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Republican State Gives Free Houses to Moochers, Cuts Homelessness by 74 Percent
slate.com ^ | 12/20/2013 | David Weigel

Posted on 12/28/2013 4:35:06 AM PST by listenhillary

Speaking of our coming congressional debates about food stamps and waste, I've been looking for a reason to share Kerry Drake's column about Utah's Housing First initiative. Eight years ago, under Gov. Jon Huntsman, Utah started an experiment in which chronically homeless people—first 17, then 2,000—were given apartments and full-time caseworkers. The goal: Instead of shrugging and cursing when the homeless showed up half-dead at emergency rooms, they'd try to get them into shelter and, hopefully, independent living. If that didn't work, they'd still keep the apartments.

Data from other cities made the bureaucrats' argument for them. From the 10-year Housing First plan:

A San Francisco study found that placing homeless people in permanent supportive housing reduced their emergency room visits by more than half. In 2006, the Denver Housing First Collaborative published a study of chronically homeless individuals, comparing the costs of services for two years before and after placement in permanent supportive housing. The group found a 34 percent reduction in ER costs and inpatient nights declined 80 percent.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
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Government causes a large part of the homeless problem. Fostering and enabling dependence, large hurdles that stop cheap shelters from being constructed. Government will almost always cause unforeseen problems when it attempts to resolve any problem.

I seem to remember a North Eastern town that became the mini - Mogadishu as the result of their generous social programs. Massachusetts?

1 posted on 12/28/2013 4:35:06 AM PST by listenhillary
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To: listenhillary

Here is the referenced article the writer was talking about.

http://wyofile.com/kerrydrake/wyoming-homelessness-place-live-save-money/


2 posted on 12/28/2013 4:35:57 AM PST by listenhillary (Courts, law enforcement, roads and national defense should be the extent of government)
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To: listenhillary

Most homeless people have drug/alcohol problems. Giving them more free stuff won’t change that.

And where is the incentive to improve your lot in life if everything is free? Apparently working is for stupid people.


3 posted on 12/28/2013 4:38:24 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
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To: listenhillary
Or Maine ... I too, remember that story.

If the Utah report is factual, it actually supports the sanity of home ownership as opposed to the insane payments to a fund that never developes equity.

4 posted on 12/28/2013 4:40:30 AM PST by knarf (I say things that are true .. I have no proof .. but they're true.)
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To: ilovesarah2012

The county poor farms and religious oriented assistance societies of the past would give a bed and food to those in need. In exchange, the recipient was expected to help produce food to help sustain the organization and others in need. Sounds like a good plan to me. The progressives knew they could do it better with hand outs with no strings attached.


5 posted on 12/28/2013 4:43:54 AM PST by listenhillary (Courts, law enforcement, roads and national defense should be the extent of government)
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To: listenhillary

At least make them lesson to some preaching first!


6 posted on 12/28/2013 4:46:03 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
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To: knarf

About those “free houses”...

Sound like the addled dreams in the lyrics in “Big Rock Candy Mountain”.


7 posted on 12/28/2013 4:46:34 AM PST by listenhillary (Courts, law enforcement, roads and national defense should be the extent of government)
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To: listenhillary

It probably does save the state money per bum so treated. However it must draw more homeless people into the state and induce more of the barely not homeless to become homeless. Overall it must still cost more than it “saves.” It certainly doesn’t inculcate a work ethic.


8 posted on 12/28/2013 4:47:53 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: ilovesarah2012
Listen?
9 posted on 12/28/2013 4:50:03 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: listenhillary

Welfare Can Make More Sense than Work

Most decisions in life are the result of a cost-benefit analysis. When residents in Connecticut consider getting a job, they assume they would be better off having a job than not. They’d be wrong. Because in Connecticut, it pays not to work.
Next Monday, the Cato Institute will release a new study looking at the state-by-state value of welfare. Nationwide, our study found that the value of benefits for a typical recipient family ranged from a high of $49,175 in Hawaii to a low of $16,984 in Mississippi.

In Connecticut, a mother with two children participating in seven major welfare programs (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, housing assistance, utility assistance and free commodities) could receive a package of benefits worth $38,761, the fourth highest in the nation. Only Hawaii, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia provided more generous benefits.

When it comes to gauging the value of welfare benefits, it is important to remember that they are not taxed, while wages are. In fact, in some ways, the highest marginal tax rates anywhere are not for millionaires, but for someone leaving welfare and taking a job.

Therefore, a mother with two children in Connecticut would have to earn $21.33 per hour for her family to be better off than they would be on welfare. That’s more than the average entry-level salary for a teacher or secretary. In fact, it is more than 107 percent of Connecticut’s median salary.

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/michaeltanner/2013/08/19/welfare-can-make-more-sense-than-work-n1667613


10 posted on 12/28/2013 4:51:00 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
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To: ilovesarah2012
And where is the incentive to improve your lot in life if everything is free? Apparently working is for stupid people.

Years ago Mike Royko wrote a column titled "My old man was a sap" he told how his father was a second generation immigrant that took a job as a kid selling newspapers, counting eggs, etc. He did what ever he could as he grew older to contribute to the family income. No job was beneath him every one was an opportunity. Royko compared it to the welfare recipients that would not even show up of free job training and then spent 6 months fighting being kicked off the welfare roles.

11 posted on 12/28/2013 4:51:57 AM PST by verga (The devil is in the details)
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To: arthurus

“A kind of insurance plan. Utah’s own calculations suggested that the state would pocket $5,000 a year by putting the homeless in apartments, instead of hoping they didn’t end up in hospitals.”

Who needs taxpayers if they can make $5,000 per homeless person? Give us your tired, your poor, your homeless. We’ll make money! (Obvious sarcasm)


12 posted on 12/28/2013 4:52:44 AM PST by listenhillary (Courts, law enforcement, roads and national defense should be the extent of government)
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To: arthurus

LOL - it’s early and I’m still on my first cup of coffee.

Yes - “listen”


13 posted on 12/28/2013 4:52:46 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
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To: verga

I work in a nursing home and we have a lot of women in their 80s and 90s. Many of them talk of working in the cotton fields when they were young (and they’re white!). Most have only elementary school educations but they worked hard and raised families and contributed to this country. A dying breed indeed.


14 posted on 12/28/2013 4:54:46 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
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To: listenhillary
Government causes a large part of the homeless problem. Fostering and enabling dependence,

Particularly early on when the person still has a chance to make it on their own. Before they become a hopeless case.

15 posted on 12/28/2013 4:54:54 AM PST by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: listenhillary

Big Rock Candy Mountain Lyrics
JOHN HARTFORD

One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, “Boys, I’m not turning
I’m headed for a land that’s far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we’ll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There’s a land that’s fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers’ trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh I’m bound to go
Where there ain’t no snow
Where the rain don’t fall
The winds don’t blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There’s a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
There ain’t no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I’m bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.


16 posted on 12/28/2013 4:56:04 AM PST by listenhillary (Courts, law enforcement, roads and national defense should be the extent of government)
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To: listenhillary

Funny. They closed all the institutions and threw the nuts out on the street. Now they’ve brought back the institutions and are marveling at how smart they are.


17 posted on 12/28/2013 5:06:47 AM PST by Born to Conserve
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To: listenhillary

The mini-Mogadishu were the large groups of Somalian refugees that ended up in Lewiston Maine.

Massachusetts has a Homeless problem (along with refugee problems), MA has this law that homeless families must be given shelter (NY has this law too)
Lots and lots of families living in Hotels and Motels all over the state.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/11/14/thousands-homeless-families-still-take-shelter-hotels-and-motels/otYrDe98YlPfMCgEwiNlML/story.html

MA has the shelter law plus one of the highest welfare-wage equivalents in the country (CATO) - homeless people are flocking to the state - it even has many liberals crying foul.


18 posted on 12/28/2013 5:17:53 AM PST by libertarian27 (FreeRepublic Cookbooks 2011 & 2012 - Click Profile)
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To: listenhillary

We had a homeless man freeze to death just before Christmas. He was found outside of his tent when he didn’t make his rounds in town.
Over the years he’s caused a bit of trouble when he started a brush fire and burned quite a bit of acreage and his tent.
He did not want to live in a “home” and preferred being outside. Some people you cannot force to live in a dwelling. They prefer being homeless.


19 posted on 12/28/2013 5:19:34 AM PST by lucky american (The Democrats will follow the big "D"even if it means going over a cliff.)
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To: listenhillary

That absolutely makes no sense. The state *could* save $5,000 per year (although that sounds excessive), but actually earn $5,000 per year? How does this work? If states gain money by giving away freebies, why are so many states in the red?


20 posted on 12/28/2013 5:22:27 AM PST by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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