What to do about the homeless
Living in Pacific Beach and working in Downtown San Diego has given me a lot of exposure to the underclass that occupies the streets of our cities. While some of them are raving lunatics without the capability to function in society, some are just victims of circumstance. The problem with homelessness in America is the lack of a social support network to protect them. In many cities they are the perfect prey for a lazy police officer who would rather harrass someone who is already separate from society than take any real chances with actual police work. While some homeless do cause crime, the majority just spend each day in a struggle to survive.
The other day I watched a great segment of the fantastic HBO show "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" in which the show followed this soccer team made up solely of homeless men from New York City. On this team there were a few different types of homeless, and all of them were quite tragic. The first one was just a young black man who had been working in a blue collar job at the World Trade Center and lost his job (and by extension, his home due to his lack of funds) on 9/11 when the towers came down. Another was a stereotypical New Yorker working in transit who had been traumatized when a little girl fell in front of his subway car, killing her. He walked away from his job, wife and 2 kids and spent 12 years living on the street and making no attempt to rebuild his shattered life. The other significant character was an aspiring artist (who was way past his prime) with a history of mental illness. Simply because of this opportunity to be a part of a team, two of those three were able to put the pieces of their life back together, and both of them attributed it SOLELY to the fact that they had a team to play on. While these men had an amazing opportunity to play a tournament in Austria, the subway operator was denied this chance and still was able to finally make that move off the streets. He began to forgive himself for the death of that little girl and regained the social abilities that are lost living on the street. If organizing soccer teams of homeless people can really do that much to help them get back on their feet, what else can be done?
What causes homelessness? Well, other than the obvious: greed...because if we were truly committed to giving everyone a fair shake in life, there would be no such thing as homelessness. The only people who'd be living on the streets would be junkies, and they would quickly be placed into rehabilitation programs if Americans were as socially responsible as the Dutch, Swedish or Norsk people. But we (Americans) are very greedy, complaining about taxes being too high when they're only at 25% for most people. Norweigan people pay 3x that amount and have remarkably little evidence of any social suffering. There are no visible homeless, few poor and basically no crime. This is because wealth is distributed more evenly, and that's one of our causes of homelessness, the income disparity. If you're living in San Diego, minimum wage will not afford you much of a place to live; and if you lose that job, you have no chance. It is a lot easier to stay off the streets when the cost of living isn't as high as NYC, SF, LA or SD, but it's still tough when 5% of the people cannot find work.
Where do the homeless come from? Many people think that the homeless are just junkies and alcoholics, but that's not entirely true. While many of them are, even more are just victims of circumstance. Very few of them are actually "homeless by choice", but they do exist. I know one homeless guy in Pacific Beach, Brian, who is one of those. He has a BA from San Diego State in English and is a very intelligent guy (more intellectual than all those frat boys my roommate hangs with) who worked as a physical therapist for the Navy. But one day he found religion and started to question the absurdity of life and the hell we've created for ourselves. So from that day, he stopped cutting his hair and beard and refused to work. It wasn't long before he was on the streets. But he doesn't seem to mind all that much, as he is free from the constant bombardment of rules and orders he had grown accustomed to in the Navy, School and at home growing up. But Brian is a rare case, the majority of homeless come from orphans, dropouts and victims (veterans included) of war.
So what is to be done to solve this problem? It's about as simple as it gets: tax those with homes to help those without. Say that $8,000,000 home in La Jolla that overlooks the ocean is purchased by an executive, he must then put an ADDITIONAL 10% of that purchase price ($800,000) to a fund that is used to help those without homes. After all, it's pretty much impossible to get a job when you have no fixed address, no phone, no clean clothes and no shower. Providing people with homes by using public money to pay off private owners to rent out their vacant places would be beneficial to the economy as well. Think about it. The people who are purchasing homes are already financially solvent, especially in California, and wouldn't be hurt too much by the 10% surcharge on a new home. While the middle class person would have to cut about 50k from their budget to maintain the same purchase cost, that 50k could provide housing for 10+ people for an entire year. Now imagine those people who purchase those 8000 square foot mansions on the water giving 10% of their purchase price to this fund. One person buying a home provides housing for dozens. Now look at it from the side of the property owners. They'd be receiving real money at their rental price from this fund and would profit accordingly. Using these profits to expand would carry a provision that low-income housing must be included in all future plans. If everyone had a home and didn't have to worry about that part of life we'd all be better off. Imagine the art we've missed because of all the starving artists who have quit their passion to take a minimum wage job in order to keep off the streets, imagine how many homeless children may have missed their opportunity to succeed because they happened to be born to a homeless family. Solving this problem will go a long way to solving our other problems. So we can focus our attention inward and fix our social problems...or we can spend $300,000,000,000 on a war in Iraq, the choice is ours.
The other day I watched a great segment of the fantastic HBO show "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" in which the show followed this soccer team made up solely of homeless men from New York City. On this team there were a few different types of homeless, and all of them were quite tragic. The first one was just a young black man who had been working in a blue collar job at the World Trade Center and lost his job (and by extension, his home due to his lack of funds) on 9/11 when the towers came down. Another was a stereotypical New Yorker working in transit who had been traumatized when a little girl fell in front of his subway car, killing her. He walked away from his job, wife and 2 kids and spent 12 years living on the street and making no attempt to rebuild his shattered life. The other significant character was an aspiring artist (who was way past his prime) with a history of mental illness. Simply because of this opportunity to be a part of a team, two of those three were able to put the pieces of their life back together, and both of them attributed it SOLELY to the fact that they had a team to play on. While these men had an amazing opportunity to play a tournament in Austria, the subway operator was denied this chance and still was able to finally make that move off the streets. He began to forgive himself for the death of that little girl and regained the social abilities that are lost living on the street. If organizing soccer teams of homeless people can really do that much to help them get back on their feet, what else can be done?
What causes homelessness? Well, other than the obvious: greed...because if we were truly committed to giving everyone a fair shake in life, there would be no such thing as homelessness. The only people who'd be living on the streets would be junkies, and they would quickly be placed into rehabilitation programs if Americans were as socially responsible as the Dutch, Swedish or Norsk people. But we (Americans) are very greedy, complaining about taxes being too high when they're only at 25% for most people. Norweigan people pay 3x that amount and have remarkably little evidence of any social suffering. There are no visible homeless, few poor and basically no crime. This is because wealth is distributed more evenly, and that's one of our causes of homelessness, the income disparity. If you're living in San Diego, minimum wage will not afford you much of a place to live; and if you lose that job, you have no chance. It is a lot easier to stay off the streets when the cost of living isn't as high as NYC, SF, LA or SD, but it's still tough when 5% of the people cannot find work.
Where do the homeless come from? Many people think that the homeless are just junkies and alcoholics, but that's not entirely true. While many of them are, even more are just victims of circumstance. Very few of them are actually "homeless by choice", but they do exist. I know one homeless guy in Pacific Beach, Brian, who is one of those. He has a BA from San Diego State in English and is a very intelligent guy (more intellectual than all those frat boys my roommate hangs with) who worked as a physical therapist for the Navy. But one day he found religion and started to question the absurdity of life and the hell we've created for ourselves. So from that day, he stopped cutting his hair and beard and refused to work. It wasn't long before he was on the streets. But he doesn't seem to mind all that much, as he is free from the constant bombardment of rules and orders he had grown accustomed to in the Navy, School and at home growing up. But Brian is a rare case, the majority of homeless come from orphans, dropouts and victims (veterans included) of war.
So what is to be done to solve this problem? It's about as simple as it gets: tax those with homes to help those without. Say that $8,000,000 home in La Jolla that overlooks the ocean is purchased by an executive, he must then put an ADDITIONAL 10% of that purchase price ($800,000) to a fund that is used to help those without homes. After all, it's pretty much impossible to get a job when you have no fixed address, no phone, no clean clothes and no shower. Providing people with homes by using public money to pay off private owners to rent out their vacant places would be beneficial to the economy as well. Think about it. The people who are purchasing homes are already financially solvent, especially in California, and wouldn't be hurt too much by the 10% surcharge on a new home. While the middle class person would have to cut about 50k from their budget to maintain the same purchase cost, that 50k could provide housing for 10+ people for an entire year. Now imagine those people who purchase those 8000 square foot mansions on the water giving 10% of their purchase price to this fund. One person buying a home provides housing for dozens. Now look at it from the side of the property owners. They'd be receiving real money at their rental price from this fund and would profit accordingly. Using these profits to expand would carry a provision that low-income housing must be included in all future plans. If everyone had a home and didn't have to worry about that part of life we'd all be better off. Imagine the art we've missed because of all the starving artists who have quit their passion to take a minimum wage job in order to keep off the streets, imagine how many homeless children may have missed their opportunity to succeed because they happened to be born to a homeless family. Solving this problem will go a long way to solving our other problems. So we can focus our attention inward and fix our social problems...or we can spend $300,000,000,000 on a war in Iraq, the choice is ours.
posted by Dan Pasternack at 4:28 PM
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