Glen Contrarian
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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?
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?
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?
I think more and more people would just become homeless because life is hard and this would be an easy alternative.
I always consider it disingenuous when someone tells me it's cheaper for the taxpayer to pay more taxes than to require a person to be responsible for himself.
I am especially skeptical of that story about the teacher who became homeless. But hey...maybe I expect too much intelligence from a person who's profession was to educate our youth. Maybe there is more to that story that's not being told...like maybe he lost his job because he's an alcoholic. I don't know, but it sounds fishy to me.
It would be far cheaper, and better for the economy overall, for the homeless that were able bodied and mentally healthy to clean themselves up and use whatever opportunities are available to not be homeless anymore.
One would have to be a direct descendant of Ebenezer Scrooge to not support this. Hell yes. Give them a modest shelter, clothing budget, and food budget. And enforce some rules regarding nuisance behaviors--quiet hours at 10 PM weeknights and 12 AM weekends, no loud music EVER, no smoking indoors, no loud arguments, etc.
Okay, you're able-bodied...and you're homeless. Which means you can't wash and iron your clothes, you can't take a bath (unless it's at a sink in some fast-food joint's bathroom). So when you look like that, when you can't show up to work day after day bathed (and not stinky), with clean, ironed clothes, how the heck are you going to get a job, much less keep that job?
Really? How about this: trying becoming homeless, and then try finding and keeping a job while being homeless. Seeing as how you can't wash and iron your clothes, and the only bath you can take is probably at a sink in a McDonald's restroom, it's pretty doggone hard for a homeless person to ever get and keep a job. Yet so many just look at them with scorn, telling them, "go get a job."
That's what providing an apartment allows them to do: take a shower, wash and iron clothes - even clothes from Goodwill, if they're clean and pressed, looks a heck of a lot more presentable (and job-worthy) than just what a homeless person has on his or her back.
Also, you're going on the assumption that if we give them a place to live, they'll suddenly become lazy. But if you'll check, most people want the dignity of a job. If a person's been on the streets, most of them would love the opportunity to get a job, to be able to do for themselves. YES, there will be some who will take advantage of the situation - the modern-day version of 'welfare queens'...but the great majority just need the opportunity to be able to get a job, as menial as that job may be...because even the most menial jobs are out of the reach of those who are homeless.
Okay, you're able-bodied...and you're homeless. Which means you can't wash and iron your clothes, you can't take a bath (unless it's at a sink in some fast-food joint's bathroom). So when you look like that, when you can't show up to work day after day bathed (and not stinky), with clean, ironed clothes, how the heck are you going to get a job, much less keep that job?
I'm not Scrooge..I'm just opposed to ANYBODY, using govt guns to take money from anybody. If you aren't able to provide for yourself, then either rely on charity or perish in and of your own void, or do the honorable thing and end your own worthless life.
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?
Shelters, churches, missions, and other places allow the homeless to get cleaned up. Why do you act like becoming homeless is something people will never recover from? if someone wants to bad enough, they'll find a way. I'm not opposed to helping people when they fall on hard times, but I sure as hell don't think we need to make that existence comfortable enough that it can become a lifestyle. THAT is unhealthy for everyone involved.
Call me crazy but I think it would be cheaper for the taxpayers not to do any of that.
Call me crazy but I think it would be cheaper for the taxpayers not to do any of that.
You're crazy.
"The Homeless Task Force reported it costs Utah $19,208 on average per year to care for a chronically homeless person, including related health and jail costs. Pendleton found that to house and provide a case worker for the same person costs the state about $7,800."
Utah's Strategy for the Homeless: Give Them Homes - NBC News
sounds nice in theory...but in real life, not so much. Shelters only have so much capacity and turn people away on a regular basis. The others normally don't allow someone to sleep there. And how many of those places have facilities to allow the homeless person to wash, clean, and iron his or her clothes every single day so he or she can go to work?
I doubt any of them do.
Google and read the studies - they found that providing apartments for the homeless is actually cheaper than it is to pay for the increased police presence, the use of the court system, and the extra prison capacity that comes with having those people on the streets.
Yes, that's counterintuitive...but one is cheaper than the other. And there's the rub - you do pay. One way or another, you pay anyway. You can pay more for cops and courts and prisons...or you can pay somewhat less for apartments to give them a place where they can take a shower, wash and iron their clothes, and get a job.
But you pay anyway. Do you want to pay more for the stick...or less for the carrot?
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