Category: Homelessness

Tolerated invisibility

16 November, 2012 (10:35) | Government, Homelessness, Housing, Innovations, Local issues, Paris, Regulation, Rooming Houses, Supportive housing |

By:David A. Smith   Homelessness is a failure; on that everyone can agree.  But whose is the failure, and whose the responsibility to address it?  The question lies, unasked, underneath a surprisingly snippy Economist article:   Jean, a 31-year-old homeless man at Canal Saint-Martin, Paris   Down and out in Paris   The inventor of [...]

Month in Review, May 2012: Part 2, Around the world

20 July, 2012 (09:21) | Bankruptcy, China, Global news, Greece, Homelessness, Housing, Innovations, LIBOR, Month in review, US News, Zoning |

[Previous Months in Review available here: Apr 12, Mar 12, Feb 12]   [Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   By:David A. Smith   As we saw yesterday in Part 1 of our May review, China is growing Too soon old and Too late rich, but of course, where there are old people with money, there [...]

Month in Review, May 2012: Part 1, Here at home

19 July, 2012 (10:19) | Bankruptcy, China, Global news, Greece, Homelessness, Housing, Innovations, LIBOR, Month in review, US News, Zoning |

[Previous Months in Review available here: Apr 12, Mar 12, Feb 12]   By:David A. Smith   All gloom and no fun makes blog a dull read, so during May I offered a cheerful look at a disruptive pastime in Interoperability creates innovation:   Just slide the pieces around   Programs are designed in splendid [...]

Change first or help first?

18 July, 2012 (09:31) | Homelessness, Housing, Los Angeles, program design, social impact bonds, social programs, Supportive housing, US News |

By:David A. Smith   When it comes to people whom we wish to help with government or charitable resources so that they can change their lives, should we make them prove it first or should we give it first?    Is this a good idea?   That question lies underneath the design choices within many [...]

Homeless and Hungary: Part 2, how hard to rise

8 May, 2012 (10:57) | Budapest, Ecosystem, Employment, Homelessness, Housing, Hungary, Innovations, Policy, Supportive housing |

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   By:David A. Smith   Yesterday’s post on the mushrooming of homelessness in Budapest, using a credulous National Public Radio (April 6, 2012) story and a slightly more detailed December, 2011 op-ed (in Georgia font), published in The Observers – France 24, introduced us to unemployed construction worker Zoltan Szarka, [...]