When it comes to The Problem of the Homeless, every
discussion leaves out how it got started. There was
a court decision in which it was decided that you
could not "warehouse" people because they were mentally
incapacitated.
Just because a person could not take care of himself
was no reason to provide him with bed and board on
a permanent basis if he did not apply for it. You
had to prove he was dangerous to institutionalize
him.
The catch, of course, is that most people who are
mentally incapable of caring for themselves are not
likely to be the ones to show up, stand in line, fill
out the right papers, go through the appeals and all
the rest. They are in competition with people who
have been professional welfare recipients for generations
and who know all the ropes.
So civil libertarians won helpless people the right
to freeze on the street and then made an industry
out of raising hell about all those people out there
freezing on the street.
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