How about work farms - dormitories or similar housing, and farm work, so they can grow their own food? It could even be private charities that do this. Of course, no drugs or alcohol.
That way the people who are off the scale would not be homeless, they would learn basic work skills, and be at least somewhat responsible for their own upkeep.
If the gov't spent less on lose-lose projects, people would have more of their own money to spend and donate to charities as they see fit. Non-profit charities would be able to have more money and get creative with actually helping people, not just maintaining them in their hopelessness. Which is what most gov't funded programs do.
How about work farms - dormitories or similar housing, and farm work, so they can grow their own food? It could even be private charities that do this. Of course, no drugs or alcohol.
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I don't remember them, but my parents told me that during the Great Depression, there was some government program in place -- I forget the name now, but if you were unemployed, you could do things like pick up trash, sweep the streets, etc. etc. Nowadays, it's like pulling teeth to get a lot of people on assistance to work -- in fact, trying to do so could result in lawsuits -- violation of their rights to lie around and make babies at your expense, I guess.