We are a people of action. When Americans see something that needs to be done, we band together and do something about it.
The “progressives” tend to say “someone” needs to do something (meaning the government) while conservatives tend to say “I’m someone, and I’m going to do something about it”.
Sometimes, the actions taken while “doing something” lead to real and measurable success. Other times, what we see as action becomes nothing more than enabling people to do more self-harm.
My years in business were all centered on motivation. A common goal and helping teams of smart, talented people achieve a specific and clearly articulated (but difficult to achieve) goal. For many decades, I dealt with addiction by eliminating them from the team.
That is how I protected my star players.
The response to everything was “do something.” It’s the machine example – if you have the right inputs, turning up the volume makes it better – but human beings don’t always work that way. Not all problems will respond.
I had a very personal experience enabling an addict. I sprang to action, and just about everything I did was wrong. Things I provided that I thought would help were perverted to facilitate his addiction. I flailed about doing exactly the wrong things, being judgmental on a personal level, and my attempts at rectifying the situation backfired spectacularly.
The solution was not intuitive. It was exceedingly difficult for me to change my frame of mind to do what needed to be done for him to be successful. As a society, we have spent the last 60 years throwing money at the poverty problem and have very little to show for it.
The percentage of those in poverty is plus or minus a few points virtually unchanged, while we are spending ever-increasing amounts of money on this problem. In 1970, there were a few federal welfare programs. Today, some put the count at 50, and each one of those programs has a hierarchy of an executive director and field minions out acting like Kings and Queens, doling out “aid”.
Their success rate is about 3%. One local organization I know of has an operating budget of $5 million. They have roughly 100 in the population they can serve. They claim they were successful in helping three people climb out of poverty last year. Does that mean their successes each cost $1.6 million? It seems that way to me.
When confronted with the numbers, their retort is always the same. “If we help just one succeed, it’s all worth it.”
Or is it?
How much damage are they doing in their effort to help? Are they really enabling these people to continue their addictions and to live in squalor to finance their habits?
Most mornings I drive by a guy who used to collect pop bottles to cash in for a case of cheap beer. Now that he’s on a program, he’s sitting on the same corner staring blankly into space.
I’ve spoken with him. He’s not stupid.
If you don’t have a job, what do you do all day? What do you aspire to? If an agency makes your life on the street more comfortable, what incentive do you have to better yourself?
I seem to see a shortage of programs that focus on at-risk adolescents. One might think that some intervention while they are teens might prevent them from becoming addicted adults. I find it interesting that those who study this field and may have a better path forward won’t talk to us because we are conservatives. For some strange reason, they think that we don’t share empathy, and that we won’t do what it takes to “solve the problem”.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’m not going to unleash a disingenuous number like the percentage of increase, but I can tell you that since 1965, federal spending to eliminate poverty and homelessness is up by 90 times. Yes, part of that is inflation, but far from all of it. All measures show we have not made significant strides in eliminating poverty.
With the exception of the dollars spent, all the numbers surrounding this problem is a squishy morass, loaded to make a point. Numbers designed to attract funding. None of the numbers measure how much damage has been done.
This article was prompted by deciding on what charities we will be supporting this holiday season. I’ll be avoiding those that could possibly be taking actions that would enable what I consider to be abhorrent behavior. I’ll carefully avoid the enablers. I know they are wrong.
I don’t have any answers, but I do believe I have some considered questions and there are the numbers that allow me to believe what we are doing as a society isn’t working.
It’s time to consider something new because enabling addicts and their life on the streets has a startling statistic that involves more death than success.
