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Check out the below video. It depicts life today on and around Kensington Avenue, the main drag of Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood.
Now check out this video. A local realtor gives us the skinny on Chestnut Hill, perhaps Philadelphia’s most sought-after neighborhood.
Where to begin? Well, let’s begin with the obvious. Homeless people make horrible neighbors. Wherever they tread, crime, filth, and squalor follow.
Now a question. Why are the leaders of Philadelphia allowing homeless people to commandeer sidewalks and parks in Kensington and ruin that neighborhood’s quality of life?
Simply put, Philadelphia’s leading homeless activists are incredibly hostile to the rights of the non-homeless (see here, here, and here), and Philadelphia’s leadership, for whatever reason, has decided to appease these activists. Appeasing Philadelphia’s leading homeless activists, in turn, means accepting the “woke” definition of compassion regarding homelessness. And what’s the “woke” definition of compassion regarding homelessness? Here it is in a nutshell:
Housing is a human right and if the state doesn’t provide everyone with adequate housing (as determined by homeless activists), the homeless have a right to sleep on city sidewalks or in city parks. Restricting sidewalks and parks to their intended uses would be an affront to decency. It would in effect be “criminalizing” homeless people merely because they lack the means to rent an apartment or buy a home.
Unsurprisingly, I find the woke definition of compassion regarding homelessness to be utter bullshit. And the main reason why is because Philadelphia’s leaders, like leaders in most cities, are not completely insane. In other words, they’ll appease homeless activists up to a point. They’ll never—under any circumstances—allow the impracticable demands and policy preferences of the activist crowd to burden their most prized constituents. So in the real world, rich neighborhoods never suffer the externalities of woke “compassion.” Only working-class neighborhoods suffer those externalities. Neighborhoods such as Kensington get graffiti, garbage, crime, tents, and drugged-out zombies, and neighborhoods such as Chestnut Hill get pristine streets and parks and Norman Rockwell charm. “Compassion” for the homeless invariably means cruelty for the working class.
Do the Homeless Have a Right to Taxpayer-Provided Housing?
Americans have a right to self-defense. Does this then mean the taxpayers are morally obligated to purchase guns and ammo for those Americans who can’t afford to purchase those self-defense items themselves?
Similarly, Americans have a right to housing. And no one is stopping any American from renting or purchasing housing from a willing seller. The problem faced by the homeless is not that their right to rent or purchase housing is being denied; the problem is that they don’t have the money to rent or purchase housing in the first place. But rather than recognize this dismal reality, homeless activists would rather turn this dismal reality into a morality play—a contest between good and evil, in which homeless people are victims, homeless activists are white knights, and taxpayers who want to keep their money and live in orderly communities are heartless bastards.
The right to pursue self-interest, even fundamental self-interests such as self-defense and housing, doesn’t automatically entitle the needy pursuer to government handouts. If that were the case, the non-needy would be the slaves of the needy, and our Constitution, thanks to the 13th Amendment, frowns upon involuntary servitude. So, no, the homeless don’t have a right to taxpayer-provided housing. And, no, the homeless don’t have a right to commandeer sidewalks and parks and turn those public spaces into dystopian campgrounds and open-air drug markets. No one is above the law—not the President of the United States, and certainly not the drug addict on Kensington Avenue.
What to Do?
So what to do?
The first order of business is to admit that the current approach to homelessness is only helping one group—our vaunted homeless activists. They get to preen morally and congratulate themselves on how virtuous they are—only they see the beauty of homeless people, only they are willing to step up and rescue these marginalized souls from the fiendish maw of American capitalism. But their only solution to the homeless crisis—a stylish apartment and hundreds of thousands of dollars in counseling, meds, and UBI for every single homeless person—is so unworkable, so unscaleable, it’s a joke. At best, this “solution” may rescue a tenth of the homeless population. In the meantime, homeless people take over sidewalks and parks and working-class neighborhoods are turned into shitholes. Sorry working-class people: The conspicuous virtue-signaling of our vaunted homeless activists is way more important than your quality of life.
The second order of business is to go first principles: What can be done to help the homeless that is 1) humane and gives every single homeless person a shot at redemption, and 2) respects the rights, needs, and wallets of the non-homeless—especially the non-homeless who comprise the working class?
At first glance, answering the question that first-principle thinking produces seems rather daunting. But it really isn’t once you realize that sane, capable people willingly choose to live in a yurt (see here, here, and here). In other words, if a glorified tent, a yurt, is perfectly good housing for sane, capable people, a tent is perfectly good housing for economically broken people. And once you start there—that stylish apartments built by politically connected construction firms aren’t the paramount need of our homeless brothers and sisters—answering our first-principle question becomes much more manageable. But I’m getting way ahead of myself. In part two of this two-part series, I will solve the homeless crisis. And if by some miracle my solution is adopted, most homeless people will be better off, no homeless person will be worse off, and every single working-class person will be able to go about his or her business without having to circumvent a phalanx of drugged-out zombies.
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? I say our vaunted homeless activists are making a bad situation worse. Their woke “compassion” is as misguided as their woke “solution,” and because of this, the misery of homelessness is being compounded: the vast majority of homeless are not only left free to destroy themselves but they are also left free to destroy the neighborhoods of working-class Americans.
But, hey, what the hell do I know? Maybe I’m the one who’s misguided? And if you think that’s the case, please let me know. Peace.
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