The majority of homeless people are there due to 1) substance abuse and 2) mental illness. To the former, there is no shortage of programs that will help someone kick an addiction, but none work without the individual willingly participating. The latter is part of the national disgrace that is mental health, extending beyond the homeless, but we're not going to round up the unstable and forcibly institutionalize them.
There is also a third group, which slightly overlaps the first - people who choose life on the streets. Yes, choose. I've seen them. Many police departments have homeless units that know people in this population by name and will do periodic welfare checks on them. But again, we're not going to round them up, either, and force them to live by societal norms of getting job and paying bills and all the rest.
This has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them. Places like LA., San Francisco, and Seattle don't have a homeless problem because of capitalism; they have a homeless program because govt action has this way of making things worse by doing nothing to change people lifestyles and a great deal to encourage more of the same. When police stop reacting to the property crimes that are rampant, you don't just get more property crime; you also wind up with an increase in violent crime as bad behavior escalates.
The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain. Some of us see freedom from meddling and harassment by busybody groups who want to reach into our pockets as a basic human right, too. I'm all for helping people but they have to be invested in helping themselves.
I do support freedom from meddling and harassment. I absolutely don't think that mentally ill people should be rounded up and forcibly institutionalized.
At the same time, when you say "this has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them", you forget that 1. no one chooses to be mentally ill or addicted to substances (not to even speak of intellectual or physical disabilities); 2. people don't make choices in a vacuum and don't bear the consequences of these choices in a vacuum.
As an example, a person who has affluent parents and can rely on their support is not in the same situation as the child of a low-income single mother. Various bad choices have much more painful consequences for people who are poor. E.g. an affluent woman who uses hard drugs is extremely unlikely to become a street prostitute in order to finance her habit.
You say: "The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain." This is your opinion, not an objective rule. And it is not true that individuals simply "obtain" all these things thanks to hard work - people can e.g. inherit houses or apartments. You also forget about the so-called "working poor" and about people who are unable to work.
As to things obtained "at the expense of third parties", you forget that many people are actually exploiting others - and not merely in order to satisfy their most basic needs, but in order to be rich or to become even richer.
You also missed the fact that cities like LA, San Francisco etc have a shortage of affordable housing because of state and city zoning and other regulations making it very expensive to build as well as a profound NIMBY-ist hypocrisy of the populace who regularly vote down proposals to build multi-family/multi-unit dwellings in those areas. They decry the lack of affordable housing but then block construction of said housing in their own neighborhoods.
The majority of homeless people are there due to 1) substance abuse and 2) mental illness. To the former, there is no shortage of programs that will help someone kick an addiction, but none work without the individual willingly participating. The latter is part of the national disgrace that is mental health, extending beyond the homeless, but we're not going to round up the unstable and forcibly institutionalize them.
There is also a third group, which slightly overlaps the first - people who choose life on the streets. Yes, choose. I've seen them. Many police departments have homeless units that know people in this population by name and will do periodic welfare checks on them. But again, we're not going to round them up, either, and force them to live by societal norms of getting job and paying bills and all the rest.
This has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them. Places like LA., San Francisco, and Seattle don't have a homeless problem because of capitalism; they have a homeless program because govt action has this way of making things worse by doing nothing to change people lifestyles and a great deal to encourage more of the same. When police stop reacting to the property crimes that are rampant, you don't just get more property crime; you also wind up with an increase in violent crime as bad behavior escalates.
The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain. Some of us see freedom from meddling and harassment by busybody groups who want to reach into our pockets as a basic human right, too. I'm all for helping people but they have to be invested in helping themselves.
I do support freedom from meddling and harassment. I absolutely don't think that mentally ill people should be rounded up and forcibly institutionalized.
At the same time, when you say "this has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them", you forget that 1. no one chooses to be mentally ill or addicted to substances (not to even speak of intellectual or physical disabilities); 2. people don't make choices in a vacuum and don't bear the consequences of these choices in a vacuum.
As an example, a person who has affluent parents and can rely on their support is not in the same situation as the child of a low-income single mother. Various bad choices have much more painful consequences for people who are poor. E.g. an affluent woman who uses hard drugs is extremely unlikely to become a street prostitute in order to finance her habit.
You say: "The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain." This is your opinion, not an objective rule. And it is not true that individuals simply "obtain" all these things thanks to hard work - people can e.g. inherit houses or apartments. You also forget about the so-called "working poor" and about people who are unable to work.
As to things obtained "at the expense of third parties", you forget that many people are actually exploiting others - and not merely in order to satisfy their most basic needs, but in order to be rich or to become even richer.
You also missed the fact that cities like LA, San Francisco etc have a shortage of affordable housing because of state and city zoning and other regulations making it very expensive to build as well as a profound NIMBY-ist hypocrisy of the populace who regularly vote down proposals to build multi-family/multi-unit dwellings in those areas. They decry the lack of affordable housing but then block construction of said housing in their own neighborhoods.