Homelessness in the US is inhumane. We all need to give more money. We need more shelters, more beds, more and more…
But the picture is far more complicated. The statistics don’t exactly support the Socialist demand. The US has a fairly low homeless rate when compared globally to wealthy nations, at roughly .17%. For example, UK’s rate is .38%, Australia’s is .43%, France is .21%, Luxemburg is .28%, New Zealand is .94% and The Netherlands is .19% – while Hungary is .1% and Poland is .08%.
In addition, according to endhomelessness.org, only 81% of the available beds in the US are used by the homeless. So building more shelters would not seem to be the answer. It is like curing the stuffy nose when the disease is cancer.
Statistically; 26% of sheltered homeless people had severe mental illness, 35% had substance abuse issues, in 2010, 1.593 million people ‘experienced’ homelessness, however only 123,800 were considered chronic homeless. Experiencing homelessness is not the same as living on the streets, it includes those who were forced to leave their homes and may have moved in with family or friends temporarily until they could get their life back on track.
The numbers are difficult to actually tabulate, and mitigation for the chronic is wholly different than the transitional. Solutions are rarely so simplistic as – more.
The statistical numbers include illegals who come to the US through our borders, unaccompanied children, and women with no work skills. The states with the highest homeless rate include; DC, New York, California, Florida and Texas. Interestingly, these rates do not correlate to the states with the highest poverty rate, however they do correlate with the states having the highest rate of illegal immigrants.
It is estimated that roughly 39% of all homeless are children under the age of 18. The greatest cause would be a father who has deserted his family. And the secondary cause is illegal immigration. Period.
Therefore, the major ‘cause’s’ of homelessness can be identified as resulting from the abandonment of a father, severe mental illness, illegal immigration, and substance abuse. Tackling those problems will help to erase the disease. Just building more shelters is like the adage; “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
If our current shelters have a 19% vacancy rate, building more is obviously not the solution. Stopping illegal immigration – providing mental healthcare – tackling substance abuse promulgated by doctors and Big Pharma – and teaching abandoning dads (of all colors) the motto; stay or pay – will have the largest impact on homelessness.
Raising the minimum wage is useless because it doesn’t even remotely represent the cause of the problem. My youngest son has a roommate… that’s not a negative. It doesn’t mean he deserves a 2 bedroom apartment solo because he doesn’t make enough. It doesn’t mean we should subsidize all those who want a 2 bedroom apartment but can’t afford one… ?
Trump’s plan to reduce illegal immigration and reverse opioid abuse reflects a true understanding of the problem and offers a cure for the disease instead of a band-aide for the cancer. The issue with abandonment is delicate as it is considered racist. But the statistics substantiate the problem: 57.6%-72% of black children are raised by a single parent (statistics vary widely based on MSM vs not MSM). If we continue to deny, qualify, justify, or ignore that statistic, then we won’t change it. It will haunt us with all the sub statistics that it creates, including homelessness.
But for those who cry for the wealthy to shell out more money to give more freebies, to spend more, well, they have missed the point. There is no such thing as equality, it never has and never will exist. And while the US has a very low rate of homelessness compared to its European and Australian buddies, the US has been unjustly and unwisely attacked for not being perfect.
And while those that demand more charity also seem to be quick to note they haven’t any to give, the point is further defeated and seems more of a Socialist/Communist desire, albeit an altruistic one.
Humanism isn’t about building an ever bigger welfare system, humanism is giving people the desire to produce, the means to produce, and the integrity of self sufficiency and responsibility.
People who look to government instead of God to solve all their material or social problems are looking to a false god. Hans Herman Hoppe made this point in the very title of his book, “Democracy –the God That Failed”.
Your highlighting here about homelessness is a good example. Another one is the minimum wage. Supposedly it is to help people live in a lifestyle that rich white leftists (aka “liberals”) think of as the bottom of the abyss of poverty. But all the minimum wage laws to is to create more poverty and more poor people. Reminds me of an old joke. To paraphrase it: Leftists must really do love the poor, they create so many of them!
Minimum wage laws remove from the available legal labor pool (aka “supply”) the people who are in most desperate need of it. It makes more people ineligible for low-end jobs.
Regulations and licensing do not protect the consumer. They keep potential competitors out of the market. This reduces the supply of possible choices for the consumer. That raises the price for the service and reduces the incentive for businesses already in the market to increase efficiency, or supplement with services.