Lucky (or well-managed) Western Australia with its flattened COVID-19 caseload curve. It is no longer freaking into the air — a startled cat — like all the rest of the world’s nations.
No, it’s able to settle down to self-grooming now and, with its tongue out, rediscovering its ass.
Western Australia’s return to an ugly normal included un-housing those souls who were swept off the streets and bundled into hotels to permit social distancing for an entire population.
Once social contact restrictions eased, it took Western Australia mere moments to recall one of the classic justifications for ignoring the problem of homelessness.
That is: merely stuffing homeless people into shelter doesn’t work.
Any and every conscientious social worker in the world committed to providing permanent shelter for homeless people can explain to Western Australia why a physical roof overhead is only a first, albeit critical, step in permanently housing the homeless.
Economically advanced societies are nearly all lamentable in their ‘inability’ to rescue their shelterless underclass. Western Australia deemed it necessary to ‘discover’ the ungratefulness of the people who had been homeless. Suddenly rounded up and dumped under a roof, they are neither as grateful nor as satisfied as the government expects them to be.
Woah! Mission Failure. Homelessness did not miraculously vanish overnight! Cancel the initiative! Back to same old same old!
We can only hope that others might recognize the obtuse thinking that prevents Western Australia from capitalizing on an unexpected potential benefit of a pandemic. Read more at WAtoday: WA Government Scraps Homeless Hotel Program After Participants Walk Out Within Days
