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It would probably be cheaper to maintain a camp with restrooms and security than the direct and indirect costs of homelessness. Cleaner and safer for everyone as well.
I think homelessness makes a case for universal minimum wage (or whatever it's called), which, I believe, would cost the least and return the most of all possible remedies.
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homelessness makes a case for universal minimum wage
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Only if we can prevent them from buying drugs and alcohol instead of housing.
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fyi, most of these people are homeless by choice.... its cheap to live here, as low as $25/ week for a place in an eco village, lots of work trade ops too... and these 'campers' get gov $$ and $350+ EBT/MO...
iow (if not an icehead) room rent$ is not the prob... these (often extremely lazy) people choose to live in woods for they can save a few $$ for 'altered entertainment'... a couple dime bag, some dab, a couple oxys, and some hard booze...
use common sense, ask a homeless guy what he spent his last $40 on......
this aint Oahu, no one NEEDS to work 60+ hrs/week just for a roof over head ie Honolulu's poor idiots .. who will never get ahead...
aloha
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save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha
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save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha
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Hey, farming EBT and Medicaid dollars is one of our island industries. We just need somewhere to put all of these economic generators. Like in the Matrix...
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Hey, farming EBT and Medicaid dollars is one of our island industries.
Farming EBT, is that what the bumper sticker means, “Grown Not Flown”
?
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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If you think taxes are bad now, just wait until the "universal living wage" gets put through. Look at Sweden and Norways taxes to support the same thing. Money just doesn't "appear" in any gummit project, the people pay it through taxes, and the gummit spends it like "other people's money", and not their own.
I can see my tax dollars spent on more aid to the vet, or citizen that has a physical or mental disability, but not for the "poor me, poor me, pour me another" because they are just too lazy to learn a job skill other than harassing passers by in "gimme a dollar" to support their habit to dull their low self esteem.
Also, I feel, that if the gummit pass a law that you have to be a residency proof (utility bill, property tax statement) for 6 months to receive aid in this sunny State they would discover that there is a whole lot more of "other people's money" to distribute around, and the ones that fly here with no job, no money, no skills will have to find another way to survive than off the residents of Hawaii.
Enough rant.
Community begins with Aloha
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Sweden and Norway are consistently at the top of the "World Happiness Report". So they must be doing something better than us.
Norway's unemployment rate is 3.7% The United States is 3.6%, almost identical. So the premise that generous social welfare programs are breeding laziness doesn't seem to be true. They probably have better job training programs than we do. And less corrupt government.
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Norway, despite declining reserves, has significant North Sea oil revenue to bolster their budget, plus a huge investment fund wisely started before their petroleum production peaked in 2001. And their population is only 5.6 million. Not such a good comparison to the USA.
Sweden's unemployment rate in March of this year was 7.1% with a population just under 10 million. Still tiny compared to our 328 million residents.
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If anything, a smaller population increases risk. America is large and diverse, and better able to weather bad economic times than some tiny Scandinavian country. At least in theory, if billionaires weren't bleeding the country dry at the expense of the hard working middle class.
If our county and state fostered small business with better policies, there would be less need for federal handouts. Until then, they are at least money coming into our economy, however unfair.
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Social reformers keep citing Sweden and Norway as examples of how we should do things. The countries differ much from the U.S.
They are tiny, Sweden: 10 million people, Norway: 5.2 million. Mostly white, and a highly educated population. The U.S.'s long history of guns and violence is absent there. They solve their homeless problem by giving free housing and benefits to anyone who doesn't want to work. Here's an interesting item:
"But despite Sweden's generally low crime rate, tens of thousands of bicycles are stolen every year...figures suggested more than 70,000 bikes were stolen in Sweden last year." (2014) https://www.thelocal.se/20150626/police-...ike-thefts
People in Scandinavia have much sympathy for criminals. They see a bike being stolen and they just shrug. Need to give the criminals larger welfare checks to deter this stealing, I guess.
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