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We KNOW that it is cheaper to give a homeless person somewhere to live than to keep them on the street.
Malcolm Gladwell’s February 13, 2006 article in The New Yorker, Million-Dollar Murray, follows a Reno, Nevada homeless man named Murray Barr.
SIMON: Let me get back though to the mother of three who’s down on her luck. Should we not feel morally uncomfortable about not coming up with a solution for her?
GLADWELL: Yes. I think you’re absolutely right. The thing that’s driving this strategy towards homelessness is the notion that we have a very limited amount of money, a very limited amount of political will. And what are we going to do with that? Well, we’re going to concentrate it on the worst part of the problem in the place where we can save the most money in the short term. That does not mean that we should ignore everybody else. But that’s a separate argument, really. I mean what we’re trying to show here is, can we, in a relatively short period of time, strike at the core of the problem? And if we can show that we can do that, then I would hope, I would hope that we would then take a step back and say, okay, let’s start dealing with people who are also troubled but just not in the same immediate dire straits. I hope we don’t stop at this.