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Is is cheaper for the taxpayer to provide apartments for the homeless?

Is is cheaper for the taxpayer to provide apartments for the homeless?


  • Total voters
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If it is shown that it costs less in taxpayer dollars to provide apartments for the homeless than it would be to just let them remain homeless in the streets, would you support using taxpayer dollars to pay for apartments for the homeless?

Why or why not?

Well, yeah, it is "cheaper" IF you throw in free medical care and emergency room stays on the other side of the equation. But it is not cheaper than providing no free government services. If the person isn't paying his medical bills perhaps he should stop getting treatments.
But this type of calculation should be used on all government services-if there is no pay-back than the government should not spend money on it. Government should provide for the greatest good for the greatest numbers for the longest period of time and not subsidize people who are unable or unwilling to repay it at some point. That is the role of the religious community.
 
How am I making it someone else's problem when I am personally active in providing for others in need through donations and volunteering? There are a lot of us. I counted 13 shelters in the Columbus vicinity where the majority are run on donations and volunteers.

First, thank you for "pitching in" on this. I have a heart for the poor, particularly the homeless, and it has been one of my favorite charities over the years. I really salute others that go above and beyond on this issue, which apparently you do. The exception that I took to your post, however, is about underestimating the magnitude of the problem. The churches can not do it alone. It is too big a problem (and the others that don't want to get their hands dirty, can't simply offload it on the churches).... they either have to also get their hands dirty or write checks.

Can the Church Alone Provide Welfare for the Poor?
https://chuckwarnockblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/think-churches-can-feed-americas-poor/

I have been aghast at the quips of the ill-informed conservatives (I am speaking generally here; this is not directed at you) that think they can off-load the problem of homelessness, specifically, and the plights of the poor, in general, on the churches. Such people have zero understanding of either the cause or magnitude of the problem. Many of these people are naive, blind or more likely ambivilent to the problem. They think the poor and homeless are capable of work but too lazy to do so. Obviously, they have never take the time to understand the issue. Likely the prefer to be ignorant as if they were really informed, they would realize that it will take taxpayer money to stabilize, alleviate and ultimately solve the problem (though the latter is probably unattainable). Its much better (and cheaper) to simply blame the homeless and demand they pull them up by their bootstraps.

National Coalition for the Homeless
What I Learned About Homelessness: Walking the Streets of Georgetown - Pete Earley

That all said, IMHO, one of the best things the Bush Administration proposed (but never really followed through) was faith-based initiatives; the concept that churches do a much better job of administrating programs for the poor than the government. Under a faith-based initiative, the government provides the funds (yes tax dollars) and churches deliver the services. We have an excellent example of one such effort here in Denver, it is called the Samaritan House. It provides food, shelter, training and support for individuals and families to help them get back on their feet. It is run by Catholic Charities, but is heavily subsidized by various government programs.


Quit being so immature, she is talking about taking care of it herself, with the help of her friends at her church. You're proposing forcing other people to pay through taxes, aren't you?

Frankly, this quip added nothing to the conversation and wasn't worthy of a response, but you get one anyway....

The point being that churches do not have the capacity to shoulder themselves, and taxpayer participation is indeed necessary. There are many on the right that wish to live with their head in the sand as to the cause and effect of homelessness so they can rid themselves of the guilt and obligation of doing something about it. Sorry, but it is a social obligation and yes, it requires you to pay taxes to help remedy it.

Yes, Virginia, there are poor and most are not poor and homeless because they want to be or because they are too lazy to work. It is a real and substantial problem: somewhat attributible to America's wealth distribution system but also has roots in mental illness (particularly amongst our war veterans). Since many on the street are their as a consequence of government policies, the government (that taxpayers) have an obligation to ease their pain.
 
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Well, yeah, it is "cheaper" IF you throw in free medical care and emergency room stays on the other side of the equation. But it is not cheaper than providing no free government services. If the person isn't paying his medical bills perhaps he should stop getting treatments.
But this type of calculation should be used on all government services-if there is no pay-back than the government should not spend money on it. Government should provide for the greatest good for the greatest numbers for the longest period of time and not subsidize people who are unable or unwilling to repay it at some point. That is the role of the religious community.

You really missed the point of the studies, didn't you? It costs more to leave the people on the streets because of the INCREASED police presence required, the INCREASED rate of arrests and prosecutions, the INCREASED amount of jail time served, and the INCREASED visits to the emergency room because of what happens to those homeless people on the streets.

And perhaps you should go find out how many of the homeless are there NOT because they're druggies...but because they were laid off and couldn't pay the rent, or they're fleeing domestic abuse, or any of a dozen other different reasons. But in YOUR world, I guess, if a woman's homeless because she's fleeing a husband who beat her on a daily basis, well, she doesn't deserve to be able to go to the ER....

But are you really that heartless? Of course not. I strongly doubt you'd kick her out of the ER because she chose to be homeless rather than get beaten up again and again by her husband. But that's just it - how do you tell who are homeless because they're pieces of human filth...and who's homeless even though they really did their level best? How do you tell? Who decides? In other words, you either welcome all...or you welcome none. In this case, Reagan made the right call when he said our ER's should welcome all.
 
"Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute."

It works pretty well as a maxim in dealing with socialists who advocate bribing the poor into good behavior.

Y'know, I really thought ahead of time that you'd try to bring up that exact quote...and the difference is that the millions for defense was against a foreign power that was essentially holding our ships and crews for ransom...whereas our homeless are mostly AMERICAN CITIZENS, who are mostly guilty of nothing more than getting addicted to drugs or alcohol or - in a surprising number of cases - simply had the bad luck to get laid off or had to flee domestic abuse.

But you would compare them to what we would today call 'terrorists'.
 
Y'know, I really thought ahead of time that you'd try to bring up that exact quote...and the difference is that the millions for defense was against a foreign power that was essentially holding our ships and crews for ransom...whereas our homeless are mostly AMERICAN CITIZENS, who are mostly guilty of nothing more than getting addicted to drugs or alcohol or - in a surprising number of cases - simply had the bad luck to get laid off or had to flee domestic abuse.

But you would compare them to what we would today call 'terrorists'.


There are some who think bad things could never happen to them because they are "good Americans". It is a bit like the county in Kentucky which votes about 90% for Republicans while more than half of the residents are receiving federal aid - they deserve it, those 'others' don't
 
While distribution of housing to the homeless is obviously better than the status quo of allowing homelessness to persist, I prefer a minimum income as a basic right to all people, which is a much simpler way of eliminating poverty than creating a separate federal program to address every aspect of it (food, housing, etc.), and would probably save even more money for the taxpayer in the long run, considering that it has the potential to save even more in tax dollars by eliminating a huge chunk of the bureaucracy currently enveloped in the social safety net. Laws against panhandling and the like should also be repealed, as it's an archaic concept to literally punish the homeless for being homeless.

I think more and more people would just become homeless because life is hard and this would be an easy alternative.

If people are actually desperate enough to choose to become homeless voluntarily in order to receive aid, I think that says something the problems that the underclass face in our society that need to be addressed.
 
You really missed the point of the studies, didn't you? It costs more to leave the people on the streets because of the INCREASED police presence required, the INCREASED rate of arrests and prosecutions, the INCREASED amount of jail time served, and the INCREASED visits to the emergency room because of what happens to those homeless people on the streets.

A couple of points. Yes, you are right-I missed the one paragraph out of 15 that mentioned the law enforcement related costs of homeless. My bad. The gist of the article was on medical costs.

(I therefore missed that great quote from the Huffington article. The law enforcement costs are related to arrests for "trespassing, loitering, public urination, begging and public consumption of alcohol". Interesting list-how many of those are crimes versus simply BS police/government harassment type laws? Perhaps if police arrested people for real crimes the costs would decrease.)

And you missed my point. I support doing cost-benefit analysis for government programs and if they save money, holistically, than we should do them, if they are a high enough priority and don't take money away from a higher priority program. I am opposed to the simplistic idea about "oh, think of those poor children" or "we can't throw grandma off the cliff". Government programs should be based on objective analysis, not emotions.

Recently read an article in Science that found that 18.5% of the land in China is polluted, typically with heavy metals that lead to chronic health problems. In a country with $18 trillion in debt and limited resources, perhaps we should spend where it will do the greatest good for the greatest numbers for the longest period of time. Perhaps that means less spending for retail entitlements that help individuals and spend on cleaning up the public health issues that affect everyone and drive up health costs on the wholesale level. Or increasing EITC and public works spending to reduce unemployment and the need for public housing spending.
 
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