Would They Be Better Off in A Home?

It is “generally believed that our cities are peopled by a vast and growing army of homeless men and women, on the streets because of a lack of compassion (read: the dismantling of the Great Society by the Reagan Administration). Yet in fact, the welfare apparatus remains largely intact. Marginal reductions in its exponential growth at the federal level have mostly been compensated for by states and municipalities.

Why, then, is homelessness one of the few growth industries in the United States today? First, it is subsidized through a self-serving mental-health system which promotes the myth that a huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill .Second, it is continually encouraged by the government, directly through transfer payments, and indirectly through antipathy to the free-market system.

LS

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Laurence Schiff

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It is “generally believed that our cities are peopled by a vast and growing army of homeless men and women, on the streets because of a lack of compassion (read: the dismantling of the Great Society by the Reagan Administration). Yet in fact, the welfare apparatus remains largely intact. Marginal reductions in its exponential growth at the federal level have mostly been compensated for by states and municipalities.

Why, then, is homelessness one of the few growth industries in the United States today? First, it is subsidized through a self-serving mental-health system which promotes the myth that a huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill .Second, it is continually encouraged by the government, directly through transfer payments, and indirectly through antipathy to the free-market system.