How local housing advocates lost the moral high ground
San Jose's belated turn away from Permanent Supportive Housing is not unique: In city after city, county after county, and state after state, Americans have turned away from the idealistic but empty promises of Housing First advocates and toward commonsense policies. But Housing First advocates stubbornly refuse to acknowledge how their failed policies have caused untold misery--and have lost both the argument and their own credibility. National Review reports.
The data are clear: Creating more permanently subsidized, low-barrier housing for homeless people has failed to reduce homelessness. But instead of adjusting course, advocates have doubled down, insisting that if the federal government dares to reform the programs that have failed to reduce homelessness, then homelessness will rise even more. Their logic is as muddled as it is self-serving.
For these same advocates to call themselves the experts at solving homelessness is offensive to the communities that have seen their downtowns sink more deeply into decline with each year that they invest more deeply into Housing First.
These advocates have lost their seat at the table. Instead of seeking to collaborate with skeptical state and federal policymakers, they have resorted to extremist rhetoric, including comparing these new policies to the Holocaust.
The NAEH and the National Homelessness Law Center should not speak for all homeless service providers. But it currently appears that they do. And their rhetoric and intransigence are doing service providers and the homeless no favors.
It is time for organizations that truly care about helping homeless people and saving lives to make their programs more effective. It is time for them to allow for greater transparency so that communities know whether their approaches align with their values.q
The lives of hundreds of thousands of homeless people depend on it. Enough is enough.
Read the whole thing here.
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