A hungry homeless person is everyone's problem and a huge risk. No matter how you slice it, you end up paying the price: the value of your house goes down, the crime rate goes up, etc. It is a myth that you can escape poverty. Sure, you can move to an expensive gated community with a white gloved guard shooing away the "undesirables", but why do you think it's so expensive?
Moreover, a hungry homeless person is a security risk. How many iPhones, GPS's, laptops, etc. are stolen in a smash-and-grab incidents? How many people get hurt? No, not by your friendly neighborhood homeless lady, but by a person who feels they have no other choice but to steal or a person who is hooked on an addictive substance and can't stop?
Poverty also does not take a lot of people. A few percent here and there will cause enough headaches to become noticeable.
And poverty is chronic in society. It's not like if you took all the homeless, poor, and hungry and shipped them off to some unknown land you'd rid of the problem. No, instead more people would be pushed into the margins, becoming poor. You have to treat the cause.
Therefore, if poverty is inherent in certain societal setups, if it is everyone's problem (i.e.: everyone pays the cost) and it takes only a small percentage of people being poor to become a big problem, it is in the interest of everyone to change the societal setup so that poverty is minimized. Your original point was that it's not the government's job to do this. I argue that it is. The government (by the people and for the people) would not be doing it's job if it wasn't taking care of me or the person next to me.
As an aside, some might argue that private charities work much more efficiently than governments when it comes to homelessness/poverty/hunger. Personally, I believe a balanced approach works best. Big slow moving government projects with lots of oversight and restrictions coupled with flexible and quick-acting private charities are much more effective than either of the two.
Not to mention the toll on the children of the poor who do not get enough good nutrition, education, or a sense of safety and permanence to grow up to be respectable, law-abiding citizens.
That's what I don't get about allegedly intellectual, allegedly fiscally conservative people who are anti-welfare. They think that it's about not "giving a free ride" to people who "don't deserve" it. They are neither intellectual nor fiscally savvy enough to understand that there is always a cost, and to help and house people with welfare -- even people who will never "contribute" -- will cost far less in the long run than the ripple effect from feeling righteous.
Moreover, a hungry homeless person is a security risk. How many iPhones, GPS's, laptops, etc. are stolen in a smash-and-grab incidents? How many people get hurt? No, not by your friendly neighborhood homeless lady, but by a person who feels they have no other choice but to steal or a person who is hooked on an addictive substance and can't stop?
Poverty also does not take a lot of people. A few percent here and there will cause enough headaches to become noticeable.
And poverty is chronic in society. It's not like if you took all the homeless, poor, and hungry and shipped them off to some unknown land you'd rid of the problem. No, instead more people would be pushed into the margins, becoming poor. You have to treat the cause.
Therefore, if poverty is inherent in certain societal setups, if it is everyone's problem (i.e.: everyone pays the cost) and it takes only a small percentage of people being poor to become a big problem, it is in the interest of everyone to change the societal setup so that poverty is minimized. Your original point was that it's not the government's job to do this. I argue that it is. The government (by the people and for the people) would not be doing it's job if it wasn't taking care of me or the person next to me.
As an aside, some might argue that private charities work much more efficiently than governments when it comes to homelessness/poverty/hunger. Personally, I believe a balanced approach works best. Big slow moving government projects with lots of oversight and restrictions coupled with flexible and quick-acting private charities are much more effective than either of the two.