Sappyness

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070125/ap_en_mo/film_homeless_happyness

As we used to say in elementary school, the decision to show this particular film to D.C.'s homeless is cold. If you don't want to read the story, officials in D.C. decided to try to inspire 100 of the city's homeless by treating them to a screening of Happyness. On one hand, I understand them wanting to recognize the possibility of hope and the pool of untapped talent that undoubtedly exists among the homeless. Yet I'm also struck that this is the first story on the homeless I've read in some time in a mainstream media outlet (particularly since I tend to boycott the Times) and it contains the same old formula of personal reponsibility as the way to salvation that has been the dominant pole in antipoverty debates. I would be a lot more sympathetic if city officials knew the media would pounce on a feel-good story that enshrines the good values at the heart of our non-policy toward poverty and housing, and used this opportunity to advance their radical plan to end homelessness. Instead, they, too, seem to have no plan beyond "keep trying."

I'm curious. How did the places you're all from handle their homeless? Omar, is there any free-market solution to the problem of providing adequate housing for the homeless?

Finally, if I am ever homeless (perhaps after being stricken with amnesia like that guy in Dallas) and you are going to try and uplift my spirits with a movie, you better show me The Warriors, Shaft, The Big Heat, or all four seasons of The Wire back-to-back.