The war on poverty is a hopeless quagmire. What is the exit strategy?
I believe a program could be designed that would provide a very meager place for folks to live in a dorm setting, under military type ground rules, as long as these persons would apply themselves in an entry level position while being taught a trade or other rudimentary skills. If they kept themselves clean and applied themselves, they could enter the general population as a productive member in a relatively short period of time.
I would not allow the homeless to bother other people who worked for a living. I wouldn’t let them flop in cities creating a problem for those who have applied themselves either.
This would take a lot of study, but I would work up the numbers to see what was the best way to manage these people. If they didn’t want to apply themselves, I might find a place to build a compound and send them there.
At any time, if they decided to dedicate themselves to changing their lives, I’d make it available to them to enter one of the available programs.
Even though these programs would cost money, I’d make sure it came out of the funds already dedicated to the poor. And I’d find a way to cut those funds to the bone. It is not fair what we are asking working people to support. Most of their money should be their own, and we should end putting (or nation) them further in debt immediately.
This would be a comprehensive effort that would also address the social security, medicare, healthcare and medical insurance programs.
We need to move the government out of these areas. Programs should be devised to provide ways the private citizen could self-insure for retirement and short/long term healthcare.
Then we need to let the private sector heal itself and write laws to make sure the federal givernment never gets involved in those programs again.
This is the ten minute version. It needs a lot of work, but it is a core belief of mine that this is what we need to be working toward as a nation.