I am fascinated that we as a community can all understand that feeding bears and leaving out unsecured trash attracts more bears. Yet we do not draw the correlation to other things.
It has long been the policy of government and municipalities to subsidize the things they want more of and tax or not support things they want less of.
Want more green energy? Subsidize it.
Want less smoking? Make it less desirable.
How is it, then, that we want less homelessness and vagrancy yet we allocate more and more resources to it?
The cities that have spent the most have accelerated their problems with homelessness. It’s not complicated: Expend more, get more. Allocate less, get less – less homelessness, less vagrancy, less panhandling, fewer assaults, fewer deaths, less pain, less addiction, fewer people who have no direction or purpose.
We all need direction and purpose. Universally, these issues are exasperated by removing the need to provide basic needs for oneself.
Without this universal purpose, despair, loneliness and addiction prevail.
Please don’t feed the bears. They have a natural habitat.
Julian BehnDurango
