The homelessness crisis is not some unsolvable mystery. It is not a problem that requires another decade of studies, committees, consultants, task forces, and billions more taxpayer dollars. The causes are obvious. The solutions are obvious. What is missing is political courage and less corruption.
Only a tiny percentage of people sleeping on the streets are there because of a temporary financial hardship. The overwhelming majority are suffering from severe drug addiction, serious mental illness, or both.
For decades, liberal politicians have insisted on treating these people as if they were simply down on their luck and in need of another government program. The results are visible in every major city in America. More tents. More crime. More filth. More addiction. More human misery. Somehow the answer is always the same. Throw more money away.
The homeless industrial complex has become one of the greatest taxpayer-funded rackets in modern history. Politically connected nonprofits and NGOs absorb billions of dollars while producing little except press conferences, studies, and excuses. The money disappears. The encampments remain. The politicians congratulate themselves and demand another check from taxpayers.
If this were a private corporation, executives would be fired or even jailed for embezzlement or worse. In government, this crime spree is rewarded with larger budgets.
The reality is that many of these “homeless” individuals are incapable of caring for themselves. They steal. They abuse drugs openly. They create health hazards. They terrorize businesses and neighborhoods. They leave ordinary citizens to deal with conditions that would never be tolerated in the gated communities where many politicians live.
Let’s stop pretending this is compassion. The streets of America have been transformed into open-air insane asylums and open-air narcotics markets.
Many of these people are, for all practical purposes, zombies. They wander through cities in drug-induced stupors, disconnected from reality, unable to care for themselves, and often posing a danger to themselves and others. Yet politicians insist that allowing this behavior to continue is somehow humane. It is not humane. It is abandonment.
Drug addicts should be removed from the streets and placed into secure treatment environments whenever possible. Addiction survives because there are too few consequences. Withdrawal is brutal. Every addict knows it. The more often addicts are forced to endure withdrawal, the more attractive recovery. The choice eventually becomes simple. Continue abusing drugs and repeatedly endure painful withdrawal, or accept treatment and begin rebuilding a life. Many addicts will choose treatment when the alternative becomes sufficiently unpleasant.
The severely mentally ill should be involuntarily committed when they are incapable of caring for themselves or pose a danger to themselves or others. Leaving profoundly disturbed individuals to deteriorate on sidewalks while claiming to respect their “freedom” is one of the cruelest lies ever sold to the public.
There is another fact that politicians refuse to discuss. Allowing these individuals to roam the streets is enormously expensive.
Every arrest requires police officers. Every prosecution requires prosecutors. Every defense requires public defenders. Every court appearance requires judges, clerks, bailiffs, and administrative staff. Every jail booking consumes more taxpayer resources. Then the offender is released and the process begins all over again. The same revolving door spins endlessly while taxpayers foot the bill.
It is far cheaper to house these individuals in secure facilities where they can receive treatment, supervision, food, shelter, and medical care than it is to repeatedly process them through the criminal justice system after they commit new crimes.
Instead, taxpayers are paying for both systems simultaneously. They pay for homelessness programs that fail. Then they pay for police.Then they pay for courts.Then they pay for lawyers. Then they pay for jails. Then they pay for cleanup crews. Then they pay for emergency medical services.
After spending all that money, the addict is right back on the sidewalk. That is not compassion. That is insanity.
When these individuals are removed from the streets, they can be given what they currently do not have: warm beds, clean sheets, nutritious meals, medical treatment, psychiatric care, safety, and structure.
Most importantly, innocent citizens get their neighborhoods, parks, sidewalks, businesses, and public spaces back. The solution is neither complicated nor mysterious.
Drug addiction requires treatment and accountability. Severe mental illness requires commitment and treatment.
What has failed spectacularly is the liberal fantasy that endless tolerance, endless excuses, and endless spending can somehow cure addiction and mental illness while allowing people to continue living as zombies on the streets.
The evidence is all around us. The policies have been tested. The results are in and the verdict is failure.
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