I Am Going to Say Something Controversial
Giving handouts to homeless people, either individually or as part of a government program, doesn't work. The only (good) thing that you accomplish by giving money to homeless people is making yourself feel better. It doesn't actually help them - it hurts them.
I was talking to someone on here earlier today, and we got into a debate on government programs for helping homeless people, and on the idea of creating a system where everyone is efficiently provided with what they need. This is what I came up with:
I disagree that we humans are capable of making efficient systems by which we can provide those things to everyone. Individually, many of us are capable of a great deal of intelligence and goodness, not to mention efficiency. But groups are, by their very nature, selfish, self serving, stupid, and narcissistic. I would have to write a lot of pages to explain why, but that's a bit much for a post like this, so I'll just say that history has shown us with utter consistency that every socialist or communist system that has been applied to any very-large group of people (like nations) has failed utterly - Both because centralizing distribution of goods (and other forms of power) inevitably draws the most evil, power hungry people to positions of power, and because it creates a nation of dependents who feel entitled to be taken care of no matter what. Some individuals will use the system the way it's intended, of course, but society as a whole will always erode in the direction of least resistance.
You're right that fulfilling Mazlow's first need (food, water, shelter, etc - the basic physical needs) for people opens the door to fulfilling all their other needs - but you're forgetting that with all of the government assistance programs available, very few homeless people actually need to be homeless. Medicare, Medicade, SSI and SSD (which applies even if they're mentally or physically broken), food stamps, assisted housing, free job search training and free interview clothes (A program I've partaken in myself - they literally give you 3 suits, 3 shirts, 3 pants - 3 full outfits for any and all job needs) - almost any homeless person who isn't mentally defective CAN get off the streets, either by getting a job or by being dependent on government handouts. And even some that are pretty screwy in the head can get SSD, which is enough to live on in many areas.
By and large, the people who stay homeless don't do it because they don't have a choice - they do it because they don't want to, most commonly because their parents had dependency issues (ie: they either wanted to be dependent on their kid, or they wanted their kid to be dependent on them, and either way they taught their kid to never, ever build a life outside the house on fear of terrible emotional or even sometimes physical retaliation, so now the kid is consciously or unconsciously terrified of getting a job or finding a home or doing anything else that would build their life. They may very well want to get a job and a house and start a family - but they want to avoid building a life more). Every dollar you give them just enables them to keep doing it.
So as nice and idealistic as it looks on paper - the reality of historically consistent evidence - not to mention historically proven human nature - is that to-each-according-to-their-need doesn't work.
I was talking to someone on here earlier today, and we got into a debate on government programs for helping homeless people, and on the idea of creating a system where everyone is efficiently provided with what they need. This is what I came up with:
I disagree that we humans are capable of making efficient systems by which we can provide those things to everyone. Individually, many of us are capable of a great deal of intelligence and goodness, not to mention efficiency. But groups are, by their very nature, selfish, self serving, stupid, and narcissistic. I would have to write a lot of pages to explain why, but that's a bit much for a post like this, so I'll just say that history has shown us with utter consistency that every socialist or communist system that has been applied to any very-large group of people (like nations) has failed utterly - Both because centralizing distribution of goods (and other forms of power) inevitably draws the most evil, power hungry people to positions of power, and because it creates a nation of dependents who feel entitled to be taken care of no matter what. Some individuals will use the system the way it's intended, of course, but society as a whole will always erode in the direction of least resistance.
You're right that fulfilling Mazlow's first need (food, water, shelter, etc - the basic physical needs) for people opens the door to fulfilling all their other needs - but you're forgetting that with all of the government assistance programs available, very few homeless people actually need to be homeless. Medicare, Medicade, SSI and SSD (which applies even if they're mentally or physically broken), food stamps, assisted housing, free job search training and free interview clothes (A program I've partaken in myself - they literally give you 3 suits, 3 shirts, 3 pants - 3 full outfits for any and all job needs) - almost any homeless person who isn't mentally defective CAN get off the streets, either by getting a job or by being dependent on government handouts. And even some that are pretty screwy in the head can get SSD, which is enough to live on in many areas.
By and large, the people who stay homeless don't do it because they don't have a choice - they do it because they don't want to, most commonly because their parents had dependency issues (ie: they either wanted to be dependent on their kid, or they wanted their kid to be dependent on them, and either way they taught their kid to never, ever build a life outside the house on fear of terrible emotional or even sometimes physical retaliation, so now the kid is consciously or unconsciously terrified of getting a job or finding a home or doing anything else that would build their life. They may very well want to get a job and a house and start a family - but they want to avoid building a life more). Every dollar you give them just enables them to keep doing it.
So as nice and idealistic as it looks on paper - the reality of historically consistent evidence - not to mention historically proven human nature - is that to-each-according-to-their-need doesn't work.
