You definitely seem to have a centralized, bureaucratic preference to the actually mutli-faceted, differentiated, and sometimes individualized reasons and manifestations of human needs.
Sometimes governments do quite well, and far better than any charity or any individual. For example, in my region (I’m sure many others, too) the homelessness situation is a study in the shame of inefficiency and detachment: the government could help, often inexpensively, in ways it is not helping, and could do so in cooperation with churches of all kinds who are willing to provide labor and food and supplies, but cannot fund structures (shelters). Government, possibly because of stupid existing regulations which could be changed, insists on “doing it all” if they do anything. Thus, if it’s “their” shelter, they insist on rigid conditions and prohibitions and personnel, rather than being willing merely to offer the existing, empty building owned by the City for the use of church/synagogue personnel to serve those homeless with ready volunteers, and more than just certain hours per day.
The idea that a shelter has to be only a place to bed down, and then you’re ejected for the rest of the day, is not a solution. There are gov’t buildings which, with slight modifications and little expenditure, could be partitioned into sleeping quarters, hygiene quarters, daycare quarters for single homeless parents, and employment resource quarters for the employable. Those “quarters” (literally) could be funded with a combination of gov’t and private charities/organizations/individuals, the latter of which would do most or all of the daily work.
The current situation is a study in despair, with gov’t mixing the unemployable (often mentally diagnosed, alcoholic, drug-impaired, or otherwise dysfunctional) with the employable and even just newly homeless. The entire shelter population is dumped onto the street, quite literally, with no differentiation, at daybreak, also with nowhere to go and no practical direction or resources. Gov’t can provide physical structures far more efficiently; private organizations tend to provide personal services more effectively (and often more efficiently as well).
The unemployable and socially dysfunctional should be separated from those with the mental wherewithal to function and return to the mainstream. That is something, actually, which government could also assist in, given that it has resources to differentiate one group from the other, and has treatment resources as well.
Some of you may not be aware, but many local gov’ts actually have funds and departments for local homelessness. In my area, those funds were shamefully mined by some corrupt official or officials, and I would be all in favor of such fraud being designated as a felony with mandatory incarceration and financial recompense, since homelessness affects the welfare of the entire community and even larger society.
I’m just so tired of the failed One Size Fits No One approach. It’s also very lazy, and Sloth is a Capital Sin.
Charity favors a multi-faceted and cooperative approach which doesn’t cynically and ungenerously tolerate homeless “hotels” for the night, but assumes that there is a subset of the homeless population that is highly motivated to become housed a.s.a.p. Charity assumes that such motivation deserves a pathway of support beyond an evening hotel.
