Government regulations worsen homelessness

On a huge number of issues, our state and federal government actually exacerbate existing problems, or even create problems where none existed previously. One egregious example is that of homelessness, an issue that comes up every time the weather turns cold. In fact, in Rutland recently, there was a candle-light vigil held to raise awareness of homelessness.

Unfortunately, awareness efforts never seem to focus on the fact that Vermont legislators have made the problem worse.

How have they done so? Through their refusal to acknowledge that the decisions they make and laws they pass are not solutions; they are trade-offs.

First, let’s look at housing. Regulations for apartments and other residences have effectively priced some people out of the housing market entirely, thereby rendering them homeless. Government regulations and taxes make it unnecessarily expensive for proprietors to make an apartment or house “liveable” by state standards, in terms of the electrical wiring, structural elements, type and number of plumbing fixtures, fire alarms/extinguishers, insulation, type of paint… the list is not short, and not cheap to implement. And property taxes on top of the required expenses are even more onerous.

So unless the businessperson making the place available for rent is satisfied to lose money on it, the government-mandated costs must be passed on to renters. The higher the costs, the smaller the number of people who can afford to pay, and the worse the homeless problem gets.

So, the government has made homelessness worse. But there are charities out there willing to help, right? Let’s say a church wants to open its doors to homeless people; after all, churches have historically been places that welcome those who have nowhere else to go.

Reasonable people might guess that it could be done without huge expense to the parishioners, since the building is already there, and they already pay for heat, water and electricity. The added expense would be perhaps some cots, bed linens, a few extra trash cans, and more toilet paper than they normally stock. But the government won’t allow such a simple solution; if people are going to be sleeping in a place, it falls into a whole new government-defined category of building, and therefore needs to go through bureaucratic processes to register as such. This not only delays the process of serving homeless folks, but also is a barrier to organizations even wanting to try.

But that’s not the only barrier to providing shelter for homeless folks. Government regulations for places where people will be sleeping also have different requirements for “health and safety” features, such as lighting, fire alarms and fire-suppression systems, number of bathrooms, and more.

And if the church wanted to serve prepared food to these homeless people, the barriers are even higher. They would have to have their kitchen inspected by government regulators routinely, and they would have to invest in certain types of equipment that meet government regulations. Serving people inexpensively is simply not possible.

In the name of “health and safety,” therefore, legislators have exacerbated homelessness by making housing more expensive, and made it more difficult to address the problem through the good will of people who donate their time and resources to non-profit organizations.

I would not suggest that the “health and safety” laws weren’t passed for good reason; nobody wants to read news stories of a family that died in a house fire, and undoubtedly there is merit to having fire-detection and fire-suppression equipment in places where people live. But wouldn’t health and safety be a simpler issue for non-profits to address than homelessness? Wouldn’t it be easier and more economical for a charity to buy and distribute smoke detectors and fold-up emergency ladders than it would be to find homeless people a place to live? If homeless people believe that staying in a building with only one bathroom, even if they have to share it with 20 others, is better than being without shelter at all, then shouldn’t they be able to do so?

As usual, legislators make much of the benefits they provide by passing mandates for health and safety, and ignore the trade-offs they are forcing people to make.