Response to: “Don’t Give Money to the Homeless”

September 15, 2009 in Humans

Over at the Edmontonian Janine Edwards offers us the simplistic view of solving homelessness:

Want to make Edmonton a World Class city? We need to crack down on homelessness. Put them to work at the shelters they’re using. Hire a construction crew to work with the homeless in building a new shelter all “Habitat for Humanity” style. I don’t have all the answers, but I know the answer isn’t in you handing them money for nothing.

link: Opinion: Don’t give money to the homeless – the edmontonian: awesome since 2009

There is no place in the world that has solved this problem. Shelters and charities help but are not panaceas and the idea that all we have to do is make/offer them work has failed in the past. She even provided an example of this in her post.

There are always people at the edges of societies who, for different reasons, don’t function well in it. The measure of a society is what it how it treats these people. In our case we have shelters, charities, and, as individuals, we can offer what we can.

Finally, homelessness has nothing to do with whether or not a city is “World Class” or not. Even without defining what “World Class” is it would be hard to say that New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco are not World Class cities. I’ve been to LA and just got back from SF and frankly Edmonton doesn’t have a homeless problem in comparison.

I’ll respect her choice not to give to panhandlers, I rarely do myself, but the “World Class” city thing was frankly clueless on her part.


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