For many years I’ve had a basic question about housing California’s 160,000 homeless people: Who pays the rent? The most common meme of the pro-homeless lobby is that cities, with state and/or federal help, must develop housing (or appropriate it from existing sources) extensive enough to provide shelter for all their unhoused. This is indeed the driving thought among progressives here in the East Bay. As an example, let me quote in its entirely a letter to the editor in today’s East Bay Times from Tom Butt, the mayor of Richmond:
“The definition of homeless is lack of a permanent home. ‘Housing First’ is based on the concept that a homeless individual’s or family’s first and primary need is to obtain stable housing, and that other issues that may affect the household should be addressed once housing is obtained. According to the most credible sources, the homeless population in California is about 160,000. The average rent for an apartment in California is $1,566 per month. If all the unhoused individuals rented, the cost would be about $3 billion annually, about 1% of California’s $286.4 billion budget. In the world’s fifth-largest economy, we could eliminate homelessness using 1% of the state budget. I think most people would support this, but does the Legislature have the political will to make it happen?”
This line of thinking fails to address several crucial points. The most important is the question of whether the state has the Constitutional or moral right to create an entirely new class of dependent citizens—a class that may well prove to be permanent and intractable. I have observed before that when it comes to city-provided shelter for the homeless, officials very rarely provide the public with timelines concerning how long the affected individuals can be housed at the taxpayers’ expense. When Mayor Butt says “I think most people would support this,” my feeling is that most people would not support it, if the question were more accurately phrased this way: “Would you support permanent housing for homeless people, in which they can remain for the rest of their lives?”
This is an important point. We’re trying to do away with or minimize welfare in this country, not add more layers to it. Moreover, I suspect that most people believe that, if a homeless person is offered shelter by the city, then the city has the right—indeed the obligation—to demand from that person that he or she will abstain from the use of all illegal drugs, and will voluntarily submit to drug testing from time to time. The city would also have the right to evict residents if they break the law, for instance, by shoplifting or breaking into a parked car.
But there’s a moral case to be made here, too. What is the obligation of a city toward its homeless population? What is a homeless person’s obligation to the city in which he dwells? The plain and simple fact is that government cannot make life easy for everyone. As John F. Kennedy famously observed, “Life is unfair.” Government can try, around the edges, to alleviate certain conditions of poverty, but in the end, poverty will continue until every young person makes the personal choice to study hard, work hard, play by society’s rules, and lift himself up. If people cannot or will not commit to that clear, moral goal, then there’s really little government can do to help the poor. We must make living the kinds of lives that lead to poverty as unappealing and unfashionable as possible, to avoid giving our young people the impression that drug use, crime and idleness will lead to anything besides poverty, prison and death.
P.S. Wanted to let people know about a Zoom event later today with Sarah Karlinsky, author of a new SPUR Report on “Making Oakland Government Work.” The report emphasizes the role that having a “strong mayor” can play in Oakland. Today’s meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. Join us for what promises to be an interesting and lively conversation!
Zoom info: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6377599629?pwd=WTlWS1RjcWpoc3VERVhWNkozZkNtUT09
Steve Heimoff