PLATFORM : Government Alone Can’t Solve Homelessness

How does George Bush intend to fight homelessness? What about Bill Clinton? Or Ross Perot? Chances are you don’t know any candidate’s position on this issue, even though homelessness is a national problem, present in every community from Harlem and Scarsdale to Watts and Orange County, and growing worse seemingly by the day.

Forgive the candidates for their silence. The fact is that, although homelessness can be managed down into an insignificant problem, government can’t do it.

Many problems of the homeless require bold, creative, even entrepreneurial solutions. But people don’t become government workers in order to exercise bold, creative or entrepreneurial skills, and we taxpayers don’t pay them to do so.

The solution is to privatize the problem as much as possible. Let local governments contract with private-sector, not-for-profits enterprises. Turn over the actual care of the homeless to those organizations that have demonstrated the ability to remove homeless people from the streets permanently, not merely provide temporary shelter and meals to an endlessly recycled population of indigents.

Granted, the challenge for government is finding those organizations that produce permanent results, not merely temporary relief. Right now there are only a handful of these new-wave service organizations around the country. They are managed not like traditional Skid Row charities or government social agencies but like businesses.

These organizations are flexible, customer-driven and goal-oriented. They are in the business of helping customers make successful, permanent exits from street life. And efficiency is their watchword.

So don’t ask the presidential candidates what they are going to do about it. The last thing we need is the government trying to cure homelessness by itself.