You Get More of What You Pay For

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Today I ran across an idiot on Twitter talking about how Elon Musk could eliminate homelessness by giving his money to all the homeless.

And then the movie Dan had on was about how this woman wanted to make enough money to eliminate homelessness in LA.

Guys? Seriously?

How many millions do cities like LA and San Francisco plow into homelessness? How much money have cities like Denver spent on the homeless.

What have they got for it? That’s right. more homelessness. Which is absolutely logic.

You get more of what you pay for.

But if I must explain the mechanism, it is this: when you create “homeless services”, like free health care, and shelter and clothing (well, Denver was doing all of that at one point) you will attract more homeless.

If on top of that their behavior is never curbed, and they can do whatever they want from attacking people to pooping on the sidewalk, it makes the lifestyle seem incredibly attractive. After all, someone takes care of all your needs and you can do whatever you want. And you’re a perpetual victim.

Of course the ACTUAL lifestyle sucks. Like any social ape without restrictions or judgement form the community, if the people hadn’t already become homeless because of drug use or insanity, they’re going to start using drugs and going insane. Because that’s what happens when your life has no purpose but gratifying your own desires of the moment.

And yes, much as I hate to tell you this, most homeless — not those people considered homeless because they’re couch surfing or whatever — but the real homeless, camping on the streets aren’t there because they had a bad month, or lost a job.

Yeah, there have been times when it looked like it was looming for us. But when it’s that type of thing? People have family and friends and failing all that church organizations that can find temporary shelter till they’re “back on their feet.”

The justifiably homeless are people like the mentally ill, because throwing the mentally ill on the streets was NEVER a solution. Now, yes, there will be abuses with any mental health system, which is why it needs strong safeguards. But washing our hands of the whole thing and effectively having no shelter or protection for these people is not a solution.

But there are a lot more that are “merely” drug addicted, because … well, because it’s easy. There isn’t even a terrible amount of social disapprobation for this. They are treated as victims of a terrible disease who have no self-control. And money is shoveled to make their lives more comfortable.

At this point homelessness is an industry costing the country billions of dollars most of which of course don’t go to the homeless, but to various NGOs and “Charity” organization and the politicians involved in them.

I suspect part of the reason that politicians tolerate — encourage — the homeless to camp on sidewalks and poop on sidewalks and throw things at people is exactly that. So that they have a picture of human misery to extort more money from tax payers and beat tax payers over the head with guilt if they want the whole circus to stop.

But the problem is exactly that: the human misery. The wasted lives of people who could have been okay with timely intervention, with a little mental health help, with JUST not being allowed to do as they please on the street, and maybe found the strength to clean up, to beat back against addiction.

After all, I understand from my friends who’ve gone through it, you have to hit bottom before you can recover: be it from addiction or bad habit.

If we never let them hit bottom, they just fall endlessly.

Could all of them be saved? No. That is extremely unlikely. But surely even those who would be lost for addictions deserve better than to be treated as a freak show to intimidate tax payers into giving away more money that the politicians can use for graft and corruption?

There is about the whole homelessness drive, the certainty that by throwing more and more money at it it will disappear, even as it grows something almost demonic: there is a passionate drive to make things as absolutely horrible as possible.

For the homeless and frankly for every urban dweller.

And I’m sick of it.

86 thoughts on “You Get More of What You Pay For”

  1. Throwing other people’s money at the problem is easy. And letting other people throw your money at it is easy, too, easier than dealing with people who may be physically sick, violent, and very set in their ways. And who can make you look very bad to bystanders with cameras who can capture the ugliness of dealing with the problem, but not the ugliness of the problem.

    It can take heroes who can stand being painted, taunted, and demonized as villains. And a system that is willing to deal with the mentally ill and the permanently brain-fried.

    No, I don’t have any solution that doesn’t begin with being fed up with all strains of the political left. That is the beginning of moral clarity and practical wisdom today.

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    2. Yep. Any solution that actually IS one has to begin with being fed up with the political left. If you’re not, if you don’t lock them out, all you’ll get is more of what they’ve already done, and then nothing gets better. And even “nothing gets better” will be a struggle, because they’re constantly striving to make it worse.

      Liked by 2 people

  2. You are right on target. The more money they throw at the homeless the more of them we get. And the politicians, the NGOs and other scammers demand we give even more money to “fix” the problem they created. The leftists in particular love this because it increases their power and allows them to skim off more money while blaming the “heartless conservatives” for the problem. I don’t think there is any easy way to actually solve this other than taking away all the bennies, locking up the worst cases and making the street lifestyle so unappealing that the milder cases decide they really need to give it up and seek real help. That’s not going to be easy.

    Liked by 4 people

  3. It used to be the churches provided some basic services for the poor and homeless from their own funds and charitable contributions. They have now discovered they can get a handle on much bigger cash flows by tapping the government’s money directly. The taxpayers will always cough up more with a gun jammed up their nose than you can get off the collection plate. And yes, it supports lots of good paying jobs to dole out those funds. So now we have all the major churches beholden to the government. Their pulpits were already propaganda centers and recruitment stations. Now they are as thoroughly captured as the media by the pharmaceutical industry. I’d say don’t support them, but that’s the point. You no longer have any choice. At least stop lending them any legitimacy by association.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Thanks for the outsider’s viewpoint – it’s helpful to know what it looks like. Few churches actually behave that way – many I know of have very robust assistance programs funded solely by member contributions – but there’s no question government bodies do all they can to appropriate that work and jealously guard it from “private competition.” Most importantly, many of the homeless find the government’s “no expectations” handouts much more comfortable than the churches’ tendency to encourage recipients to accept more than just material assistance.

      Liked by 3 people

    2. I know this happens, but I’m not sure how common it is: my experience with ~6 different church food banks and homeless ministries in 3 different cities is that the extent of government involvement was putting out fliers for VA housing, and calling emergency services for overdoses.

      This was very different from the refugee resettlement ‘ministry’ that I rapidly quit supporting after seeing the level of government / ‘NGO’ involvement.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Small and local are more likely to be clean than big and remote.

        Our local food bank does some vetting, and nobody seems to mind. It also works off local donations.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The bigger any organization gets, the more room there is for corruption, and the more effort has to be expended to root out corruption.

          The U.S. federal government is by far the biggest organization on the planet, and expends approximately zero effort in rooting out corruption. Oh, we see a lot of talk, and a lot of Very Important Meetings, but no significant results.
          ———————————
          Most days, I suspect that we could get a better government by picking 535 people at random. On bad days, I’m certain we’d get a better government by picking 535 people at random from lunatic asylums

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          1. 20 years or so ago, a gent got all the major local food banks/clothes’ closets/church aid groups together and persuaded them to create a master database of needs and of people who got aid. Now, it is a matter of course to ask people to bring the kids who need stuff and also have ID, “to make sure everything fits/is what the schools recommend.” It also allows one group to recommend someone to a different place that might help meet the specific need (medical care/emergency dental/certain type of clothing/housing repair, what have you). The second aid group knows to expect the family or individual, there are fewer questions or delays, and it seems to be working well still.

            It cut down on a LOT of triple-dipping and fraud, and is very popular with the locals who need aid. Something about “no more outsiders mooching” as one lady phrased it.

            Liked by 3 people

              1. No. If you’re in a local network/small town you know, and you know you can’t help them (there may or may not be relatives that can try and you can check with them). But otherwise you slap on whatever bandaid you can and pray for the rest.

                Our church is peripherally involved right now with a case of bureaucratic idiocy involving a mentally handicapped man who has housing, but whose benefit check is being cut off for perverse incentive reasons. The church donated a payment to the lawyer his champion (one of our members) was told he had to have to have any chance of getting his check.

                In this case, he has a relative who will get him into a nursing home, but we’re waiting for his tiny dog to die because they’ve been together for over a decade and the dog is his second friend in all the world. The guy in our church is his only human friend in all the world.

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              3. No. If you’re in a local network/small town you know, and you know you can’t help them (there may or may not be relatives that can try and you can check with them). But otherwise you slap on whatever bandaid you can and pray for the rest.

                Our church is peripherally involved right now with a case of bureaucratic idiocy involving a mentally handicapped man who has housing, but whose benefit check is being cut off for perverse incentive reasons. The church donated a payment to the lawyer his champion (one of our members) was told he had to have to have any chance of getting his check.

                In this case, he has a relative who will get him into a nursing home, but we’re waiting for his tiny dog to die because they’ve been together for over a decade and the dog is his second friend in all the world. The guy in our church is his only human friend in all the world.

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    3. Alas, it’s true. That’s why I’ll have no truck with Catholic Charities despite being a serious practicing and confessing Catholic.

      CC has yet to repent and believe the Gospel, as far as I can tell.

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      1. Catholic Charities is nominally run by Catholics, but it’s not under diocesan oversight (its boards are created the usual way with non-profits.) So it’s debatable how “Catholic” it is, seeing as it is effectively a secular organization run by people who are Catholic, and how thoroughly they apply said faith will vary by individual and corporate culture.

        Liked by 3 people

        1. Like the “Lutheran” group that settled thousands of Somalis in North Dakota and parts of Minnesota. I suspect Martin Luther would not be pleased. (For what reasons I leave to theologians and social historians of early modern Saxony to argue over.)

          Liked by 4 people

          1. There are apparently several of these groups, all purporting to be charities linked to various large Christian denominations. But in each case it’s an organization that’s not an official arm of the denomination in question. Catholic Charities is merely the best known (by far).

            Liked by 2 people

      2. I checked out Catholic Charities(TM) about twenty years ago, for the annual military donation thing– they were actively supporting [strike]forced abortion and sterilization in aid of human trafficking and genocide[/strike] reproductive services at that point, with the fig leaf that they didn’t actually perform any of the mutilation.

        It was a big enough deal I found it on Catholic blogs, for the exact reason of keeping Catholics from being confused.

        I believe LifeSite news actually covers some of their antics.

        Liked by 2 people

  4. Having dysfunctional members in one’s own family sheds a clarifying light on issues of poverty, homelessness, and drug abuse.

    The mental illness is the most intractable part, IMHO.

    Liked by 6 people

  5. I’m very curious to see how Frank Stiller and T2T do with their project for homeless veterans. They are combining residential with intense psychological/mental health as well as peer support to attack veteran homelessness. The VA is an utter failure at this. I’m a bit skeptical but if anyone can pull this off it’s his organization.

    Liked by 6 people

      1. T2T touts, or the celebrities on their ads on Fox and Fox News touts, an extremely low overhead percentage. Personally I wouldn’t know how to research that fact.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I think tax exempt charities are required to make certain auditable items public. If I’m remembering correctly, it would merely be a matter of figuring out where they published it.

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          2. https://www.charitynavigator.org/search?q=tunnel+to+towers

            The compensation data below shows the five highest paid individuals at this charity. The amount includes salary, cash bonuses, and compensation from related organizations. The amounts do not include nontaxable benefits, deferred compensation, or other amounts not reported on Form W-2.

            Frank Siller, President Ch

            $0

            George Siller, Vice Chair

            $0

            Janis Hannan, Vice Chair

            $0

            Mary Scullin, Treasurer An

            $0

            Regina Vogt, Secretary

            $0

            Source: IRS Form 990 (page 7), filing year 2023

            As you can see, the board is not compensated.

            There’s some other tricks that can be pulled to get money out of a charity– like how the Komen foundation got caught giving grants for favor not breast cancer research- but I’m not seeing any instant red flags.

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  6. I am so glad that I live in a city where at least the civic authorities are not buying into the massive homeless-industrial complex. The people who deal with the urban outdoorsfolk are somewhat aggressive about searching them out and insisting they get positive help – instead of taking over certain urban empty spaces for months on end. We had a couple of encampments close by our neighborhood a few years ago, and when a campfire started by some of them got out of hand and burned a fence and some trees (and put a couple of houses in danger), and another encampment turned out to be a nest of thieves stealing all kinds of portable property, we all shouted about it loudly enough that the city outreach and the owners of the land took action and sorted it all out.

    We drove through Austin early in 2020 and were absolutely horrified by the spectacle of tents, encampments and mounds of trash all over the highway verges, and under the highway bridges.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Difference between Eugene and Springfield. Separated by I-5.

      Springfield has homeless camping, especially on all the fringes, that is actually county. While visible, if looking for it really hard, they do try to be invisible. Eugene OTOH homeless camps are everywhere. The safe spaces are now mostly full. Even the ones far from homeless services. What changed? A tent pitched off hwy 99 got plowed into. One occupant dead.

      Why the difference between Springfield and Eugene? Springfield does not allow drivers to distribute to panhandlers from the vehicle. Must park and get out of the vehicle to give them money. Most drivers won’t do this at all. Can’t make panhandling illegal. But can make it illegal to pass money out vehicle window on streets or in parking lots.

      Eugene also has opportunity housing that homeless can get into, build equity, resell and move up and out. Problem is, the nice sparkling new tiny apartments/condos are already looking worn if still too new to look shabby. Why? Everybody who is an owner or living there is suppose to add sweat equity on grounds and exterior upkeep. Which means absolutely nobody contributes their time or effort.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. “Opportunity housing” is a very good thing, but housing opportunities are not what the so-called homeless population actually lacks. Sure, they’ll take housing if it’s handed to them, but it’s not what they really want. They want drugs.

        There are a few who do want to get out, and for them, such things are great.

        I interviewed one such person a few years ago for a magazine article, and she called me up a few months later, very happy to have got into a subsidized apartment. She was a sweet, rather dim middle-aged woman who became homeless due to alcoholism and a concatenation of really crappy circumstances, and did not want to stay that way; she stayed away from the tent camps and the addicts and got off the street in (iirc) about 3-4 months. Was she able to stay off the street in the long run? I hope so. She needed and wanted it; the overwhelming majority of people living on the streets didn’t.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. I know.

          The “opportunity housing” is kind of in our faces in our area. Long established church properties are selling empty acreages for non-profits to sell these units. The units amount to very small apartments, or if you will: attached, stacked, tiny homes. Cost $3000 (initially), with 1/3 down. Can pay cash or sweat equity. How full is the current finished version? No clue. Just know it started out looking cute and charming. Now a few years in? Overgrown/unkept and definitely not being maintained.

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        2. I know a lot of people who were homeless for up to a year. Sometimes, yes, drugs or alcohol were involved. Sometimes a really bad run of luck. There is help. Finding help is hard, because everything is cluttered with people who neither want it nor need it. (What they need is some tough love or at least boundaries, but that’s harder.)

          Liked by 1 person

  8. no money is thrown at the problem, it’s thrown at Democrat donors and voters who are going to “solve” the homeless problem at twice the median income. Of course the money is proportional to the number of homeless people so the best thing to do is attract more homeless so you can have more money leading to more people paid twice the median income to solve the homeless problem

    Liked by 5 people

  10. Well, in Canada anyway, there were no “homeless” until Covid. And now, there are. EVERYWHERE, in every town big enough to have a homeless welfare program, there are tents. (Pretty freakin’ cold for tents, eh? But there they are…)

    But it’s funny. No welfare program, no tents. To my eye, anyway. Other possibility, smaller town cops don’t play. Either way, not -every- town has this.

    So the sudden appearance of tents and the uneven distribution tells you this is an arrangement, not a “problem.” Also the difficulty of getting squatters off your property points to an arrangement. It’s illegal, they can’t be there, but there they are. The cops won’t remove them, and if you remove them yourself -you- go to jail. So yeah, its a policy.

    Coincidentally (or perhaps not?) Ontario where all this is happening has stopped building houses. Can’t sell them, you see. Nobody can get a mortgage for an $800,000 semi-detached. Why does it cost $800,000? Because lumber is fantastically expensive (in Canada, where we have nothing but trees), land is fantastically expensive (again in Canada, where we have nothing but land) and the taxes are truly spectacular. Of your $800K, as much as $300 could be tax of one kind or another. Sewer, water and power could be another $100, as it is provided by the town/city. Policy.

    Also a policy, mass immigration. All the homeless shelters, of which Bleeding Heart Canada has many, are full of “asylum seekers.” AKA dudes who showed up in Canada and demanded to be taken in. That’s a problem, because all the skid-row burnouts and also the people in real need (car accident victims, brain injury victims, veterans, general issue old people) are now without shelter. Because the government filled the shelters with foreigners. Deliberately. They’re literally paying them to stay here. Paying them a lot.

    Now, the –WHY?!!!– of all this, I don’t know. I am not an expert, I can’t figure it out beyond the bare assumption that somebody is making money off this somehow. I suspect foreign influence and treason to be the root of it, but suspicion and five bucks won’t get you a latte at Starbucks. Inflation you know, also clearly deliberate.

    On the bright side, I see that #TheDonald just declared Fentanyl to be a “Weapon of Mass Destruction.” I believe this to be accurate, it is certainly destroying enough people in Canada. Comes from Communist China, also a pretty big clue. The Chicoms are re-fighting the Opium Wars.

    Liked by 6 people

    1. Considering how many cops get zapped by Vitamin F just inhaling traces of the dust, it certainly can be used as a chem weapon. LD50 is only about 2mg in opiate-naive people.

      Its not GB or VX, but it still is quite lethal and weaponizable. And the body count is simply staggering.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. It’s also a popular way to kill drug-sniffing dogs.

        Which is why we know the emergency shots work on dogs.

        Oh, hand lotion, hand sanitizer, and small cuts on your skin will also let it in past the skin barrier. If your hands are perfectly dry and you get it off it probably won’t even give you a buzz… almost nobody has perfectly dry hands, and the first thing most folks do after picking up something nasty is try to sanitize their hands.

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    2. It doesn’t matter how many trees there are if the government won’t let you chop any down.

      The WHY?!!! is a no-brainer: so they can steal more $trillions to fund their Poverty Industrial Complex.
      ———————————
      Why do so many idiots believe that our problems will be solved by the same shitheads that caused them?

      Liked by 5 people

  11. How very fascinating that my previous comment was trapped in moderation by WP Delenda Est.

    Just for a laugh, I’ll repost without bolding:

    Well, in Canada anyway, there were no “homeless” until Covid. And now, there are. EVERYWHERE, in every town big enough to have a homeless welfare program, there are tents. (Pretty freakin’ cold for tents, eh? But there they are…)

    But it’s funny. No welfare program, no tents. To my eye, anyway. Other possibility, smaller town cops don’t play. Either way, not -every- town has this.

    So the sudden appearance of tents and the uneven distribution tells you this is an arrangement, not a “problem.” Also the difficulty of getting squatters off your property points to an arrangement. It’s illegal, they can’t be there, but there they are. The cops won’t remove them, and if you remove them yourself -you- go to jail. So yeah, its a policy.

    Coincidentally (or perhaps not?) Ontario where all this is happening has stopped building houses. Can’t sell them, you see. Nobody can get a mortgage for an $800,000 semi-detached. Why does it cost $800,000? Because lumber is fantastically expensive (in Canada, where we have nothing but trees), land is fantastically expensive (again in Canada, where we have nothing but land) and the taxes are truly spectacular. Of your $800K, as much as $300 could be tax of one kind or another. Sewer, water and power could be another $100, as it is provided by the town/city. Policy.

    Also a policy, mass immigration. All the homeless shelters, of which Bleeding Heart Canada has many, are full of “asylum seekers.” AKA dudes who showed up in Canada and demanded to be taken in. That’s a problem, because all the skid-row burnouts and also the people in real need (car accident victims, brain injury victims, veterans, general issue old people) are now without shelter. Because the government filled the shelters with foreigners. Deliberately. They’re literally paying them to stay here. Paying them a lot.

    Now, the why of all this, I don’t know. I am not an expert, I can’t figure it out beyond the bare assumption that somebody is making money off this somehow. I suspect foreign influence and treason to be the root of it, but suspicion and five bucks won’t get you a latte at Starbucks. Inflation you know, also clearly deliberate.

    On the bright side, I see that #TheDonald just declared Fentanyl to be a “Weapon of Mass Destruction.” I believe this to be accurate, it is certainly destroying enough people in Canada. Comes from Communist China, also a pretty big clue. The Chicoms are re-fighting the Opium Wars.

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      1. In 2003 there were Squeegie People trying to clean your windshield. Homeless druggies, freaks and loonies have always been around Toronto. Shelters have housed them, for the most part, and they’d hang out down by the Don river warehouse district, live in the bushes next to the QEW, stuff like that. Schizophrenics, mostly. There were hundreds of them.

        But they didn’t set up encampments in all the parks in town, and basically take over public transit when it’s cold out. And they weren’t literally shooting up on the subway platform in front of the cops. They do that now, there’s video. More than one video, because fairly common occurrence. There are -thousands- of them.

        To the point where the doorman at most downtown condo buildings has a partner, and they’re wearing ballistic vests.

        First of all, in 2003 most condo buildings didn’t use to have doormen. Then they had one guy during the evenings. Then they had one guy, three shifts, 24/7.

        Now they have -two- guys, with body armor. Not the bank. Just a condo. Pretty soon we’ll be seeing armed security.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. “seeing armed security“

          –

          How? Would Canadian officials allow any kind of arming? Let alone firearms. Do they even allow any police force to go armed? Or is that just the islands across the Atlantic?

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Even places with strict gun control laws allow licensed security personnel to carry firearms.

            After all, they want the security outfits that they hire for their own protection to be carrying.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. “Would Canadian officials allow any kind of arming?”

            Yes, you -can- get permits to carry on-the-job IF you work for an approved, licensed, inspected, hooked-up security company. There are two of those that I know of in Canada, Brinks and one other whose name escapes me. There might be as many as three of four more I don’t know about and can’t be bothered to look up.

            Basically you have “private” armed security for things like the Brinks armored car that comes around to pick up the money at the grocery store, guards bank vaults, that sort of thing.

            But you cannot get one of those jobs unless you are already a cop, pretty much. That’s why I put “private” in scare quotes, because it’s technically not government, but really it kind of is.

            Should the demand justify the expansion, security companies could probably make a big buncha money giving off-duty cops more places to moonlight.

            But a -civilian- getting a permit to carry? Nope. Nopenopenope. Unpossible. Can’t be done. Unless you’re a super-important government weenie, and you know where some bodies are buried, and also some other super-important guys owe you favors. And we know that because one of those political guys shot somebody one time, maybe 10-20 years ago when they tried to rob his store. Very big deal at the time, because every other store owner in Toronto said “Where’s MY carry permit, boys?”

            So yes, carry permits exist. But no, you can’t have one, and it does not matter how much you might need one, because nobody cares if you die. Shut up and get back to paying your taxes.

            Anyone thinking this all seems very hypocritical and sketchy, welcome to Canada. The corruption and special-deal making is vast in scope, and stretches internationally. Like Australia, but without the kangaroos.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. Kind of what I figured.

              My questions above weren’t quite sarcastic. Also kind of were. Don’t know enough for specifics (thanks by the way) to be sarcastic. Not like we can legally carry a firearm across the border for protection as a visitor regardless.

              Not sure how that works for carrying one to Alaska through Canada. There are procedures for carrying a rifle for hunting. Not sure one can take a handgun as wildlife hunting safety backup too. Will never know, since our type of hunting these days happens with a digital camera. Know we still can’t have a gun for safety backup against 4-legged wild animals, let alone the predatory two legged ones.

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              1. “Not sure how that works for carrying one to Alaska through Canada.”

                I wouldn’t even ask. Ship it on an American carrier, it’ll be safe that way. Probably. If it goes by air, anyway.

                Generally if you think up the stupidest, most counter-productive thing you can imagine, it’ll be worse than that. When you find out the actual rule it’ll make you scream.

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  12. Many decades ago, there was a TV movie about a “Homeless Family”

    The main thing that I remember about it was How Stupid The Father Was!

    He had lost his job and very quickly he lost his family’s home.

    What Was Extremely Stupid was that he had relatives (IIRC a brother) that could have taken him & his family in but HE REFUSED TO ACCEPT THAT HELP.

    As so, all of the “stuff that happened in the movie” was preventable.

    Oh, the wife was also an idiot as she could have taken herself and the children to the relatives.

    And of course, most if not all of the “homeless” aren’t like that fictional family but the movie makers didn’t want to show the majority of the “homeless”, so they created this idiot family and expected the viewers to not see how stupid the family was.

    Liked by 5 people

  13. We have given $15 TRILLION to the poor and they’re still poor.

    Well, all right, that’s not entirely accurate. We have given $15 trillion to the Poverty Industrial Complex and the poor are still poor. Most of that money went into building the Poverty Industrial Complex and its bloated bureaucracy. Which adheres very closely to the Iron Law Of Bureaucracy.

    Maybe what we need is to publicize a Universal Law Of Stupidity: Do stupid shit, and you will get stupid results.
    ———————————
    Despite what Leftroids believe, the primary purpose of government is not to take money from people who earned it and give it to those that did not.

    Liked by 5 people

    1. Poverty is defined as the bottom quintile of earning.

      As earnings rise, so does the top of the bottom fifth. Hmmm.

      Note that the current “povery” quintile here live better than most of the rest of humanity. But “poverty!”

      Rock bottom is always zero, thus growing economy always means growing disparity. Reducing it very much requires removal of top earners. Note that last.

      We could confiscate the entire wealth of the top quintile and give it to the bottom. Now re-run the numbers by quintile. Wow! We still have a bottom 5th! Poverty persists! More!

      Everyone see the scam now?

      Liked by 4 people

  14. The real reason Democrats don’t solve problems is because if they did, there would be no need for Democrat’s (All Politicians really, not to be confused with the few statesman we actually have), then of course there is all that money they can scam. Yes, it pisses me off to no end. The more you call it out, the more they call you heartless as the scum pocket their ill gotten gains.

    The funny thing is if they got there way and total power, they would do exactly what they have railed against for years, throw the homeless in prison and gulags along with their enemies. Oh, they’d call it reeducation camps and the such but we have seen this song and dance before. Simply put, these people are evil, evil incarnate.

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  15. Both parties are at fault for a lot of this. Back in the Seventies, the Democrats and leftists were seduced by the “mental patient liberation movement” into thinking that the mentally ill were really all right but “just thinking differently,” and the Republicans and rightists were hypnotized by the siren call of the money to be saved by closing down mental institutions.

    Unfortunately, a lot of the mentally ill who seemed to be all right when met with in institutions really weren’t—they were dependent on medication to keep them more or less on an even keel, and out on their own, they thought they were cured and didn’t need their meds anymore. Also, the “outpatient” clinics that had been promised as substitutes never got built, thanks to the NIMBYS screaming “Not here! NOT HERE!” And a lot of others who were just poor were forced onto the streets by the closure of low-income housing like SRO hotels.

    Then Mitch Snyder and a bunch of the Usual Suspects ginned up a media shitstorm about “the homeless” mainly as a club to beat Reagan with. The fact that we’d always had such people—they used to be called hobos, tramps, or bums—didn’t register with them. It was a weapon against Evil Republicans, so they used it.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. The Phi Kappa Phi Forum magazine (not noted for its conservative bias) did an article well after Reagan on homelessness. Turned out when Snyder testified before Congress they insisted on getting a solid number of how many homeless people were out there. So…he made one up. The Forum’s estimate on the actual number of homeless people in the 1980s was around 250,000 nationwide, with the overwhelming majority being either addicts or deinstitutionalized mental patients.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. The movement started in the 1950s in the US, with the invention of antipsychotic medications. I recommend Grokipedia’s entry on the topic of Deinstitutionalization in the United States.

      Unfortunately, psychiatric beds lose money for hospitals, thus there aren’t enough beds available even for people experiencing a psychiatric crisis. There are many tales of psych patients “boarding” in hospital ERs, waiting for beds to open up. This includes children. This is a common phenomenon. (Link removed to not have too many links)

      So not only do you get more of what you pay for, you get less of what you won’t pay for, which is appropriate care for mentally ill children. However, the supply of mentally ill children does not decrease when you don’t have inpatient beds for treatment. But then it’s not like suicidal or homicidal children will be writing their legislators to complain if the state budget is cut: https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/03/29/massachusetts-families-at-risk-under-gov-healeys-proposed-mental-health-cuts-more-lives-lost/

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Technically Oregon has a camping ban in most places, including parks, private or public. Enforced? Who is kidding who?

      Eugene city council is discussing creating the same ban Springfield has. Won’t make panhandling illegal. Will make handouts out of car windows on streets illegal. Must park and exit vehicle or move vehicle to nearby parking lot. OTOH suppose to be illegal for panhandlers to be on the medium of intersections (i.e. Beltline & Gateway, where I’ve seen panhandlers get almost hit, and that is Springfield), also not always enforced.

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      1. After a driver lost control late one night and drove over one of the more popular panhandler hang outs (thanks be no one was there), the beggars stopped using that median.

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      2. The only reason Salem and Eugene don’t have actual favelas is that the hillsides either have upscale developments on them, or are too far away from the city center to get handouts.

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        1. Yes. I know.

          You couldn’t pay me to live in the South Hills, Spring Hill, or the south side of Springfield Hwy 126. 1) OMG expensive. 2) Fire Traps. One way in. One way out. 3) When it is icy, one is either stuck at home. Or one walks home from the base of the mountain. It does not take much. 4) Also possibility of slides (usually because developer covered up existence of prior slides).

          Of coarse the rest of us, Eugene/Springfield has to worry about that 1000 year flood percentage. (100 year flood mitigated by a number of upper river dams on Willamette and McKenzie, both flood control and water/power hydraulics. Plus most houses are 3 to 4 feet above the street level. Now outlying areas, those on uncontrolled creeks, and in valley further up the Willamette, between Salem and Eugene, have higher rates of flooding, usually fields and pastures often isolating but not always flooding homes perched on raised land. Happening now thanks to current atmospheric river dump. Homes are flooding. Eugene area is getting hit with heavy wind and rains now. More flooding predicted, but nothing yet for western or coastal Lane/Bendon and further south, counties. Usual suspects in Lane/Benton are Long Tom (western valley), Mary’s (Corvallis), and Siuslaw (Mapleton/Florence), rivers, at minimum.

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    2. This sounds promising, because it’s a small program run by people who know one another and know the system (they ARE the system, it seems), and the person needing help can see that what they ask him to do benefits him. I don’t know what the limiting scale would be. Small and personal is the answer.

      Liked by 1 person

  17. And yes, much as I hate to tell you this, most homeless — not those people considered homeless because they’re couch surfing or whatever — but the real homeless, camping on the streets aren’t there because they had a bad month, or lost a job.

    Yeah, there have been times when it looked like it was looming for us. But when it’s that type of thing? People have family and friends and failing all that church organizations that can find temporary shelter till they’re “back on their feet.”

    Related to this-
    when you hear about Ebil Police Not Letting Church Home People, start looking for assault cases.
    The last two I looked into were shut down because of assaults of those being sheltered. Usually little girls.

    Liked by 2 people

  18. When i was homeless in ’92, one of the primary homeless charities was the United Way.

    UW consumed 85% of their monetary donations internally.

    Yes, that’s right, only 15% was actually getting spent on their actual beneficiaries.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. It is possible to end homelessness if you throw enough money at the problem. Just spend the money on hitmen (or women) to eliminate the homeless. Guarantee after six months there would be very few homeless on the street anymore. You would not even need to kill that many. After word got out, the homeless would quickly find homes.

    Not saying this is an appropriate way to solve the problem. Or even advocating it. It would be immoral. Just saying it is at least one way to end the homeless problem if you are willing to spend enough money.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Off-topic, but this tweet and the replies hit the nail on the head for how academia and other industries got converged, and why fighting back is non-trivial: https://xcancel.com/L0m3z/status/2000957037317063137#m

    “I also recognize that for many people on the inside, being vocal is simply not possible. Being vocal means you don’t get to be on the inside anymore. This is the fundamental paradox, which merely being loud and courageous does not actually solve.”

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I get that you need martyrs/firebrands to move the culture, and I have nothing but respect for the people who speak out. But it’s also a one-and-done tactic. When you speak out from job X, you are ostracized, if not fired, and effectively stop having job X. The world gains a public commentator and loses a sensible X. You can be vocal or sensible, but not both. (This goes for sane moderates and liberals as well.)

        It’s like fighting without air cover. You can make some gains, but they’ll leave you exposed. And the enemy can act with impunity because they have the administration, the media, and (usually) the courts on their side.

        It’s not a completely intractable situation, as evidenced by the preference cascade we’re going through. But it’s frustratingly resistant to one-size-fits-all tactics. You either need coordinated tactics of the type the Right basically never uses (like Rosa Parks: deliberate, targeted, and effective) or some sort of institutional or popular support so you’re not just feeding people into the fire (like Trump and MAGA are now providing).

        Liked by 2 people

        1. It is extremely emotionally attractive because you find out if it works or not, right off the bat.

          Of course, as he points out at the start of that speech…the less overt options are already removed.

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  21. So… going off-topic…

    As I’m sure you all know, Thailand and Cambodia have started fighting again. A video from one of the more “interesting” (meaning double-check anything that goes deeper than surface level news) YouTube video sources caught my eye. Both Thailand and Cambodia are using Chinese equipment. Cambodia is basically outfitted and trained by China. Thailand uses a mix of Western and Chinese equipment. However, Thailand’s C3 stuff is purely American. And the video noted that they are using that to *clobber* the Cambodians.

    Hopefully that bodes well for any future clashes between the US and China.

    Thailand’s most prominent piece of Chinese equipment is the VT-4 Main Battle Tank. The VT-4 is exclusively an export tank, and is not used by the PLA (the Chinese manufacture a number of vehicle designs that are exclusively for export, such as the JF-17 fighter used by Pakistan). Within the last few days, the barrel on a Thai VT-4 exploded. It appears that this happened due to a shell detonating within the barrel. Currently the Chinese are blaming it (and I found what appears to be a possible confirming source for this) on the fact that the tank was firing a lot of shells – specifically, more than “200” – and this caused the barrel to explode.

    I won’t ask any former tankers here what they think of that excuse. I already know.

    Oh, and I mentioned above that this is an “interesting” channel. As an example, during the video they were talking about the Patton tank (Thailand uses modernized M60s, and might still be using M48s, as well). The video showed a picture of a Patton tank, with a caption reading that Thailand has M48A5 tanks, purchased from Ukraine, who had bought them from China in 1984. Uh…

    More likely, whoever (or whatever…) put the video together got confused because Thailand also has some T-84 tanks, which it purchased from Ukraine (where they were manufactured; China wasn’t involved) in the ’90s. It’s an updated version of the Soviet T-80.

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  22. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » WHEN YOU SPEND MONEY ON HOMELESSNESS, YOU BUY MORE HOMELESS:  You Get More of What You Pay For.

  24. Not just what you pay for; you always get more of what is rewarded. Reward criminals, get more crime. Reward illegal aliens, get millions more. Reward hooliganism, vandalism, looting, arson, assault and murder, get more of everything. Reward corruption, get a whole government that has turned against the nation, the people and the Constitution while robbing us blind.
    ———————————
    People can make stupid mistakes, but only the government can force everybody to make the SAME stupid mistakes.

    Liked by 2 people

  25. My wife is Korean, and she has come back from visiting Seoul commenting that they did not have homeless begging on the street there because they don’t pay people to be homeless there.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. There’s a distinction to be made between the deserving poor and everyone else. This description is nowadays frequently dubbed “old-fashioned,” because many people are easily manipulated through emotion.

    I regard the west of the country’s casual neglect of property with disbelief. Public property is property belonging to the public. Allowing random people to camp on common lands is negligence on the part of the authorities. It is privatizing a public good. There’s no virtue there.

    There’s a cost to maintaining anything, including doing the necessary work of supervising the dispersion of assets to charity. It has become clear this year that the authorities have been willfully negligent with public funds on a massive scale. This is far beyond carelessness. It is obvious that the barest due diligence has not been performed, or worse, it’s been abandoned.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Used to be one could drive large corporation or even in-state private owned timber lands. Not anymore. All, if not most are gated. Locked gated. Even if it means locking out public timberland sections, BLM, USFS, or state. Note, farming and ranching have always done this, timber just went “why not us too?” Pretty sure the USFS would lock down a lot of roads if they could (have some by declaring them ‘not roads’). Interesting that while it also (kind of) stops the usual illegal grows and drug manufacturing, it was to prevent illegal camping dumps. Prevents them from getting too far off the state and county highways anyway.

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      1. There was a recent case of a horrifying waste dump made in the UK. https://apnews.com/article/illegal-dump-uk-oxford-kidlington-england-gang-ad9a486bb2cde87264db741f4993a941

        Last summer there was the suspicion that some of the forest fires might have been intentionally set. Locking down easy access might help, although I assume criminals are quite capable of cutting chains.

        There are also people who take a wrong turn and get trapped a long way from home, especially in winter.

        Removing illegal trash, putting out forest fires, rescuing stranded travelers or hikers also costs money. And land owned by the public doesn’t produce property tax, to offset the cost.

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        1. “There are also people who take a wrong turn and get trapped a long way from home, especially in winter.

          Removing illegal trash, putting out forest fires, rescuing stranded travelers or hikers also costs money. And land owned by the public doesn’t produce property tax, to offset the cost.“

          “suspicion that some of the forest fires might have been intentionally set.“

          –

          I am aware.

          Most the 2020 Cascade and points east fires are suspected to be arson. Just ask RCPete for his opinion.

          No tax money currently. President DJT has issued orders to cut to prevent forest fires. That will generate revenue for counties. If it can get past the court challenges. Oregon has too many rural counties where over half the county is federal or state lands with little to no revenue tax (percentage of sales) coming to the county.

          Not real thrilled with the lower 48 grizzly and wolf delisting happening anytime soon. Too many are already lost in legit accidents. They both need more time to recover and spread. But the timber harvesting? Even with roads gated at least there would be roads to access wildfires.

          Not that access for wildfire fighting is always helpful. Look at the 2020 Detroit, Holiday, and prior and subsequent N. and S. Umpqua Hwy, fires. They all had direct access (actual highways) to be fought. Most major wildfires have to be caught early otherwise it is weather dependent (at least here in the mountainous west). A bulldozer cannot be used on the side of a mountain, a bulldozer width, let alone a polaski blazed down to the roots trail, will not help when the wild fire is jumping a river and a two lane highway. Not counting jumping miles in advance. (We were getting large warm ash flakes, no embers, in our neighborhood, and we are 10 miles from the evacuation zones, a good 30 miles from the actual 2020 Holiday fires.)

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    3. The entire purpose of their ‘public charity’ is to funnel our tax money to Democrat donors and cronies. Any oversight or audits would get in the way of that purpose. It’s inconvenient when people notice the corruption.

      Liked by 1 person

  27. Something like $60,000 spent by San Francisco per tent. Meanwhile “activists” are erecting new tents on public land and letting people know about them.

    I live next to a small park next to a lake. It has had tents for over 10 years. I have had to listen to the inhabitants. Some are clearly mentally ill. Most, if not all, are addicts.

    Most have also been offered accommodation but have refused it.

    According to the fire chief, fires in tents are common as the result is money, other goods and a new tent for the inhabitant. Often this is claimed multiple times as there is no way to prove the identity of the inhabitant the tent.

    Meanwhile, what should be an open area for families to breath is not. The local wildlife also suffer (except the geese who seem not to care). The grass and supporting infrastructure has been destroyed.

    Also, meanwhile, a lot of low level criminality. I had to call 911 last week after I spotted a man assaulting a woman on the sidewalk below my window. Yelling was ignored. I am told by my neighbors that they are both tent dwellers.

    Solutions? Well understood, just not implemented. Why not? Certainly a lack of political will. However, it should be noted that our local politicians are very proud of “standing up to Trump”. Much easier than, you know, actually doing stuff.

    If I sound depressed it’s because i have experienced 10 years of being told that a solution will be available “real soon now” and I see no reason why this experience has to be embedded into the American landscape.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I know exactly how to get parks, bike paths, etc., cleaned out. Even the grass and dirt cleared out and replaced due to the contamination of the campers (drugs and general filth). Happens every single time there is a major international event at the UofO. Camps, other than the safe place camps, no matter where they are, are cleaned out, and cleaned up. The bike path underbrush cleared out under the trees between the river and neighborhood fences.

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