homelessness (just some thoughts)
I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell for a long time now. He’s the writer equivalent of the James Burke, Connections TV shows I used to watch when I was a kid. When Malcolm Gladwell writes, he makes these seemingly absurd connections actually relate to each other. Like the time he wrote an article about the connection between German philosophy and Saturday Night Live.
I was reading this Grist article which lead me to Mr. Gladwell’s latest article called Million-dollar Murray: Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage. This made me very intrigued because I wanted to know what he had to write regarding homelessness. In a nutshell, he used "power law" to describe the problems and solutions that a state in the US had in solving homelessness and other problems. You just have to read the article because you’ll get a much better explanation than I could give.
The solution to homelessness as described in the article is what actually intrigued me the most. The way they saw things, a lot of money was being spent in taking care of homeless people. Medical bills, soup kitchens, half-way houses and the like all added up to millions of dollars per homeless person. Hence the title of the Gladwell article. Instead of spending all that money on services, why not give the homeless a rented apartment for free but with certain restrcitions like they have to eventually get a job and pay the rent themselves.
This had made me wonder whether this can be applied to the Philippine setting, not with the homeless but with sqautters. What if those people squatting/living near railroads or wherever were given an apartment for free a year? Hmmm…
PREDA Fair Trade Alternative news
