Commentary
​Homelessness is a national disgrace. Large swaths of some of America’s (once) most beautiful cities are squalid squatter camps. Visit San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, or Los Angeles and you will see miles of homeless people living on the streets in tents—many openly drug-addled and soiling sidewalks with used needles and human waste.
​How did the United States end up in such a filthy state? Blame ideologically driven public policies, most particularly, “Housing First,” a fine-sounding—but ultimately dysfunction-inducing—approach that thwarts ending our homelessness catastrophe.
Housing First approaches homelessness as exclusively an economic problem. Throw enough money into the assisted housing sector, the theory goes, and people will quickly get back on their feet. Never mind that the crisis is largely caused by anti-social and dysfunctional personal behaviors. What matters is giving people a free place to live….