What will happen if the government used some of the tax money to help the homeless?

It already does. It just doesn’t hand them checks.

The government already helps the homeless. They subsidize shelters, and food programs. They pay rent for many people.

Also, they pay for their hospital bills. I really think they should invest in “re-entry” programs. Housing, treatment, training – opportunities for them. Keeping them homeless will always cost more – monetarily and otherwise.

The question is which government and how. While funding for housing programs and other help for the homeless has fallen, especially at the federal level, it has existed for some time. Housing programs have met with mixed results at best, partly due to inadequate resources, but partly because we just don’t have a model that works.

Well, tax money USED to go to the mentally unstable/handicapped folks whom you now see living on the streets.

There’s a program in NYC that is finding that housing has to be the first step in helping the homeless, which seems obvious, but many programs have kept the homeless in shelters until they complete treatment programs and find employment. Turns out that they do better in treatment and employment when they have their own stable apartment first.

Probably not much unless a whole new total approach to homelessness is undertaken. The problems of the homeless are legion and a single approach (just housing or shelters) doesn’t work to deal with their ingrained problems.

The homeless will have more money for drugs and booze. They will have less reason to obtain a job or rejoin society. If you really want to help the homeless get rid of the laws which prevent employers from hiring them.

Then more of us would become (have become) homeless. It’s a typical government program.

It does.