In the Bay Area one of the big unanswered questions concerning homelessness is: housing first, or treatment first? Housing-first adherents argue that the first thing to do with homeless people is to get them into permanent housing. This, they claim, is because a lack of housing is responsible for all of their other problems (drug addiction, mental illness, criminal behavior, etc.) and it makes no sense to treat symptoms without getting to their root cause—the absence of a place to live.
Treatment first advocates, on the other hand, say that because so many homeless people suffer from problems that force them out onto the streets—such as drug addiction and mental illness—it’s crazy to provide them with housing if they’re still addicts or mentally ill; under such circumstances they’ll be unable to sustain lifestyles that require personal responsibility (such as housecleaning, shopping, paying bills) and so their personal problems must be dealt with before they’re provided with housing at the taxpayer’s expense.
Needless to say, studies can be found that purport to “prove” both cases. That’s always the case in an overly-analytical, media-dominated culture, such as ours, where legions of nonprofits and university professors specialize in these matters. I’ve done plenty of research on this and, believe me, I can cite you studies on either side. These studies, in other words, cancel each other out, and make me believe that their findings are more the result of their authors’ motives and beliefs, rather than truly independent conclusions. It may be that there’s no such unicorn as a truly independent study concerning homelessness: it’s just too fraught with personal bias and political ramifications.
When you can’t depend on a study to inform you, the next best thing is to rely on your common sense. And this is what more and more Americans are doing; it’s why a suspicion of experts is so widespread. (And we now have an administration that caters to that suspicion: case in point, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.)
So what does my common sense tell me?
It tells me one thing very strongly: it’s wrong to provide housing, especially permanent housing, to homeless people. Several things mitigate against it: one, if these people, or most of them, truly are unable or unwilling to take care of themselves and their dwelling space (if they had that ability, they wouldn’t be homeless), then why should they be put into housing, when the likelihood is that they’ll just abuse the privilege? This is obviously true for permanent housing; it may well be true for temporary housing. Would you want such people living next door to you?
Number two, why should taxpayers be saddled with the expense of housing people whose behavior got them into trouble in the first place? We taxpayers have enough of a burden with all the taxes that are already imposed on us, not to mention the inflation. Adding additional taxes for projects of dubious worth is crazy, like throwing good money after bad. The taxpayers are sick and tired of being tithed for every progressive scheme. They’re not even likely to approve a region-wide sales tax to sustain public transportation, so why would they tax themselves for free housing for addicts?
The housing-first fans, who dominate our government in Oakland, are trying to hoodwink us with such falsehoods as “Housing First is a bipartisan, evidence-based strategy that provides people experiencing homelessness with stable, affordable housing quickly and without prerequisites.” They make it sound like housing first is some kind of magic wand: just shake it with a little twinkle dust and all will be well. They call it “affordable,” but two seconds of reflection tells us that it’s anything but.
As for “without prerequisites,” what the hell is wrong with requiring drug testing, or eviction if they commit a crime? These homeless advocates essentially want the homeless to live the same way as you and I: with secure roofs over their heads, in their own private spaces, with all the amenities: PG&E, water, kitchens, closet space, bedrooms, washers and driers, garbage pickup, cable TV, wi-fi. In other words, free condos, with free healthcare and childcare. In fact, free everything: that’s the progressive mantra. Just ask Carroll Fife: for her, “housing first” means stealing someone else’s house because “housing is a human right.”
Look, housing first is not only unaffordable for the city, it’s immoral. When the majority of us are working our asses off trying to make a living, why would anyone expect us to pay for a sub-branch of the population that just freeloads? Let’s call it what it is: the welfare state, also known as communism.
Steve Heimoff