Brendan O'Flaherty, associate professor of economics at Columbia, investigates homelessness in his book Making Room, published last year by Harvard University Press.
He performs the valuable service of trying to define homelessness more carefully (for instance he notes that many of the panhandlers and other street people we encounter have legitimate places to sleep at night), and why we think it bad (if we mind panhandlers, and panhandlers have a place to spend the night already, making more places to sleep at night for them will not help us.)
He argues, with much supporting evidence that I have not the qualifications to judge, that the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill, drug abuse, gentrification, government regulation of housing markets, rent control, or federal cutbacks in federal housing have not caused the large increase over the last thirty years. His arguments make sense to me but an equally-qualified expert arguing an antithesis to O'Flaherty probably could make as much sense to me.
O'Flaherty argues that changes in the income distribution of urban dwellers (to more wealthy and poor, fewer in the middle) cause the bulk of the increase in homelessness. He argues that the now-homeless previously lived in the very cheapest housing, that owners (either the residents themselves or landlords) do not maintain the least-expensive housing (thus allowing it to become uninhabitable eventually), thus they need a constant supply of new cheap housing. This does not represent a change: this has always happened but now we have fewer lower-middle-class people leaving next-to-least-expensive housing for the poorest to inhabit.
I like the basic principle he espouses in his recommendation of what to do, "homeless people should be treated in the same way as everyone else, they should not get special treatment. The principle applies no matter what your motivation is in wanting to relieve homelessness - whether it is concern over how well homeless people satisfy their desires, or their objective circumstances, or the well-being of other people, or even your own felt obligations. The principle doesn't rule out designing policies to relieve homelessness;" In practice this means that the police protect the homeless from crime as much as anyone else - and prosecute them as equally, and that the housing authorities condemn substandard housing, i.e., the shanties homeless build. He recommends that police aggressively refer nuisance homeless to shelters.
Instead of building public shelters O'Flaherty recommends that we distribute shelter vouchers, like food stamps, that the holder can give to anyone, even a relative, providing him/her shelter. To reduce fraud he recommends that the voucher require the names of both the provider and recipient. He does not put a price tag on this program, just argues its advantages and disadvantages. The free-marketeers must like that it lets the government get out of the public shelter program in favor private industry. O'Flaherty argues its efficiency, fairness, and productivity.
He also recommends a work program based on these principles:
"1. It would encourage productive work, work that people actually want done.
2. Payment would be in cash rather than in kind.
3. It would make working worthwhile [by not reducing other benefits because of the job income].
4. Payment would come rapidly, in small amounts since streetpeople have few opportunities to save and often
have urgent needs.
5. Wages would be paid on a piecework basis [because many streetpeople don't like the discipline and regularity
of time-rate jobs].
6. Hiring would be informal, and eligibility criteria would not be used."
I think he has the principles right. But he writes, "Is it possible to design programs that meet all six of these criteria? I'm not sure. The fact that many existing programs comes close is encouraging."
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