>Whenever I hear about this criticism of free public transit I always wonder why the question isn't "how do we keep homeless people from living on our busses" and is instead "why don't these homeless people have some place to live that isn't a bus?"
Exactly. and asking the wrong question is nothing new either. there were plenty of folks wondering aloud about how to "get rid of" the homeless people back in the 1980s in NYC (then the homeless population there was ~50,000).
Usually it was some sort of "arrest/detain them all, then reroute them to shelters." The shelters being places where they can be warehoused and victimized over and over again without disturbing the normies or, heaven forfend, the tourists!
Only once did I see the right question being asked. I've searched and searched but have been unable to find the article online. It's an op-ed piece from the Village Voice, circa 1987 by Nat Hentoff or Dan Ridgeway entitled" What Do Homeless People Want?"
Fortunately the question posed in the title is answered in the very first sentence of the body: "Homes, mostly."
Why is it that we're not asking (or acting upon the obvious answers to) the right questions? That's not really rhetorical, although the answers will likely be pretty ugly.
Here in the US we can* do better, and we should do better. This is not a new issue that requires new solutions. Give homeless people, you know, homes.
But that's evil and wrong and absolutely Stalinism that will end up with tens of millions dead, right? Please.
Exactly. and asking the wrong question is nothing new either. there were plenty of folks wondering aloud about how to "get rid of" the homeless people back in the 1980s in NYC (then the homeless population there was ~50,000).
Usually it was some sort of "arrest/detain them all, then reroute them to shelters." The shelters being places where they can be warehoused and victimized over and over again without disturbing the normies or, heaven forfend, the tourists!
Only once did I see the right question being asked. I've searched and searched but have been unable to find the article online. It's an op-ed piece from the Village Voice, circa 1987 by Nat Hentoff or Dan Ridgeway entitled" What Do Homeless People Want?"
Fortunately the question posed in the title is answered in the very first sentence of the body: "Homes, mostly."
Why is it that we're not asking (or acting upon the obvious answers to) the right questions? That's not really rhetorical, although the answers will likely be pretty ugly.
Here in the US we can* do better, and we should do better. This is not a new issue that requires new solutions. Give homeless people, you know, homes.
But that's evil and wrong and absolutely Stalinism that will end up with tens of millions dead, right? Please.