60 Homelessness

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've worked in the "homeless" environment, both as a lawyer and as a doctor in E. Oakland, Harlem & S. Miami. There are about 100,000 hardcore, no solution street people out there. These are not able-bodied folks who are just down on their luck, the vast majority of these people can't do any jobs, and no amount of education or retraining is going to fix them. Blame Political Correctness for taking away the descriptive terms for the real problem population, words like "bums," "winos" & "panhandlers.” These aren't people you want to associate with outside a charitable capacity, and they need constant supervision just to eat.<br /><br />And how is it our public spaces get consumed by these people? Because Do-Gooders are under the misimpression that everyone is rational, competent & able to make logical decisions, and all the homeless need is a “home,” but a home is the last thing they need. Instead, many need to be put in mental health facilities but that costs big money. Alcoholics are the most expensive, and schizophrenics are the scariest, but the majority are just plain stupid: not drunks, not mentally ill, just incapable of doing anything productive, and certainly can't have any responsibility of any kind. Assisted living shelters is all that works for them.<br /><br />For folks who just need a job, a Jobs Program would be a far better investment than a mishmash of safety nets, charities, group homes, soup kitchens & the like, and there's no reason to mix competent people in with the rif-raf. Combine Housing Apps, like AirBnB, with some government assistance, and the couple folks just down on their luck can stay at my house.</p>