A Wager on Employability

I always hear that I should feel sorry for homeless people and that I should be compelled to help them out.  To this, I do not necessarily disagree with the concept but with how the concept might be applied.  For instance, one way to help might be to volunteer at a soup kitchen or to donate food to a local food bank.  A totally different way to help might be to pass a law requiring everyone to give "equally".  Hmmm.....

What if the unemployed individual does not want to be employed or if the homeless person does not want to have a home, and how can we tell the difference between the individual who wants no responsibility and the one who needs help to get back on his or her feet?  If someone wants no help at all, then how can the help you provide actually result in the end product that you desire?  Said differently, if a person likes to be unattached to a home or a job and if you enable that person to accept a check every week or month with the expectation that the person will get a home or a job at some point in the future, then what expectation have you set, and is it really attainable?

I wager a bet that I could make a final success out of any homeless or unemployed individual in the country as long as they meet two criteria.  First, they have to be willing to take any job and hold it until they reach retirement age, no matter how petty, insignificant, and boring the job might be.  Second, they have to have a clean criminal record with no moral turpitude.  Find me someone like this without a home and a job, and I guarantee they will not be lacking for long.  To the rest, let them be held accountable for their choices.  Is it my responsibility to ensure that drug addicts, felons, and all out irresponsible people can eat at my expense?

I do believe that certain people ought to be assisted who are altogether unemployable by no fault of their own; however, how this assistance might be distributed is up for debate.  People with physical disabilities so severe that they cannot achieve employment ought to have choices, and by physical disabilities I mean blind, deaf, paralyzed, amputees, brain damaged, those with Downs Syndrome, etc.  Also in this group are those with mental illness so severe that they cannot even think straight, but they have to be bonified and verifiable.  It is for those without choices to whom real assistance should be given for they are the ones who are truly helpless.  Show me a system that supports only those incapable of helping themselves, and I can stand behind it.