After all these years, I can tell you that essentially every program we have for “the homeless” and “the poor” are nothing but enablers to dysfunction.

Now, after dealing with ten years of helping “the homeless” and “the poor”, I see that actually nothing changes. The same people are recycled in and out of the system, with few making any progress in turning around or improving their lives.

The reason? There is no compulsion to do so.

In earlier times, if a person was down on his luck, he turned to charity. Soup kitchens, temporary shelters, etc, were always there for those in need. The catch was the needy person had to obey rules if he wanted help. Yes, sometimes there was a religious component to this. In today’s America, this is unthinkable in a government program.

Here in San Francisco, we have the most liberal policies regarding “the homeless” in the country. And it shows; this little county of 700,000 people has TEN THOUSAND ADULTS on General Assistance. In contrast, Orange County, with 2.5 million people, has less than one thousand people on GA.

We spend, on average, about $200,000,000 a year on “homeless” services. We run shelters, and we contract with providers for meal service, more shelters, job training, etc. But since there is no compulsion to actually do anything for these services, people refuse to participate, and yet we still give them money and shelter. There is NO time limit on General Assistance here. I used to have clients that had been on GA for 15 years.

If you make it easy for people to be “homeless”, then “homeless” they will be. We have always had a class of drifters and transients in this country; in the old days they worked for a while and moved on. Now, they live in the doorway of your business and pester your customers. Or, they infest your neighborhood parks and public spaces.

It’s time for it to end. Sadly, it won’t, unless perhaps after we are full scale war with Islam, the public will no longer care.