Day 1202 – How to fix poverty and homelessness, the cheapest way

Sunday, May 5, 2024

Remember the Steve Martin bit about “How to make a million dollars and never pay taxes”?

It was a two step process: 1st – Make a milion dollars, 2nd – When the IRS comes around tell them these two simple words, “I forgot.”

Okay the cure for poverty, and the cheapest way to do it is remarkably simple. So is the solution to homelessness. It’s even simpler that Steve’s bit.

The cure for poverty, and the chepest way to do it is …

wait for it …

Give people money.

Yup. That’s it.

There’s reluctance by some to do this. FDR resisted Social Security because he didn’t want people “on the dole.” Understood, it’s a natural reaction. Something for nothing, and all that. However, it is the easiest and cheapest way to solve the problem.

Get a job, you say? Okay. The job doesn’t pay enough for you to live. What to do? Either, you force employers to pay more or you supplement what people are earning. Guess what? We are already doing it. Do you know the company that has more people on welfare than any other? 

Walmart. In fact, it’s a well known economic fact that every Walmart costs the community $400,000 a year. So you are already paying for it. But instead of having poor people running to emergency rooms and needing to find a way to get extra food or go without medicine we could do something different. We could give them money. Maybe just add to what they are making. (Or have the companies pay enough.)

Homelessness. Big problem. Do you know you can’t rent an apartment unless you can show a year’s worth of paychecks showing you can afford the place? So what do you do if you can’t? (Like, maybe you got tossed in jail for some nonsense reason and just got out.) Live in your car, until it’s repossessed and then sleep in the park or under a bridge overpass in a tent I guess. So here’s a clever proven idea – give people homes! What? Yeah. Houston did it and wiped out their homeless problem. So did one of those non-shithole countries: Denmark or Sweden, maybe Finland – I forget. But in both cases the government stepped in and helped people get a roof over their heads. Funny thing, when people have a bed to sleep in and a safe place to put their stuff, they can start putting their life in order. In Houton’s case 80% of the time those people got their act together and can start working and paying taxes, etc.

It’s not like we don’t have enough housing. There’s lots sitting empty. When we had the housing crash at the end of W’s administration housing prices plummeted. Big money came in and bought up the inventory. As they say they saw an opportunity. An opportunity to raise rental rates. There was no longer any cheap housing. Where were the poor supposed to live? Oh, not your problem. Bull.

It’s our problem. Stop with the ads of the homeless veterans, the run away from home teen, the abandoned child, and the deranged drug addict. Give them a home. It’s simple and cheaper than any other way to do it.

There’s a guy at Amazon whose job it is to help with poverty. He pointed out that kids come out of foster care at age 18. They have no where to go. He suggests creating dorms at community colleges and giving them an education and training in trades. We could do that or we can ignore them. Don’t wonder why crime goes up. You ignored the problem.