Most people can broadly agree on a few things about the homeless. It is distressing to see them. They make an awful mess. Some of them are dangerous. They devalue our cities and neighborhoods. They reduce our collective quality of life.
Beyond these areas of broad agreement opinions diverge. Consensus is lost. Possibilities are limited. So let us focus on the areas of broad agreement.
The homeless problem is going to be fixed, at least within the context of that broad agreement. People are simply not going to put up with this dysfunction forever.
Red state governors often like to brag that they don’t have a homeless problem. This is often true because they throw the poor into prison. A couple of minor thefts and an out-of-control campfire, and it’s three strikes, you’re out. Society gets to pay $60,000 a year for your upkeep and you, the homeless, get to be terrorized by hardened psychopaths.
This is a seriously shitty solution to the homeless problem. Nonetheless, it is an option. One that will be chosen by voters sooner or later, if the left does not present a solution first.
Of course, the left does have a solution: homes. With working plumbing, electricity, fire alarms, and all of that. The problem is that this solution is not within our broad consensus. Whether it makes sense morally or fiscally or any other way, the majority of people are not prepared to pay for that. They would be much more enthused to pay for prisons.
So where does this leave us?
If you look at societies across the globe with large numbers of poor, you discover shanty towns. These are shotgun shacks, sheds, and lean-tos, often with dirt floors, no running water, or sanitation, or any of the rest of it. It is an enclosed shelter where the poor may sleep and keep their meager belongings indoors.
Such dwellings can be very easily made from old shipping containers. Two dwellings of 8-by-10 feet can be created for less than $2,000. These dwellings are compact, can be painted in natural colors, and can be put in the places the homeless currently live. In this case, they’d even have a solid floor.
This is not the wonderful liberal, progressive solution that many of us have dreamed of. However, if I am ever homeless, and the choice is between me sleeping inside one of these safe, secure, dry containers, or being brutalized by my convicted murderer roommate in a jail cell somewhere, please let me live in the container.
The time is fast running out for perfect solutions. The voting population is fed up with the problem. Sooner or later, they’re going to replace those of us who want compassionate solutions with those who will favor brutal solutions. Before that happens, can we please try to alleviate this problem in the reasonably humane way that is working all over the rest of the world?
Sean R. Shealy
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Health & Wellness 2024.
Betcha $60K/yr to incarcerate bums and druggies is far less than what we already spend on these bums. The bums should be made to work cleaning up public spaces – make them clean up the drug paraphanelia, their human waste, the trash and graffiti.
The shipping containers for housing for the homeless is a good idea.
I’ve seen a few architects that have used shipping containers for some of their homes, and they are pretty amazing.
That could be an affordable way the county and cities could help get the homeless people out of the elements and off the streets.
And they could get creative if they enlist some of those architects.
I congratulate Mr. Shealy for innovative, “outside the box” thinking (no pun was originally intended, but was later embraced), but we should consider some of the likely problems of the shipping container proposal. For one, they are going to quickly become cluttered with the accumulated debris that the homeless collect. There is likely to be the crime, fire and craziness associated with addiction. And it will not provide any protection against criminal victimization, as some of the homeless have serious criminal backgrounds. Such encampments will need to be sited far from any homes, schools or businesses, and from areas like creeks where they might cause environmental problems.