Governments everywhere have a bad habit of slapping a coat of paint on something and then pointing at it as some grand accomplishment. When, in reality, nothing changed.
Take the homeless problem for example.
A few years ago, there was a big deal made of some local government agency here stepping in and closing down a homeless encampment in the south part of town. It made local TV and the front page of the newspaper. Politicians were patting themselves on the back because they made a huge step forward.
But, in reality, nothing changed.
What happened was that after the city took away the meager possessions they had, the newly-more-mobile-homeless just moved to a different place. And that place happened to be the riverbed near my house.
Now, when I say “riverbed”, I don’t want you to automatically think of “water” because that would be wrong. The river near my house is about a quarter mile wide. OK. To be completely accurate, the river’s “bed” is about a quarter mile wide. The river itself is about 20 feet wide, and that’s after a week of heavy rains. Normally there is no river, and the riverbed stays dry as a bone.
That means there’s a lot of extra space in the riverbed. Over the course of a few decades, a lot of that dry/empty riverbed filled up with trees, bushes, etc. Which makes a great place to set up a tent. So the homeless that were kicked out of their other camp just moved to the pristine camping area near my house. And the problems they cause moved with them.
For the past few years, crime in my neighborhood has increased. We’ve had several cases of arson, property was stolen, joggers/walkers were harassed, and trash and abandoned shopping carts were left everywhere. People who were obviously mentally ill walked around muttering to themselves. I like a good game of “spot the looney” as much as the next guy, but just not in my backyard.
Now I should point out that, technically, the city did accomplish something by the simply moving the homeless. They made their problem someone else’s problem. It turns out that the city doesn’t have jurisdiction over the riverbed, the county does.
But the arson, harassment, theft and trash dumping weren’t happening in the riverbed. They were happening in my neighborhood. So, by the time someone reported a crime, the person responsible for said crime had already just walked across the road and couldn’t be touched by the city police. To pursue the issue, the city police would have to contact the county which would have to dispatch a deputy sheriff to the scene.
That hardly ever happened.
The city just slapped some paint on the homeless issue by destroying their camp and forcing them to go someplace else. Then they all patted themselves on the back for fixing the problem. Well, I guess they fixed the city’s problem by making it someone else’s problem. But the problem that used to belong to the city didn’t become the problem of the county. It became the problem of me and my neighbors.
And while we were putting up with higher crime in our neighborhood, people from other neighborhoods were supplying the homeless to make it easier for them to camp out in the riverbed. After all, if the homeless problem was in our backyard, it wasn’t in theirs.
Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. The county decided to slap some of their own paint on the problem and bulldozed the riverbed along with the tons of trash the homeless had accumulated over the past few years. The huge piles of miscellaneous garbage were then hauled away. Problem solved.
Nope. The homeless people that lived there will just move to a different spot. Probably back to the same place they were chased out of several years ago. But at least it’s no longer the county’s problem. And it isn’t my problem anymore either.
So now it’s the city’s turn again. And this time, they got rid of the homeless.
Well, not really. But you can bet that’s what they’ll claim.
I’m going to pause a bit and talk about the word “vagrant”. Vagrant is derived from the Latin word “vagary” which means “to wander”. Even back when people actually spoke Latin, it wasn’t all that popular. I’m guessing it was one of the first popes who used “vagrant” to refer to the rogues, tramps and drifters hanging around the Vatican.
Then, about a thousand years later, vagrancy in the Middle Ages was getting worse. Somebody needed to solve the “vagrant” problem. The powers that be put their heads together and decided that the solution was to get rid of the vagrants. So, they started calling them “vagabonds” instead.
Fast-forward to the late 1800’s. By that time, we’d been using the term “vagabond” for about 900 years. But, and again, I’m guessing here, the problem got bad enough that people started looking at the government for a solution. And the government implemented an age-old, tried and true solution by simply calling vagabonds something else. They started called them “homeless”.
Again, I wasn’t there, but I’m guessing it’s quite likely that the people who voted for Grover Cleveland ate this up with a spoon.
I said earlier that the city got rid of the homeless. Any guesses on how they did that? That’s right, they just started calling them something else.
So, the homeless problem is solved. We no longer have “homeless”, we have “unhoused”. And nobody can get upset at local governments for not solving the “unhoused” problem yet because it’s only been around for a few weeks.
The local politicians slapped on a little paint, gave the problem a new name and expect everyone to believe they did more than just move the problem someplace else. Again.
Let me offer an idea for reducing the homeless problem. How about if we just started treating homeless people exactly as we do someone who isn’t homeless?
If I crapped on the sidewalk, or harassed joggers, or started fires, or stole things, I’d go to jail. Or, at the very least, I’d get a fine and a boat load of community service. In some way, shape or form, I’d get punished. If I walked around muttering to myself or to hallucinations, I’d undoubtedly get detained for psychological evaluation.
We should do the same thing to the homeless. But we don’t. I’m not talking about penalizing them for being down on their luck. I’m talking about holding them accountable for breaking laws that the rest of us have to follow. And, if they’re mentally unstable, detain them in a facility until they can care for themselves.
We shouldn’t lower our expectations of people based solely on their housing situation, or lack thereof. If we expect nothing from people, then that’s exactly what we’re going to get. And, if we expect nothing, and get nothing, how is that helping anyone?
You want to end the homeless problem? Stop making it easier to be homeless. Instead of handing out money, cell phones, food and services, make them earn it. It’s what the rest of us have to do. There are plenty of community service projects that they could be doing to pay their own way. Teach them to be responsible, and then hold them accountable. That’s what we expect of everyone else. Why not the homeless?
Will that solve the problem? Of course not. But it’s a step in the right direction. And it will be a whole lot more effective than moving the homeless camps every few years or paying some public relations team a boatload of money to come up with yet another new name for an old problem.
