Homelessness in the Great Society

Homelessness is America's Attitude Problem

The reasons people live under bridges, in doorways, under makeshift shelters is a complex set of issues. If it were not, we would have solved it by now and there would be little cause for writing about it. Someday readers may have to dig in the Internet archives to find the obscure reports, studies and plans which had been prepared to address and eradicate the scourge of the 21st Century.

The root causes of people sleeping outside of a personally controlled self-contained walled space are two-fold. Economics and one's intellectual inability to function within the constraints of such a domestic arrangement. Both factors collapse into one which can be labeled as Society's Attitude.

Sociologists may disagree with the statement: The natural base state for all people is subsistence.  At the minimum people will do the least amount of organization and create the least amount of structure necessary to get by. Cities, towns and even temporary accommodations require massive amounts of planning, command and control, bureaucracy, behavior control and cooperation. All of that effort cost money. It requires the will to address the problems.

The economic factors which lead to there being huge numbers of tents and shack made of salvaged materials are not new. In the mid-1930s Hoovervilles sprouted up all across the nation as the consequence of massive unemployment created by a collapsing economy.

Huts and unemployed in West Houston and Mercer St by Berenice Abbott in Manhattan in 1935

Today we have the ironic convergence of economic structural unemployment and an entire demographic sector who have been left unaffected by the poor jobs situation. When gainful employment is lost due to automation, outsourcing, constrained wages, disability or illness, the people do not just disappear. They go somewhere. Like the Okies of the Dust Bowl era, they are given the bum's rush out to the town limits where they resettle or move along. Vagrancy laws made being present and "not having a visible means of support" into a criminal act. Anti-loitering laws made a person subject to arrest for merely standing on the sidewalk.

Telling a person to "get a job" doesn't cut it anymore. The job they can get will probably not provide sufficient income to even pay for a one-bedroom apartment. When unsubsidized housing costs in the range of $400-$600 per month ones choices are limited.

This economic homelessness scenario assumes the person is both capable of working a 40 hour/week job at minimum wage and has the intellectual capacity to occupy their own place. Many people are not so predisposed.

There are elderly, blind, otherwise disabled persons, people with addictions, behavior challenges and medical needs. The Olmstead Act (1999) codified mental illness as a protected disability under the definition of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).

The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 (MHSA) was United States legislation signed by President Jimmy Carter which provided grants to community mental health centers. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan and the U.S. Congress repealed most of the law." Wikipedia

The goal of deinstitutionalization was to protect the rights of persons who traditionally had been locked away in isolated institutions. President Jimmy Carter signed legislation which freed people from that fate. The next year the next President, Ronald Reagan, signed legislation repealing the community supports which the MHSA was designed to include. It was the shifting attitudes of the prevailing Congress and Administration which left tens of thousands of vulnerable people on the street, without financial supports, no plan and no way back to safety.

America had been moving closer to a caring society where people received what they needed regardless of their ability to exchange their labor for dollars. The Great Society of the Johnson Administrations was intended to develop those improvement. Attitudes got in the way. The implementation of those social programs became subverted into yet another means of compartmentalizing social and ethnic differences.

The Great Society was an ambitious series of policy initiatives, legislation and programs spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson with the main goals of ending poverty, reducing crime, abolishing inequality and improving the environment.

President Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965

The acronym NIMBY (not in my back yard) says a lot about why we have homelessness in every city in the nation. Nobody wants economically deficient people in their neighborhoods. Central Business Districts rely on paying customers to populate their sidewalks, not cardboard shelters and shopping carts with wonky wheels. Yet at the same time they do not want to place housing for such people anywhere near their "backyards." Humans are not singular in their presence.

Humans bring along with them odors, bodily wastes, bugs, dirty clothes, collections of everything they possess in bags and wheelie carts. Any solution for homelessness needs to address the human factors. The people who fall into this category of homelessness are beyond the reach of easy solutions. They could not perform a full time weekly job regardless of how much they were paid. They could not care for a personal dwelling no matter what the cost.

The homeless demographic wants much the same as anyone else wants.  They want to be dry when it rains, warm when the winter comes, safe from assault, close to a doctor, proximal to where the money comes from, near where they can get food. This sounds the same as every suburbanite in their rancher on the cul-de-sac.

The attitude arises when governments act to give away "free stuff" and the people on the other side of the economic borderline say "What about me?" What about them? They may work hard for their rewards and feel the other guy is getting away with being lazy. Claims of "they refuse to work." Claims they should be drug tested to receive SNAP money.  These are reactionary attitudes and mostly are falsely held.

For a single mother to work, there must be child care. Working and earning too much might terminate rent subsidies and Medicaid not the mention SNAP. There must be public transportation between all the destinations one needs to go and one dwelling. Without these amenities doing a job for a wage is counter-productive. Not having society provide for them is the recipe for homelessness.

Most businesses and people who are gainfully employed would rather the homeless people go away. They can't. Pushing them out to the City Limits only relocates the homelessness and makes it all the more difficult to see and remedy. There is a solution but it will cost money. There is a solution but we must change our attitudes about the people who are homeless and those who will become homeless.

The global economy is changing to one where there will be fewer gainful paying jobs to have. The rest of the world has already been dealing with these factors for decades. Americans and our Legislators need to realize how far down the wrong road we have already traveled and do an about face to change our future. Doing this starts with a new attitude.

Ockham’s Trump Razor

It is an application of Ockham's Razor. Stated simply: the simplest explanation which fits all the facts is probably the correct one. So here it is: Does Donald Trump's tax records contain Presidency-ending information? The answer is Yes.  

The American people know he is an unscrupulous business operator. They know he has multiple properties and businesses in the countries with which the United States has a political or military interest. The fact that he paid hush money to prostitutes is common knowledge. Therefore, these items cannot be the cause of his jealous guarding of the content of the tax records.

He claims the IRS has been auditing his tax reports for many months and in possibly years-long investigations. Certainly they would have some inkling into what evidence of criminal activity there is in the documents.

This brings us up to the point where we once again ask the essential question: What is so important to keep hidden from Congressional scrutiny. The matter boils down to what would be considered a crime and what is evidence of corruption but difficult to call a crime. Improper official behavior which rises to the level in impeachable with removal from office may not be provable in a court of law utilizing all the maneuvering and machinations available to a criminal defendant. A President's behavior around being investigated for improprieties constitutes grounds for removal even in the absence of "proving a crime."

Receiving massive 100 million dollar business loans from Russian oligarchs is not illegal for a private citizen. Having foreign entities invest in your real estate is again not illegal - for the private citizen. That person's tax documents would demonstrate the financial relationship but no crime, in and of itself. Therefore, the IRS would have no probable cause to consider prosecution.

Very large investors have a vested interest in how the money is spend and how well the investment is maintained. They want to make sure the borrower is fit and capable of repaying the investment. They may go as far as to pave the way and clear the road ahead for the borrower.

Donald Trump's biggest misstep was running for and winning the White House. What was legal for private citizen Trump is wholly inappropriate and illegal for President Trump. His indebtedness is a liability and compromise of US interests and national security. Those hidden tax records certainly contain the "embarrassing" material for which his is being extorted now.

The acts of a man who is being blackmailed and thereby manipulated by the extortionist cannot be justified by his desire for the truth to become public. Murdering a blackmailer is still murder and punishable as such.

The end of the Trump Administration will be at the end of a protracted and contentious legal battle. Those tax records which have thus far been kept out of the courts and public view do contain corroboration for the hints and rumors which have circulated for decades about the nature of the Trump empire. Their release will add to the mountain of evidence already amassed against him that he is responding to controls by foreign entities which have the dismantling of America's influence and power on the world stage.

Schrödinger's House Deposition Transcripts

There are Lindsey Grahams in the multiverse who still adhere to their Oath of Office to uphold and protect the constitution.

Senator Lindsey Graham says he will not read the transcripts.

Political Heisenberg Principle

You know a narcissist becomes angry just with the asking of a question which challenges his ego? When he has no legitimate answer or constructive response, he spout off about "how dare you ask me that question?" or "It's people like you who are dividing this great nation." Or "Why do you hate America" ostensibly by challenging the narcissist.  Well, that entire theater melodrama is a variation of the Heisenberg Principle. The Principle basically is: you can't measure anything without changing the outcome. For example, asking a person to answer a question about their opinion, they must think about the question and possibly alter what they opine.

There is a story about Lyndon Johnson saying, "Yes, I know it is not true (what he wanted to say about an adversary), I just wanted to hear him deny it." For the adversary, saying Yes, No or nothing at all is equally damaging. In our political times, the damage is done in the accusation not whether the accusation has any merits at all. It is best done if the accusation rises to the level of a crime, but it cannot be litigated for lack of witness, jurisdiction, time limitations, or no Prosecutor wishing to sully his reputation by pursuing the matter.

In the case at hand, we have a President with an extremely large and fragile Ego. He acts like a schoolyard bully bellowing and whining alternately in defense of his defenseless actions and policies. Bullies are only effective until they are challenged after which they lose the gravitas of their king-of-the-hill illusion. Donald Trump has been challenged. He is in the midst of an impeachment inquire waiting on the final vote that will codify the actual Articles of Impeachment. Here is where the Heisenberg Principle of Politics enters the stage.

The President is in a different place after an Impeachment than where he was before. He will never be the same just as a vase once dropped and glued back together may look like the vase but it is not the same. Before the current House actions to impeach he believed himself immune and invulnerable. While he may still believe this illusion, he is not. There is no going back. Political Entropy is in action. Never again can he reach the lofty heights where he once dwelt.

Trump is on the defensive and every move accrues to the negative. He has no positive moves to make. The only movement he can make is down one more step in the exit stairwell of his own making. The question cannot be unasked, nor can he be unimpeached.