Now let me tell you a brief story. A couple weeks ago I went out shopping for myself. I was at a very upscale mall and had my knife sharpened. I also had a package to mail. In fact, it was a video game that I wanted returned to Gamefly. There was no mailbox I could find, so I’m walking around with the game when I’m approached by a dude on a bicycle. He was scruffy and asked me for some spare change so that he could do his laundry.
My brother Doc tells me that there are two kinds of homeless people, those with hope and those with no hope. Those with no hope stop washing their faces. So I knew immediately that this dude had hope. I gave him two bucks and asked him if he might drop off my package if he happens to see a mailbox. I patted him on the back and sent him on his way. No doubt about it two days later I see that Gamefly received the game via email notification.
I cannot be a part-time employer of such scruffy dudes without a whole lot of government regulation. But I gave him honest work. And honest work is what people need, not sociological profiling. Every homeless person that washes their face and doesn’t sleep in public areas is a potential part time worker and survivor, but not when we have minimum wage and other government work requirements. We are pushing up the amount of charity establishments and pushing down the number of part-time employers in our system by maintaining minimum wage and such regulatory standards. We are reducing the amount of honest work available.
I don't like the term 'homeless'. I prefer the term 'jobless'. If you give a person a home, they don't necessarily work. But if you give a person a job, they'll make a home.
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