Dallas’ Packed Bridge
The Dallas Morning News reports that The Bridge, Dallas’ new multi-million dollar homeless shelter/social services center, is regularly seeing overflow crowds. Some interpret that (over-) use as a good thing–evidence that The Bridge was needed, and that it was worth the $21 million spent to build it.
Let’s be clear. The Bridge is a good idea: provide a “safe” place for the homeless both to stay and to get help on their way back to an integrated or assimilated life. Just about everyone who spends time downtown appreciates any effort to reduce the frequency with which they are approached by the homeless. That goal sounds selfish. “Just make it so I don’t have to see them.” In reality, urban renaissance and economic development require a clean and secure environment, and image is a significant reality of any environment. But another good thing about The Bridge is the responsible attitude of its developers. There is an intelligent goal of removing barriers to having the homeless come there–removing just about any requirements on the homeless. But in addition there is a deliberate effort to connect the homeless who show up to social services designed to help them change.
But there are predictable limitations to such a facility as well. These are not the facility’s fault, but they ought to be taken into consideration.
First and foremost, shelters generally promote homelessness. This fact is confirmed by the fact that despite huge numbers staying at The Bridge, surrounding centers have not reported equivalent drops in their numbers. In a successful economy (and despite the doom and gloomers, this economy is still so) homeless shelters and feeding centers remove a stimulus not to be homeless. Homelessness and hunger motivate changed behavior. Of course, there are plenty of mentally and otherwise handicapped individuals who require assistance regardless of this motivation. They just cannot make it. But because there is no clear way to distinguish between those who could and could not function without such assistance, shelters inevitably draw many people who would otherwise be desperately searching to provide for themselves. That despair does not necessarily lead to good or even legal behavior. But idealists should realize that while places like The Bridge can alleviate a symptom of homelessness (their visibility), it does not solve any underlying problems–regardless of the social interventions integrated into it.
Second, as responsible as it is for city officials to take the responsibility to provide a better economic environment in Dallas, it is a bad idea to separate the need for real change from institutions which are centered on faith. Personal transformation requires more than a better plan for personal employment, or a greater understanding of how to manage money or time. It requires a metamorphosis of values which cannot be provided in a secular environment; the kind associated with Christian conversion, for instance. Of course, there is absolutely no guarantee a person will be interested in personal transformation. But for those who are, real change happens, as countless testimonies attest.
As encouraging as it is to see city hall be proactive in the pursuit of a positive, downtown economic environment, it is familiarly disappointing that this culture has become so secular in its “solutions” and will be predictably frustrating in the lack of real change that follows. So three cheers for people who are trying to help the homeless problem. But greater cheers still for those who realize the only help for the homeless themselves involves better news than the purely material and economic.
Tags: Economics, Free Market, Poverty
