The workhouse is the bottom. No work, no family, no financial means and a horrible place to be sick and die. Nineteenth century England had them. According to Frank Owen the system is designed to make poverty into a personal moral failure. Jack Linden was an old, physically worn-out craftsman who has worked hard his entire life. No longer able keep up the pace, he was laid off. With no savings and frail, Jack was doomed to the workhouse. His fate was sealed.
That is how it used to be, but the State of Utah has no knowledge of this.
Utah governor Spencer Cox defends Utah's proposed new homeless campus against critics as ‘most compassionate policy anywhere’.
Cox is directing State resources to align with President Trump’s executive order overturning the federal government’s “housing first” approach to homelessness. It appears the ideals of morality will define policy.
“Utah must remain a place where lives can be meaningfully changed, not where chaos and disorder thrive,” This is Utah speak for kissing Trump ass. Trump has issued an executive order requiring agencies to facilitate the use of state civil commitment to move homeless individuals into long-term institutional care if they pose a risk to themselves or others because of severe mental illness or substance use disorder. Which after time means that any old excuse will do I imagine. Here is what the Deseret News has to say. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is not widely read in Utah I have to say.
Common Dreamssees the situation differently. Their point of view is that it is not dreaming to consider the body of evidence showing the effectiveness of “Housing First” initiatives at curbing crime and keeping people off the street. “Housing First”policies provide unhoused people with homes without the requirement of behavioral health treatment or sobriety.
My point of view is that all people ever want to do is throw money at problems in the foolish hope that they will go away, without addressing root causes. Moral utterances are made by the elite and then forgotten.
As the band plays on a nation of needy people suffer. Idealistic solutions which carry smug moral judgement do not care about suffering. Housing first should be the priority, but smug moral judgements are the cheapest answer. Power prefers the cheapest answer. Bad results do not matter.
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