Science , did it make a difference ?

My wife was a social worker for most of her career and this is a common misconception she had to deal with constantly.

Most of the people in America who are starving are mentally (or at least emotionally) ill. Despite whatever skills, education and intelligence they might have, they can't hold a job, or they can't keep a marriage together, or they have habits that make them unpopular, or... there are many reasons.

Fifty years ago the cops and municipal bureaucrats rounded these people up and locked them in institutions. In most cases sincere attempts were made to help them become the kind of people who could support themselves and keep food on the table, but in all cases they were at least given food and a warm dry place to sleep.

Then the 1960s happened. It was argued on the one hand that we have no right to "reprogram" people to fit the image of a 20th-century wage earner. We might be locking up the next Van Gogh! But even those of us who weren't quite so iconoclastic were more swayed by the other argument: If that was you, would you want to be locked up in a place that's a cross between a zoo and a prison, or would you rather take your chances outside? In 1960s Los Angeles of course the answer was easy: you can sleep outdoors comfortably about 340 nights a year, and the incredibly generous people there will buy you hamburgers, wine, shoes and a sleeping bag.

So we threw open the doors for anyone who wanted to go back out on the street. My wife was working on the psych ward of a County hospital at the tail end of that policy change and she grappled with her feelings about the maximum three-day involuntary stay. (If I have the number right; she's not here right now to ask.)

So sure, it's a big country and there certainly are people out there who tried hard, had some bad luck, fell through the cracks in the system, ran out of benefits, and can't buy food. (It's especially tough for unmarried men with no children.) And of course those are the ones that the leftists parade in front of the news cameras. What the leftists don't tell you is that most of the homeless and foodless people are out there because we opened the doors and let them out.

But ask yourself the question: If it were you, where would you rather be? Bearing in mind that although L.A. isn't what it used to be in the Golden Age of the 1960s and 70s, you're still welcome there.

Locked inside a looney bin, or sleeping in a park in Van Nuys?

 

I'm currently in Washington DC, which is plenty cold even if it's not as cold as Wisconsin. It has a huge homeless population, and virtually none of them ever starve or freeze to death.

For starters, the citizens are generous and give them enough money to buy food--or simply hand them food so they can't spend the money on booze. Many people give them second-hand clothing, figuring it's more efficient than donating it to a charity and letting them distribute it.

Second, the charities are there and the homeless stop in and get help. They all have serviceable second-hand jackets and socks and sleeping bags; I've walked through downtown Washington in the middle of a cold February night and seen them all comfortably bundled up in their bags under awnings or even on top of grates blowing warm air.

Finally, this is still America and it is our policy that absolutely no one will be allowed to die (against his will) from hunger or lack of medical care. Cops and plain old 8-to-5 bureaucrats walk among these people at all hours of the day and night, and while they're all enjoined from rounding them up and institutionalizing them, by golly if one of them looks ill he'll be whisked off in an ambulance in ten minutes.

Every city, county, state and the federal government will conspire to find a way to keep them alive. It's practically impossible to let yourself die in America. If you simply fail to pick up your newspaper for three days your neighbors will call the cops and they'll break one of your windows and haul you off to the E.R. (I know someone that happened to; she was really hoping to quietly die.) If you're lying on their lawn, in their park, or on the sidewalk near where they work, they'll have you removed and cared for, if only because it's just so messy to deal with dead bodies in public.

One of my aunts had to set a mobile home out in the middle of the desert to avoid being "rescued" from a natural death.

Hey, this is the USA after all and life is full of uncertainty even for the employed. We do have an ethic that says if we make life too easy for those who do not toil, our reward will be an increasing number of people who choose not to toil. It takes a well-trained expert to distinguish between somebody who's really one taco short of a combination plate and somebody who's just faking it to avoid working.

Never forget that the biggest nutritional problem among America's poor is obesity. I'm proud to be able to say that about my country. Your life may be in the toilet, but by Elvis's Ghost, you're gonna have some more french fries.