"Daljit Dhadwal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" wrote: > I understand this argument, but is this the best economics can do in > explaining why people are homeless? Yes, there are people who are homeless because mental institutions cannot accommodate them. More often than not, state mental health inspectors can only forcibly detain people if they are violent. Many of those mentally ill and homeless are non-violent, and rationally or irrationally, don't do more to find sturdy shelter. There are other, quasi-voluntary precipitators of homelessness: * Drug addiction * Emotional trauma * Mild mental retardation * Etc. ... I think surveys of homeless people have shown that a majority of them prefer to be that way; many who don't are destitute single mothers and the ilk. Even in the winter, they want a warm place to sleep, but most still prefer to be homeless. Sourav ------------------------------------------------------------ Sourav K. Mandal [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ikaran.com/Sourav.Mandal/ "In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse." -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Poetic Principle"
