Here is a good place to start. When I decided to look into this homeless matter I quickly realized that the picture is too big and complex, it has to be simplified in order to make it manageable.

I have no idea why there would be homeless in Switzerland or what to do with the millions of homeless in Asia and Africa. Even New York City cannot be taken as a uniform whole.

So as a practical matter, and to quote Commissioner Linda Gibbs [who seems to provide endless examples of stupid talk]...

"What you measure is what you manage."

What I am measuring is Manhattan.

Specifically Mid-town Manhattan.

And what I would wish to manage... is to repair the tear in the social fabric, to weave the loose threads of the homeless lives back into the tapestry of the community of the positively living. That is a mouthfull.

A simple look at the numbers will show what I mean.

As you know numbers and the homeless are a shell game played by all the interested parties. No one knows the real numbers. But here goes...

• If there are eight to nine million New Yorkers.
• And of these, 50,000 (the official number in the shelters plus a few more for good measure) are homeless.
• It seems that the amount it would take from each member of the community to help their fellows would be very small, and so doable.

But why would all these people give something when they are taxed to pay for a "homeless cleanup" already, and nothing improves. When the situation looks hopeless and getting worse?

Because having seen an improvement, as when a project is announced and followed through to success, their participation makes a critical difference.

For the most part people tend to do the "right thing".

And what would the right thing in this case be? To accept those cast out and abandoned back into the life of the community.

This can be done in a pragmatic way. As you cannot readily provide 50,000 people with apartments and jobs in one big chunk, the problem must be re-thought, the situation re-examined.

But while the economic and real estate issues get sorted out, time is still "marching on", these people are alive, living, developing, and changing.

In the present all this activity is wasting their time and so wasting their lives. They are living in New York City, people worldwide come here to spend their time and money or to invest their time and so make money.

How can it be that people who live here cannot find something of value to do?

The homeless are already here.

They will continue to be here. Improve their lot where they are by building on what is already inherent in the real situation. Using a socio-ecological model homelessness can be seen as a natural ongoing process that facilitates social development and economic growth.

Consider that on the whole, the homeless are an upwardly mobile demographic. A natural flow of people through a community. They are going to go through a period homelessness and then on to settle into their place within society and the official economy. After all this is New York City in the Land of opportunity. With tommorrow comes... less? Rather than capital intensive residential real estate, what is needed is a bridge across a hazard and steady heart through a time of chaos. A bridge consisting of facilities to shower, short/time small item storage, banking services, and timeshare programs. In addition to providing these "oasis resources", ancillary economic activity can be generated from partnering with local business to provide restaurant food, discount clothing, grooming, and later even furnishings as they move on up into their own apartments. Most people follow their own path, and they find their own way, avoiding the shelter system entirely. These people must produce enough cash flow to exist in New York City! This is no small amount in it's aggregate form and over a period of time. But currently they spend it inefficiently. There is a need for services to make this "homeless time" more productive for those who choose to do so. ***********************************************

The economic picture.

To live in New York City, is to spend money.

The homeless exist in a real physical world. They interact economically with the people that they live among. To put them into a shelter is to take them out of the community they call home and to relegate them to a lower social standing; confining them to the outer edge of the economy.

Substantial amounts of money must then be spent administrating this artificial homeless population; diverting monies from a productive economy into a perpetually ineffective and nonproductive entitlement.

What is called for here is, understanding based on the scientific developments of the past century, and truly humane approach.

Natural economic development at the local level would benefit, in a real way, those affected most by the distortions of having to make a place for themselves in world where possession of physical space is at a premium.

Despite of the priceyness of the real realestate in New York City the "wilderness" finds a place. From the cracks in the cement, the flooding of the rivers during storms, from areas of Central Park to Birds nesting within the infrastructure of the city. I leave out the rats, as they follow the human food chain, and so are a product of "civilization".

So here and there the unmeasured random universe appears- the beauty of nature is it's multiplicity and completeness - the other side is always there, unseen yet if you look it is there complete and connected.

Take the measure of man's universe and you find incompleteness, scarcity and an emptiness that must be filled to make "existence" complete. The measure of four walls of a room without furnishings; where in Nature can you find such a minimal and rigid environment? The perfect room... no sound no light, sensory deprivation. Add furnishings and you have artificial overstimulation.

So there exists a Social Wilderness as well in the free homeless. Those who choose the light and temperature, the sound, the connection to a different time scale. One in syc with Nature, the unfiltered pulse of Life.

To live in the street is to face the weather each day according to the season in a direct and enduring (connected) physical way. In such a way that the social/physical connection to society is no longer a certainty, life is built here not with contracts, it consists of probabilities and uncertainties. And how well one navigates these natural conditions. There are no enemies, only forces of nature.

This social wilderness is the randomization of the connecting tissue between Man and Nature. Deep within the heart of civilization sits the President of the United States. He is protected from uncontrolled weather as much as is physically possible. Even humidity and air pressure are manipulated. Weather to him is an abstract. Viewed in terms of crops, oil, and military movements. The effects of weather are so measured that they become un-noticed in their effects.

Would you deny yourself the right to be "homeless"?

Think of what it would mean if the only choice you could make was... do stay where you are... (in a "bad relationship" or "red ink" realestate deal) or to move into a jail-like shelter.

Landlords would have greater power than they presently do. So would bosses, roomates and even parents. This is about freedom of choice and what it means to have it and be unable to use it.

Not only that they could kick you out, but you yourself would hesitate to leave an unsatisfactory situation if you had to go to the reprocessing plant. And, pay for the wait... to boot! All pre-measured for you, a life that you are allowed to fit into, supplied by "those who know better".

So where do you go for a "fresh start? Into the barren environment of a "shelter". or into the randomness and openness of the wilderness...

UTILITY

In simple physical terms, the energy required to get out of homelessness is not there. Poverty is an economic "Black Hole". And as with the hole, once the event horizon is passed, there is no getting out without help from the outside, if even then. For help to get from outside the help itself must pass the event horizon to supply the help, and be able to return? Seems like a short circuit and it is highly unlikely that this would work. So what then.

The person must continue on to the other side. Accept ecconomic nothing?

As with the black hole the gravity of the situation destroys all bonds and connection. The homeless persons world is broken apart. And here we come the the essential question. What is a person? The final and complete thing that cannot be broken down anymore without becoming something else. Can this being survive destruction of all meaning and purpose, and emerge into a fresh Universe?

If so then productivity is the concern. What the person does with what remains, the constituent parts of themselves.

Productivity allows a person to get more return from the limited resources available. Time saving, for example, allows more to be accomplished in the same time. This extra is what, if allowed to accumulate over some measured "homeless time", provide the initial economic "Big Bang"... a room of ones own. And this increase in productivity provides the energy supply to endure and grow in the new circumstances.

The simple answer is education and practice to upgrade performance.

The homeless person must use all they have, and by definition, this will not be enough. More precise measurement and less waste, economy of movement. These direct improvements that are clear and visible to the person involved also supply the motivation to continue. Self-perpetuating behavior modification.

n.

   1.
         1. Something that provides cover or protection,
       as from the weather.
         2. A refuge; a haven.
         3. An establishment that provides temporary housing 
       for homeless people.
   2. The state of being covered or protected.

shelter·less adj.

    Synonyms: shelter, cover, retreat, 
refuge, asylum, sanctuary
    These nouns refer to places affording protection, as 
from danger, or to the state of being protected. Shelter usually 
implies a covered or enclosed area that protects temporarily, 
as from injury or attack: built a shelter out of pine and hemlock boughs.
 Cover suggests something that conceals: traveled under cover of darkness. 
Retreat applies chiefly to a secluded place to which one retires for
 meditation, peace, or privacy: a rural cabin that served as a 
weekend retreat. Refuge suggests a place of escape from pursuit or 
from difficulties that beset one: 

“The great advantage of a hotel is 
that it's a refuge from home life” (George Bernard Shaw). 
Asylum adds to refuge the idea of legal protection 
or of immunity from arrest: 
“O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time 
an asylum for mankind” 
                             (Thomas Paine). 
Sanctuary denotes a sacred or inviolable place of refuge:
 political refugees finding sanctuary in a monastery.
            The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
 Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.