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Solving Homelessness Vs. Greed: Some Math
You could argue homelessness is the major moral crisis of our time — I’m still not entirely sure how housing became a commodity as opposed to a right — or you might say that moral issue is addiction, climate change, etc. You might not care about “the moral issue of our time” and instead just try to make money, be content/happy, and raise your kids (if blessed with those). But even if you don’t think about this stuff, homelessness probably affects you: it tugs at your heartstrings, it impacts the experience of living in your city/area, and it’s constantly used as a political flash point.
We’ve been trying to “solve” homelessness for years, but it’s very hard, because it’s so tied up in other major issues — availability of jobs, how companies like to pay people (not well), housing stock, affordable housing, addiction, mental health programs, the criminal justice system, and more. You can’t really “solve” for housing without trying to adjust two or three other dials of society, and that’s where it gets tricky.
The major rebuttal to a lot of homelessness initiatives is, of course, the “bootstraps” narrative.
