as people in the business would have us believe otherwise, mental illness also is rarely curable.
The third is the group that most of the politicians point to as the reason for providing such housing and some of these may actually be helped by it. However, one has to look to the cause of their situation: How many of them didn’t pay attention in school and never learned the skills necessary in our information-age society to earn enough to afford decent housing and set aside sufficient savings or pay for adequate health insurance?
Government programs are a poor choice because they can’t discriminate between those who really want to cease being homeless and those who don’t.
Programs proposed to help the homeless (free or low cost housing, free food, ignoring the laws about obstructing public property, failure to prosecute for destruction of private property) have led to the fourth cause of homelessness: bums — people who have made the rational decision to not get saddled with a job in order to pay rent. They’d rather live in tents on property they have converted for their own use.
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By trying to ease the lives of the other three categories, we make it more desirable for this fourth one. Does anyone bother to find out why the people counted in the homeless census are in that situation or where they are from?
Someone who was in a position to know told me that every summer, the number of people living on the beaches of Kauai balloons as mainland college students fly to Hawaii to spend their free time in paradise. Should we be spending our hard-earned tax dollars supporting them?
The homeless are a detriment to our society. They leave trash, needles and excrement spread out over the ground. The crime column in the newspaper is replete with crimes committed by persons “of no local address.” They destroy private property by stomping and laying in the landscaping. They deface property: See the graffiti they left behind on the Smith-Beretania Park’s wall before the police finally rousted them.
Commentary on the homeless exists as far back as the founding years of our country. The homeless will always exist. While we can try to help them, we must realize some programs work and others simply are a waste of resources.
Andrew Rothstein has been a real estate appraiser in Hawaii for over 40 years; he served on the Downtown Neighborhood Board from 1988 to 1994.
12 responses to “Some programs to help homeless are just a waste”
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Many homeless are there by choice. Some cannot abide by shelter simple rules.
Like no sex, no smoking, no alcohol, no swearing, prayer hour, no pets, curfew, lights out at 8:00 p.m.
A nonsense editorial. It adds nothing to what we already know and suggests no new solutions.
How do the editors screen island voices?
Well, first they see if the person is an islander, then check for voice. Assuming both, it’s a go.
What do you mean “how” do they screen? It’s an opinion window for Joe Public, a rare and good thing. Should this guy have been screened for “right thinking”? Unfortunately, the SA and most liberal media already do that.
I thought Mr. Rothstein covered the main talking points of what we have been saying in comments to the SA homeless articles. Stop giving resources to the “bums” and figure a way out to give to those that are trying to re-enter society.
“American compassion” is largely Christian-based; i.e., we are judged by how we treat the least among us. No matter what the reason, we should not be indifferent to others’ suffering.
“we should not be indifferent to others’ suffering”…If the “suffering” is self-imposed due to a lack of “give a ***t or the “Woe is me nobody is doing anything for me!” mentality, then I am indifferent and un-compassionate to it.
Christian-based compassion would include continued interaction and personalized support for an individual. This is the opposite of the check-based, intentionally impersonal government “solutions”.
I went “houseless” when I was falsely arrested by HPD and “evicted” by a judge as a condition for bail. The cop got fired. Staying at the Hilton Lagoon was cool, until the weather turned chilly. I only received free money from taxpayers for five months so not that big of a deal? The writer has never spent a moment of his life homeless and thus, speaks not of what he knows.
I did meet some of those “college kids” that come to Hawaii for “free money”. They did NOT pass the screening process with “the Psychologist”.
I passed “the test” easily. The “trauma” of being falsely arrested by HPD and suddenly becoming a “street person” was traumatic.
And while I had that “free time”, I got Family Court to upgrade the TRO paperwork from one page to EIGHT pages. “You are VERY welcome”!
Wow, finally a common sense interpretation of our so called homeless problem. Of course the same people will complain it’s not compassionate or cruel, pick any negative adjective and it will be used. It does not deny the truth that the problem is with the people who are being helped, don’t want it any other way. Good life for free, no rules, no responsibilities.
Is there really a civilized solution to end this? We will need to be compassionate with 2, somewhat compassionate with 3, weed out 1&4, and put them to work and/or be uncivilized with them. Let’s do it.