In the United States the federal government has spent over 61 trillion dollars to help those that have been imprisoned by a life of poverty. Additionally, countless non-profits have spent millions of dollars and countless hours to help these men and women. Yet, the number living below the poverty line seems to never budge. Add to that the visible homeless seem to be overtaking our systems.
The reasons for the lack of progress are complex and debating them would take a lifetime. To simplify by suggesting two reasons why these programs have failed. Let us come back to the story of the concentration camps. When it comes to “helping” people who are homeless or in poverty, it is the compassionate members of our community that continue to feed people as they eat themselves to death. They comfort themselves with the idea that they are not responsible for what the panhandler does with the money. Is the soldier that knows the food they are giving to the prisoner and ignores the pleas of professionals, responsible for the dead Jewish men and women? A second reason is that our systems are paid by heads in beds, numbers in our programs mean dollars. This would match up with paying agencies to keep people in the concentration camps.
They offer no systems, and those agencies have a financial incentive to never set people free from their programs.
They offer no systems, and those agencies have a financial incentive to never set people free from their programs.
What I am proposing is that we, society, come together and quit handing out food, money and other items (causing men and women to eat themselves to death). That the communities surround these folks and focus on programs and systems that work them from milk, formula, soft foods, and then set them free to flourish.
