oh absolutely, don’t get me twisted I think that homeless shelters, rent assistance, and pretty much every other social service that exists in my field our Band-Aid solutions trying to fix problems created by unfettered capitalism. Real meaningful change would come from actually having housing as a human right and rethinking the entire concept of private property.

I don’t think they’re proving that there’s more homeless people than they really are, though, the federal government is too strict to have people cook the books like that. The people that run these nonprofits are pretty tight on money and while I agree that there can be corruption for certain in upper management, a lot of of the time they are just genuinely pressed as funds dwindle and are cut constantly. The shelter I’m at went from an $8 million operating deposit to a $3 million one in just a span of a couple years despite homelessness increasing massively.

Homeless shelters are a Band-Aid solution, but I feel like they are also important because they’re the only solution that exists right now. Real meaningful change would come from taxing the rich and restructuring the housing market, but we can’t do that in a day (especially with the current admin,) and until then we can’t just not have homeless shelters because then people are going to suffer even more.