Why can't liberals solve homelessness?

[Cheese Sandwich]

Liberal Democrats run the local governments in most of the big cities but there are homeless people all over the place constantly being harassed by the police. They hang around the library all day or sit around fast food places. A lot of people are just totally unemployable on the capitalist labor market. How come these people aren't helped or given something meaningful to work on when the cities are obviously crumbling and it's clear there is enormous unmet human need and environmental need. Why can't liberals put it together?

[tonyt53]

1. One word - money. It takes money and most cities are struggling.

[upaloopa]

2. You are right. I just retired from county government in CA where I worked on homeless grants.

If we want to cure homelessness in this country we have to spend massive amounts of money.

There is not enough low income housing, not enough jobs and not enough services.

And I think one of our biggest problems is our attitude toward the poor.

[elleng]

27. How would a change in attitude solve the problems you mention,

not enough low income housing, not enough jobs and not enough services?

[upaloopa]

29. It would take more taxes to solve the homeless problem

The grants I worked on where federal grants and if we were to expand that people would need to change the attitude that homelessness is caused by character defects. People justify not helping by telling themselves that homeless people are 100% responsible for their plight.

[elleng]

30. Extremely difficult to change that attitude, imo.

[Cheese Sandwich]

7. That's weird because right next to the homelessness there are enormous piles of concentrated wealth

There are luxury condos and hotels going up all over the place. There seems to be a big trend of gentrification and rich people seem to be moving in to the cities right now. There almost seems to be a correlation. Like the more accumulated wealth and luxury condos you have then the more homelessness you see right outside the door. Might just be my perceptions though. I guess it also differs from place to place.

[EdwardBernays]

3. Because

People as a rule have no capacity to care about strangers... And so they don't prioritize helping strangers. As a result there's crap policies, no funding and general apathy.

[zipplewrath]

4. We have

The latest "movement" in homelessness is called "housing first". Basically it is the concept that the fastest way out of homelessness is to get them into a stable housing situation so that the rest of the issues can be worked. It is showing huge success where it is being used.

The population that can never be "helped" is the sort of "willfully" homeless. There are people that literally won't live in a permanent housing situation. Basically it is the mentally ill. This problem has less to do with homelessness than it does with our struggle with how to deal with certain kinds of mental illness.

[Cheese Sandwich]

13. Great now that the solution is known, how long until homelessness is solved in all these cities

where liberal Democrats are totally running the show? Shouldn't be more than a few years now that the solution is known, right?


If we're still asking this question in 5 years then I guess they haven't solved it.

[zipplewrath]

14. Or they don't "run the show".

The programs are being successful. Whether or not they can get funded is another thing. Often the funds for these come from federal programs, so you have to conform to their demands. And the "in flow" will always exist. The homeless can be helped, but it is not instantaneous. For one thing you often have to just FIND them since they often hide, frequently out of shame.

[Cheese Sandwich]

16. In some cities liberals do run the show, controlling the whole government.

Whether or not they can get funded is another thing.

The same cities are also the home to enormous concentrations of wealth and luxury. If liberal Democrats control the whole government in major cities like Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, etc.... for decades...and these cities are home to so much great wealth and luxury, then why is there still an army of unemployed homeless people hiding in the shadows. Why haven't they solved it?

I don't buy that we're broke when there are new luxury hotels and condos being built right next door. It wouldn't really cost that much to build a few motels for the homeless and give them a job planting trees or something.

[zipplewrath]

17. Doesn't mean they can access it.

Just because the wealth exists, doesn't mean the government can access it. The question you're really asking is why can't cities/states/governments form the kinds of social safety nets we see in Europe. The real answer is that it is politically unsustainable (we were coming close in the days of the Great Society programs) and complicated by the fact that we spend way too much on the defense department.

[Cheese Sandwich]

18. I don't buy any of this story. I think any major city has more that enough resources to open a

publicly owned landscaping business and put 50% of the homeless to work immediately. Any major city could open a few hotels and run them as businesses, and use the profits to help fund housing for the homeless. Liberals don't do this because it goes against their free market ideology. Liberals would rather spend a million dollars making people take classes on Microsoft Word and how to dress for job interviews instead of just hiring the people directly.

[zipplewrath]

19. Evidence?

First of all, "liberals" don't have a "free market ideology". As I said, "liberals" were building the Great Society on a different principal altogether. It is where "The Projects" came from. Public housing continues to exist to this day. Liberals built Social Security. Liberals build SNAP and WIC and are responsible for programs like workman's comp and unemployment insurance. They are responsible for Medicare and Medicaid.

But liberals don't run everything and they can't politically accomplish everything because of the 3rd way'ers and the GOP.

[Cheese Sandwich]

20. I thought that was the evidence. Cities run by liberals for decades but still have a lot

an ongoing big problem of people without any jobs or anywhere to live, not easily employable except for very temporary jobs, getting hassled by cops all the time, ending up in jail, dying early. What kind of evidence beyond that I don't have any more.

All those programs you named are like safety net programs. Even the housing first program you mentioned. It's designed to catch people when they fall through the cracks, which is great but it just seems like they aren't really going to solve the problem that led people to that point in the first place. It seems to me that homelessness is caused by poverty. These problems don't solve poverty, they administer it. Which I guess is better than nothing.

[zipplewrath]

21. SS created the (retired) middle class

These programs don't just administer it, the address the immediate symptoms and work to allow the people to escape. The underlying problem of an economic system that needs winners and losers and a lower middle class can't be solved at the city level.

[ghostsinthemachine]

5. The money goes to the wrong things

We spend a lot of money to homeless this and that's via all levels of govt and private charities, but none of it actually fixes anything, except keeping people employed.

I think that if we gave 10,000 dollars to every homeless person, it would solve a lot of problems. With an advocate to help them take care of the things that are keeping people homeless.
Pay off tickets
Buy transportation
Child support
Relocation
And other issues keeping people homeless. The money would be less probably. But now, none of that stuff is covered, but money is spent essentially on doing nothing.

BTW, I am homeless, been living in my car for the years and haven't received anything from any homeless whatever ever except the 175 cash aid and food stamps.
I've tried to contact my homeless charity here, one that gains press daily, and they won't even return my calls or emails. They just got a major multi million dollar grant.

[Cheese Sandwich]

12. Good point, there seems to be a hell of a lot of money sloshing through some of these privately run

shelters and other charity entities.

They have no real interest in getting people out of homelessness because they profit by administering it.

[Maedhros]

6. Homelessness is a by-product of the cutthroat capitalist system we use.

We can solve the problem, but we need to change the system.

[socialist_n_TN]

22. THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Short answer is because liberals support capitalism and capitalism will never be able to solve homelessness.

[guillaumeb]

8. What makes you think that the 1% who own the liberal politicians

wish to "solve" homelessness?

Capitalists need a certain number of poor people, both to remind those with a job that they could also be poor, and also to depress wages. So the homeless serve as a reminder to those with a home that things could be worse.

[Cheese Sandwich]

9. The capitalist solution to homelessness is probably to build more prisons.

They'll solve it by making it illegal to sleep outside.

[guillaumeb]

10. Agreed, but they should be private prisons to maximize profit opportunities. eom

[TheKentuckian]

11. It isn't allowed to be solved, the current housing market absolutely requires

the threat of homelessness to maintain artificial demand levels and to keep a high floor on pricing.

Most "liberals" don't want to actually end homelessness in this country, it would hurt the value of their largest investment too much and reduce income streams from investment and rental properties.

Nothing that removes the threat to the population can be allowed so the problem can not earnestly be dealt with.

[Phlem]

15. Because the Democratic party has been under the control of the Thirdway

for 30 + years.

Thirdway = fake liberals, not liberals

Neo-liberals = fake liberals, not liberals

It is just that simple.

[socialist_n_TN]

23. Well, there's a few on this thread that see the answer.........

Liberals support capitalism and capitalism needs homelessness.

[LWolf]

25. Yep. nt

[ChairmanAgnostic]

26. You folks are missing a major contributor to the problem.

mental illness.

Once Sir Ronald of Reaganstein took down most, if not all, funding for mental health, the poor dramatically increased in numbers, the homeless tripled, and the prisons became warehouses for those unable or unwilling to medicate and self treat. To make things worse, W decided that faith and prayer would be better than treatment and appropriate medications, so he compounded the problem.

Unfortunately, CLinton did nothing for the homeless or mentally ill. To the contrary, he made things worse with his welfare cuts, etc. Clinton was no friend to the middle or lower classes. I hope his spouse will be different, but I have my doubts.

[jonno99]

28. It might helpful to understand who they are...

http://www.futureinhumanity.org/homeless-facts/