While we treasure our freedom to succeed, we must not allow those that fail to live lives in the margins, devoid of hope.
- The homeless are fellow citizens, and should be treated as treasured members of our communities. Mental health treatment should be available to those who need it, as well as substance abuse treatment, and continuing education in job and life skills.
- The poor and chronically unemployed should receive similar treatment, before a crisis pushes them into homelessness.
- The working poor should not destined to stay that way. Continuing education should be made available to enhance marketable skills, leading to better incomes and standards of living.
Preventative and proactive handling of poverty, and the usually attendant substance abuse, will impact crime.
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4 comments:
I think we need to strike a careful balance here. I like that we're not promoting ongoing welfare, but more the "teach a man to fish" mentality.
In most cases, we'll be able to teach someone to fish, and should go to the needed lengths to do so. There will be some extreme cases that will require perpetual assistance, but we should strive to still convert those cases to assets, at any level.
"There will be some extreme cases that will require perpetual assistance..."
Don't I know it. I work in midtown Detroit, and about ten or fifteen years ago the then-governor cut off all state funding for mental hospitals. In practice, that meant that all public in-patient mental health facilities closed, and the residents who didn't have the means to go to private institutions went onto the street...and they're still here. It's heartbreaking.
I feel kind of weird about thinking of people as 'assets'...
- The working poor should not destined to stay that way. Continuing education should be made available to enhance marketable skills, leading to better incomes and standards of living.
I'll take that as an offer to pay my nursing school tuition. Please make checks payable to ME :D
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