Unsentimental Compassion

Martin Morse Wooster from the August/September 1994 issue

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As for underclass men, Jencks says their chief problem is the inability to find steady work, so he proposes that the government create large numbers of cubicle hotels, establishments consisting of many small, windowless rooms. To fill these hotels, the government would also sponsor day-labor markets in which private employers could hire homeless people for a day. If there weren't enough private-sector jobs available, then the government would offer jobs, paying with vouchers redeemable for a cubicle and three cheap meals a day in return for doing about four hours of work. More work could earn more vouchers that could be used for better food or cashed in for an apartment. Ultimately, homeless men could build good work records that would prepare them for private-sector employment.

These ideas are interesting but fundamentally flawed. Jencks, for instance, never discusses the chief obstacle to federal jobs programs: public-sector unions. These unions, unlike their private-sector counterparts, are still powerful, and they will do everything they can to guarantee that any government jobs for the homeless are marginal, trivial, and demeaning. While Jencks's solution might be better than existing welfare programs, it is neither practical nor attainable.

Jencks argues that job programs are necessary because, while few Americans feel that the government should give everyone who asks food and housing, "most of us do feel an obligation to help people who cannot help themselves or are trying to do so and simply need an opportunity." While this is certainly true, the natural compassion of most Americans is deadened every time a healthy stranger thrusts a cup in their face and demands money or a politician calls for boosting taxes to help the homeless. As Marvin Olasky has shown, church-based groups do a much better job than government agencies in helping the homeless become responsible and productive. But Jencks conspicuously ignores the role religious groups and other private associations play in fighting poverty and homelessness.

While Jencks's conclusions do not stray far from liberal orthodoxy, his analysis of the nature and persistence of homelessness is fresh and interesting. Jencks does a great service in showing that many debating points used by homeless advocates to advance their agenda are either untrue or misleading. The Homeless won't end the debate about homelessness, but it could very well reshape it.