Reply to Truancy In DC HS Is Shocking - Why No Urgency To Address?!!

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Truancy In DC HS Is Shocking - Why No Urgency To Address?!!"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, it is NOT fair.  What would make it palatable is conditioning receipt of that free housing on mandatory birth control and not producing any more kids.  And conditioning continued receipt of that free housing on making sure the kids you do have get to school and aren't truant.  If your kids are school age, then you have to take job readiness/GED classes during the school day while your kids are in school.  This is not just about housing.  [/quote]

Right. I've been critical of the voucher program, but I'd actually support it if D.C. demanded accountability in exchange for giving people a massive handout. We'll give you free housing, but you'll lose it if you break the law. You have to go into rehab if you have a substance abuse problem, you have to make sure your kids are going to school and being taken care of. You have to be in some sort of job training program, or work for a job that D.C. lines up for you. Social workers can check in frequently and update what you have to do, unlike the current situation where they just knock on your door once a month and you can ignore them.

The goal should be to get people on the right track so that they can start supporting themselves, not have them on the government dole for life. That's another reason why putting these people in expensive apartments is idiotic. Either you're expecting D.C. to provide them with free expensive apartments for decades, or you're putting them in an area they can't afford on their own that they'll have to eventually move out of if they ever do get off the program.

If people say the answer is to turn these people's lives around, make programs that actual make that happen. Just giving a junkie a free apartment so they can shoot up all the time isn't solving problems, it's creating them. It also leads to induced demand - if you're a homeless addict in another state and learn that D.C. is giving people free luxury apartments, of course you're going to want to come here. For some reason these people talk endlessly about induced demand when it comes to roads, but can't fathom it when they talk about massive government handouts.

We had 5,900 homeless a decade ago. Advocates said "Just give everyone housing, that will solve everything!" Now we have over 8,000 people on the voucher programs, we have new shelters all over the city, and we have more tents than we had before. What's the response from the advocates? Reflection that their policies failed massively, leading to a much larger homeless population? Nope, they just mindlessly repeat the same thing they said a decade ago: "Just give everyone housing, that will solve everything!"[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics