Wait....you mean homeless people have to follow rules?!?

I hate to agree with something that New York City is doing, but in this case I have to admit that I do. According to a story in the New York Times (and I'm not too excited about quoting the Times either, but you do what you have to do), New York City is implementing a stronger policy towards the 9,720 families who currently live in the city's homeless shelters.

The new policy makes it easier for the shelters to evict residents who - get this - are breaking the rules.

Now, if you or I is renting an apartment, and the rental contract forbids us from building a meth lab in the bathroom, but we decide to do it anyway, we're probably going to get evicted (if we don't get blown to bits first). However, up until now, it was incredibly difficult for the homeless shelters to remove families for violations such as: illegal behavior, illegal drugs, weapons, or missing curfew.

I say families, because in the past the city has always been able to evict individuals from the system if they broke the laws, but as soon as you had a kid, you were basically home-free (there's a good idea: incentivize homeless people who can't support themselves to have kids, which they also - surprise, surprise - can't support).

A bigger problem is the families who live in the temporary housing that the system provides and refuse to move out when offered a more permanent arrangement. According to the article, families frequently turn down permanent housing when its "not to their liking". If I was homeless, and someone was offering me a place a live, I don't think I'd have the nerve to tell them I didn't like it. Are they thinking, "No, but if you put in a jacuzzi tub I might reconsider"?

The main reason I imagine most of them don't find permanent housing to their "liking" is because it's not entirely free. Even though there are limits for how long you are supposed to remain in a free shelter, there was really no way for the city to enforce those limits (again, only if kids were involved) by threatening to evict families if they did not move to permanent housing.

The worst part is that Robert Hess, commissioner for homeless services, sounds downright apologetic about the new policy, saying they don't intend to use the increased eviction power, except in the most egregious situations. He certainly shouldn't feel bad for making people follow the rules of the system they are in.

Richard Motta, from a volunteer organization that runs three shelters has the right idea when he invokes T.R. : "If you need a big stick now and then, for certain families, so be it."

Generally, I'm not in favor of a lot of rules, but if you want to benefit from getting free housing on the public's dime, you better be willing to co-operate. Closing the loop-hole of "have a kid and there's nothing we can do if you break the rules" is a decision I applaud.