“We have the money to fix the problem, we really just don’t want to.”
Everyone always says homelessness is a complicated issue due to addiction and mental health and then that’s it. full stop. in many peoples heads those TWO groups are the ONLY groups that make up the homeless population. but after volunteering I know better. you have students, you have women escaping domestic abuse, you have the elderly who can no longer afford rent, you have kids who are LGBTQ+ that have been disowned by their families, you have refugees, and you have people who simply lost their jobs and fell through the cracks.
allowing students to sleep in their cars is not a solution. it’s another band aid applied to a massive gaping wound. And this isn’t just an America issue, several countries are guilty of band aid “solutions”. I mean hell here in Canada the government is talking about investing $1billion into AI for fucks sake. That $1billion could be better served in providing people with homes. There’s never any long term planning here, always short term “solutions”. Wouldn’t it be advantageous to governments to ensure people have homes in order to get them back into the workforce thus paying taxes.
Call me a heart on the sleeve soft liberal all you want but I’m of the firm belief that EVERYONE deserves and has the right to a home and food and if they can’t provide either of those things for themselves than we as a society, as a community, need to provide it for them. And I firmly believe that the majority of our society feel the same and wouldn’t mind their tax dollars going towards that. It’s just that the powers that be don’t want that.
One of the most humane solutions is also the most economically efficient. Early intervention programs like rent/utility assistance are significantly cheaper in the long run than trying to rehabilitate people who have already lost everything and have a litany of health issues because of it. If conservatives really want to save money, they should be embracing “an ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure.” Instead, they’re stuck in wanting to SEE the desperation before even considering helping. Safety nets are major economic stimulus in the long run because it’s much easier to attempt entrepeneurship if you aren’t making a life and death gamble. But something tells me the currently wealthy know this and don’t want competition popping up.
Then of course we also need to fix affordability issues, because unaffordable necessities put everyone at risk.
My point is that even if you mostly just care about efficient government and economic growth, you should still come to similar conclusions as “bleeding heart liberals.” Conservatives don’t come to those conclusions not by economic arguments, but because they fail to see the merit of collective problem solving. They want to have their own little castle with all their stuff that they can defend under penalty of death. We pretend the argument is about feasability and cost effectiveness, but the real issue is that they don’t think that any proposal that would take anything from them or require giving is an option. That’s why you see the economically destitute and ultra wealthy in an unholy alliance. Both of those groups are prone to wanting to circle the wagons and consider only the wellbeing of people in their little circle – the poor out of desperation, and the wealthy out of possessiveness. Everyone not in their little circle is someone else’s problem.
it’s not politically viable though. even liberal voters will revolt at this because it is ‘unfair’ or seem as rewarding laziness.
I’ve seen liberal voters only revolt when it’s in their back yard.
“I want to help house the homeless, but I don’t want to see them.”
i live in boston area. every single person here is like this. they love the homeless, but if they have to see them in public the sudden they start talking about how they need to be ‘removed’ because it makes them feel uncomfortable.
same with schools, housing, healthcare. they support it, until it affects them. Then they are against it.
anf i you say you are for it, they call you evil and heartless and inconsiderate of ‘real people who work for a living’. because homeless people aren’t real people if they don’t have six figure office jobs.
NYMBYs is why politicians don’t have the balls to do anything progressive. Unless you have a wide swelling of support, which thanks to our two party system we never will, Democrats are often stuck keeping the status quo.
most democrats benefit from the status quo and that’s why they want it.
the democrat base is wealthy educated professionals who are making a killing in this economy. it’s not working-class people.
WHY are Less people Going to College?
they can’t afford it and a college education no longer guarantees you a good wage outside of very specialized and difficult fields of study. also fewer and fewer people are prepared for college, as our secondary and primary education systems have gotten worse.
in the 1990s you could major in English from a cheap state school and walk off to a 40K job. You maybe had 5-10K in college debt. in the 2020s you major in English from a top tier school and you’re lucky to get a job that pays you 30K a year, if you can find one at all. Your debt is more like 20-40K. This is pretty much true of other majors as well, even basic technical ones.
Meanwhile the COL from the 90s has tripled or quadrupled. So your purchasing power is even effectively been dropped to like 1/6 of what it was in the 90s.
My no name company hires data entry workers for about 45K to start. We only hire people from top tier universities with specialized degrees, and we have an over abundance of applicants, that’s why we can be so picky. Our mid tier employes have to have Masters degrees from top 10 uni and are only making 50-60K to start. if you went to a state university we throw your resume in the trash.
