- posted by demo kid
The holiday is done for me, the turkey is eaten, and the presents are opened! Again, I’ve slipped off from the festivities, just to get something off my mind.
Bryan Myrick, aka “thesenator2012″, is not quite rabid as the usual folks hanging out on the Sound Politics web pages. There is definitely a difference of opinion between what he thinks and what I think, and I’m quite willing to chalk it up to simple, respectable ideological differences. I can even say that I have far more respect for him than for an ideological nutcase like FWC or a tool like Don Ward (which is not saying very much, but still). I’m more keen on targeting people that are scary or crazy or both on this website, so I’ve never raised his blog entries before.
His recent post about homelessness, though, is one that truly illuminates the flaws in the conservative viewpoint when it comes to many, many social problems, and I can’t help but bring it up. No one can say that there are easy ways out of these social problems, by any means. They are, by any definition, “wicked problems” without a clear solution, or even a clear definition of the nature of the problem itself.
Many of the problems with even addressing the issue, however, stem from the conservative definition of homelessness as purely a “mental disorder” or a “personal choice”, equating it with personal responsibility and personal failure. From Bryan’s post:
Even those of us who see homelessness, in the big picture, as a social ill that inhabits the individual, not an individual for whom an ill society has failed, even our hearts thaw paradoxically when the temperatures drop below freezing.
Poetic.
He goes on to say that homelessness is the manifestation of mental illness, and that the independence that the folks in Nickelsville is a sham. He also states that “many of us” would not be able to get on board with homeless programs because there are no effective treatment programs associated with these initiatives.
I’m quite tempted here to draw parallels with the type of smug attitude that says that you need to “hate the sin, love the sinner” or that homosexuality is a “personal choice” when dealing with gays and lesbians. Nevertheless, the gauntlet is thrown down: homeless folks make a choice to stay outside, and it is a moral failing on their part. They do it to themselves, and if they don’t accept the help that they’re given, they’re really to blame and should be reprogrammed. They should thank us from the bottom of their hearts for everything that we do for them.
As with most things, though, it’s not quite as simple as that.
Can I defend the moral fiber of every single person that is homeless? Absolutely not. There are good folks and bad folks that are thrown out on the street. There are some that wallow in feelings of entitlement, and others that are absolutely, positively at the end of their rope but are determined to survive on their own. There are drug addicts, and alcoholics. Some homeless folks are quite keen on exploiting people, others are often taken advantage of by people. Many have mental disorders, others have criminal records, still others have fallen on very, very hard times. Some are vets who have had experience with hard living in the field, others are from local tribes, still others are abused runaways. This is not a homogenous population. They have different issues, different problems, and they need different solutions.
Being morally condescending cannot be a part of the policies to address homelessness. I’m not a judge myself, and I can’t be expected to determine who is worthy of a space and who is not, who is worthy of help and who is not. In my experiences volunteering, I have had to tell single mothers with children that I can’t find a place for them to stay the night, and that is bad enough. To try to tell people that they don’t deserve to survive because they don’t show enough reverence to the better-off? That’s not generosity, that’s the exploitation of power. The baby Jesus really would cry at that, since the adult Jesus spent most of his time around the outcasts in society.
As far as his point of promoting treatment programs goes, I’d certainly agree. Does this really find favor with conservatives, though? Take a real world example. The DESC in Seattle has sponsored the 1811 Eastlake Project, where 75 formerly homeless folks struggling with alcohol addiction are currently living. This facility provides mental health and chemical dependency treatment, support services, and monitoring by trained staff. The catch? The residents are allowed to drink alcohol on the premises, unlike most other facilities in the city. This makes sense from a practical and even a fiscal perspective. Many of these residents, when out on the street, were drinking and would get injured or arrested and the costs of dealing with emergency room visits, police calls, and so forth, were astronomical. (“Million-Dollar Murrays”, as it were.) Given their addiction, they weren’t willing to give up alcohol just to stay in a shelter, and as a result, they were putting themselves more at risk.
I would be very amused to see if very many conservatives would take up their mantle and advocate for more programs like this. More often than not, if some program like this is raised the only thing a hardcore, rabid SP type would see is the “free housing”, and would think an adequate solution would be to go down and tell all 75 residents to get a job. Likewise, is there a great clamoring from conservatives for increased mental health services in the state? Housing support for felons leaving incarceration? Improved and realistic drug treatment and risk minimization programs? I’d be very interested in seeing proof that conservatives are keen on treating the homeless like anything but criminals at this point, simply for being homeless. For all of the claims that conservatives are rational, I haven’t seen that their policies are driven by anything but a blind partisan hatred of government social programs.
This boils down to some of the fundamental differences in modern progressivism versus conservatism. While people like Bryan are more than willing to point out the flaws in strategies to deal with problems like these, it is rare that you find them public champions of alternatives that would do any better (aside from the all-powerful “invisible hand” and networks of religious institutions, of course). Most liberals are not advocates for unlimited spending for quixotic goals, and will not object to the idea of spending money wisely and effectively. Heck, I’m not even suggesting that extreme interventions should be pursued, just that these people should be allowed to live. But it seems that according to most conservatives, they may not even deserve that in the face of pure social Darwinism.
Anyway, off for a few days to enjoy the interregnum. I’ll catch you all in 2009!