What do you when the Depression is deepening, unemployment is steadily creeping up, underemployment is becoming the norm, inflation is moving front-and-center, housing is sinking further still, the debt ceiling is crashed, the deficit is unsustainable, household wealth is sinking, and quantitative easing is on the verge of becoming an enduring operation? If you are the government, you continue to loot the productive class to create government jobs that will cater to the idle class. As an example, meet the $50M Homeless Hilton in Portland.
Straddling Portland’s Chinatown and the Pearl District, a neighborhood of reclaimed warehouse spaces, the eight-story Homeless Service Center cost $46.9 million in city, county and federal stimulus funds to construct. It will contain 130 studio apartment-style permanent residences, 90 shelter beds, and offices for 50 staff members. Complimentary GED classes, haircuts and art therapy will be on offer.
…It’s a noble mission. The trouble is there are no time limits for those living in the center’s studio apartment units. The job training, GED courses and writing classes that the center will offer will be entirely optional. The center’s taxpayer-funded yoga sessions and nutrition classes, meanwhile, will be available to anybody who shows up.
As usual, theft and waste on such a grand scale is referred to as “a noble mission” (the usual “good intentions” argument). Nonsense – it is a purposeful redistribution from the productive class to the government class to fund their pet social missions.
