Rolling Stone Supports the Failing Status Quo on Homelessness

In 2013, the Obama Administration announced that homelessness would end in 10 years. A quick glance around any big city or even most small towns sadly displays the real truth: homelessness is worse than it has ever been.

Communities have suffered the devastating impacts of failed homelessness policies that have increased human suffering, drug addiction, severe mental illness, crime, and a marked decrease in quality of life for those who find themselves on the streets. West Coast cities, including Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles, have become infamous for encampments and lawlessness that rival the conditions of third-world countries. But Rolling Stone conveniently left that out when they attacked “the Right” in a recent article on homelessness.

The failure of the 2013 Obama Administration federal plan is evident in two ways. First, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data shows that after steadily increasing funds to communities to address homelessness, homelessness has become worse, particularly among the most vulnerable subpopulations.

Second, people see the failure with their own eyes in their own communities. The twelve-mile encampment along the American River in Sacramento, the flooded public square outside the Statehouse in Austin, and areas of Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles strewn with junk, filth, and garbage demonstrate the same thing: the fight against homelessness is not working.

Confronted with this failure at the local level, where millions of dollars are directed to municipal agencies, county initiatives, and non-profit service providers, the apologists for today’s failed approach circle the wagons. They claim that, despite your lyin’ eyes, things are working to get people off the street and that more money is needed to turn the corner. They ignore the pleas of residents, shop owners, and victims of crimes. They castigate those who stray from the federal playbook with different, innovative ideas.  They criticize those who refuse to drink from the public trough because the money is tied to strings that lead to the destruction of lives and communities.

To protect themselves, the homelessness industrial complex characterizes opposition to their failure as “criminalizing homelessness.” It’s not the wasted money, the failed policy, or the inability to get housing and services to the most vulnerable as promised. It’s not the actual crime and exploitation that occurs among and by people experiencing homelessness. According to liberal pundits and activists, challenging the failure is the problem.

The Rolling Stone understands what’s really at stake: an end to the publicly funded gravy train for ineffective, soft on crime, pro-drug use social science approaches that have made many communities dystopian hellscapes. As states and communities come to realize that the social science research on homelessness doesn’t hold up in practice, they are abandoning them to seek more effective and compassionate solutions.

Federal, state, and local policy addressing homelessness needs to improve and that calls for more transparency and accountability – not less. It calls for new approaches and incentives – not insults. It calls for leadership and action – not gaslighting and doubling down on failure.

The Cicero Institute is producing model legislation to help states address the lack of transparency and accountability, to create incentives for non-profits and governments to perform, and to employ out-of-the-box thinking to solve our most pressing problems.

It’s true that these things are often not favored by the bureaucrats and activists who are more than happy to keep the grants rolling in while thousands die a day untreated and unhoused on the street. We cannot and will not allow failure to be the outcome of the billions of dollars intended to help the most vulnerable. The Rolling Stone is righteous to attack those who keep people trapped in cycles of poverty and destitution. However, on the issue of homelessness, an honest understanding of the issue squarely places the blame on the progressive status quo–not those like the Cicero Institute offering innovative solutions to save lives, improve public safety, and restore communities.