This is an interesting article from the New York Times discussing the ever growing demand to shelter the homeless. The city/state faces rising cost of homeless shelters and although they are efficient they are seeing a better alternative which is provided by the private sector. Some landlords are offering tenants up to $25,000 to move out in order to move in homeless people that the state will pay multiple times the value of rent to house them. I see this is as a great opportunity for the private sector but at the same time it seems like a great cost to the government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/nyregion/for-some-landlords-real-money-in-the-homeless.html
3 comments:
It is very insightful to see how much the Government is spending on the homeless, and the incentive that the private sector has for government sponsored paid/sponsored housing. I wonder if there have been discussions about better ways to try and shelter the homeless.
I think what the government is doing to reduce the number of homeless on the streets is great, but the amount of money they provide the landlords with is a bit excessive. It is also important that the landlords are addressing the various complaints about safety hazards in the living conditions they are providing. I think the idea of providing these units for the homeless is a good one, but the government should take care of some of these issues before opening more of the facilities.
I wish I could see something like this back home. Here you can be poor, but it's still livable with support from the government. Back where I'm from, it is sometimes too hard to survive for the poor. The government just don't really care.
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