COMMENTARY: The homeless don’t need more government ‘help’

Ron Moore seems to have forgotten the road to hell is paved with good intentions (Jan. 12 commentary “Helping those who need it most”). I can’t help but wonder whether — when he uses the term “recidivism,” usually applied to repeat criminals, for homeless people and then says he wants every homeless person to register with the government — will he, our prospective warden, have us wear yellow stars, too?

Mr. Moore suggests we build a shiny new bureaucracy that will teach us poor folk responsibility after he registers us with a Homeless Division Department and limits our ability to earn or receive money unless it goes through the hands of a bureaucracy. This type of centralized power is more of the same poison of intrusive government that has greatly increased dire poverty in Las Vegas.

As I have repeatedly said, Southern Nevada needs major urban planning reform because housing ordinances, minimum wage laws, occupational licensing requirements and many other government intrusions on the free market all criminalize innocent behavior — not just of the poor, but of all valley residents. The political class has enacted one short-term solution or narrow special-interest solution after another — layer upon layer, year after year — until we have an unsustainable political/economic environment.

Reasonable reforms to address these issues will lift all Southern Nevadans up from the crippling effect that excessive regulations have had on our incomes and cost of living. Southern Nevada can be a beacon to the rest of the nation on how to have all residents truly prosper. The homeless are not there because it is convenient. They are there mostly because they’ve been zoned out and forbidden from participating in the pursuit of happiness.

If we can’t earn money due to wage laws that prevent us from working at a level of competence we are capable of performing, and we can’t afford bloated housing costs or an occupational license, then you have us hemmed in on every side. We have no place to go but postage-stamp-sized real estate with intensely stressful shelters run by incompetent staff who are replaced every two weeks.

We don’t need more money and more government “help.” We need freedom. We could take care of ourselves much better if not for the political class.

Mr. Moore is right when he suggests we change our approach to the homeless, because if we continue following policies similar to those in California, we will get similar results like the homeless disasters of San Francisco and plague-ridden Los Angeles.

— Timothy Underwood is a disabled Navy veteran who serves the homeless of Las Vegas.