There are many flaws, or at least misunderstandings in this argument. There also are many things Lehman gets right. First, the argument of scale is important. One homeless person is not an encampment. While progressives argue the issue as individual rights, they miss the point that it is not a single individual that is involved in an enc…
There are many flaws, or at least misunderstandings in this argument. There also are many things Lehman gets right. First, the argument of scale is important. One homeless person is not an encampment. While progressives argue the issue as individual rights, they miss the point that it is not a single individual that is involved in an encampment. Lehman was spot on to make this distinction.
Where did he fall short? I wish he had made two points, although one of them he seems to misunderstand, along with just about everyone else.
The first missed point is that no government is responsible for providing someone with a home. That is a personal responsibility. The Ninth Court of Appeals created a require function of government that does not exist outside of communism. Our mode of government, thankfully, is not communist. Furthermore, in an encampment, the "homeless" are not actually homeless. They have homes. They have their tents at a permanent location. The fact that their home is not a building is meaningless to them. It is meaningful to us because we live in structures. But here we are imposing our mores on them.
For three years I was the pastor of a church whose members included up to a dozen "homeless" members. They actually contributed to the mission of our congregation. Because of this surprising reality, I stopped calling them homeless. What else to call them? I started to call them our outside members. They did not need government or NGO shelters. They had their tents. That's what they wanted. This was the mistake made by the Ninth Court of Appeals.
Most importantly, what most people misunderstand about chronically "homeless" people is that want to be outside. They do not want to live inside structures. There also is the issue of substance abuse and mental illness. Not having the responsibility of maintaining a structure, whether owned or rented, is what they consider to be freedom.
Municipalities have the responsibility of condemning housing or houses or apartments that are unsafe or unhealthy. This applies to structures as well as tents.
Most of what passes as "homeless policy" is an imposition of the normative expectation of living in a building. And this is why typical progressive homeless policy fails. It fails because it completely misunderstands the homeless, outside person it wants to help.
For a very long time I have noted that there are individuals who seem to need greater contact with an unrestricted environment. In the past, such individuals would, if they were able, seek to live on the far edge (and beyond) of a settled frontier. As frontiers closed, they would seek outdoor employment as an available--though incomplete--proxy.
I'm going to speculate most/all expansionary cultures--true expansionary cultures in which expansion is *not* drive by overpopulation or lack of available resources, but by some internal drive that results in some individuals seeking an "outer edge" and going beyond it--have within them a disproportionate percentage of these "beyond the edge" individuals, and that this, itself, is what drives the expansion of such cultures.
If one looks at the history of western Europe one sees this phenomenon of "edge-seeking" played out over and over, and I would suggest that much the same occurred in prehistory, as well.
I propose that many of those currently homeless are of this type.
There are many flaws, or at least misunderstandings in this argument. There also are many things Lehman gets right. First, the argument of scale is important. One homeless person is not an encampment. While progressives argue the issue as individual rights, they miss the point that it is not a single individual that is involved in an encampment. Lehman was spot on to make this distinction.
Where did he fall short? I wish he had made two points, although one of them he seems to misunderstand, along with just about everyone else.
The first missed point is that no government is responsible for providing someone with a home. That is a personal responsibility. The Ninth Court of Appeals created a require function of government that does not exist outside of communism. Our mode of government, thankfully, is not communist. Furthermore, in an encampment, the "homeless" are not actually homeless. They have homes. They have their tents at a permanent location. The fact that their home is not a building is meaningless to them. It is meaningful to us because we live in structures. But here we are imposing our mores on them.
For three years I was the pastor of a church whose members included up to a dozen "homeless" members. They actually contributed to the mission of our congregation. Because of this surprising reality, I stopped calling them homeless. What else to call them? I started to call them our outside members. They did not need government or NGO shelters. They had their tents. That's what they wanted. This was the mistake made by the Ninth Court of Appeals.
Most importantly, what most people misunderstand about chronically "homeless" people is that want to be outside. They do not want to live inside structures. There also is the issue of substance abuse and mental illness. Not having the responsibility of maintaining a structure, whether owned or rented, is what they consider to be freedom.
Municipalities have the responsibility of condemning housing or houses or apartments that are unsafe or unhealthy. This applies to structures as well as tents.
Most of what passes as "homeless policy" is an imposition of the normative expectation of living in a building. And this is why typical progressive homeless policy fails. It fails because it completely misunderstands the homeless, outside person it wants to help.
For a very long time I have noted that there are individuals who seem to need greater contact with an unrestricted environment. In the past, such individuals would, if they were able, seek to live on the far edge (and beyond) of a settled frontier. As frontiers closed, they would seek outdoor employment as an available--though incomplete--proxy.
I'm going to speculate most/all expansionary cultures--true expansionary cultures in which expansion is *not* drive by overpopulation or lack of available resources, but by some internal drive that results in some individuals seeking an "outer edge" and going beyond it--have within them a disproportionate percentage of these "beyond the edge" individuals, and that this, itself, is what drives the expansion of such cultures.
If one looks at the history of western Europe one sees this phenomenon of "edge-seeking" played out over and over, and I would suggest that much the same occurred in prehistory, as well.
I propose that many of those currently homeless are of this type.