We can do both, and have done both. The problem is the will and the sheer nastiness of the political sphere and the simple fact that Right Wing media has painted charity and mercy as a weakness. There's money, and an increasing number of communities have found that it costs far less to invest in housing and support for the homeless, the addicted, and the mentally compromised than it does to incarcerate and criminalize poverty.
I live in a border town in a temperate zone; the city just finished a month long survey and count that revealed approximately 15000 homeless out of the ~ 2 million that live and work here, so they've made the decision to directing their efforts away from criminalization to long-term and permanent housing linked to outreach and health services; when they ran the numbers out five years, they found they could project a savings of close to 30% from what they're spending now on health and policing of the homeless, as well as the public health and safety costs. The local school district recognizes homeless and "alternatively housed" (couch surfing) students, and makes an effort to connect those students and their families/supporters with services. All with state and county/local money - very little funding for any of these programs come from the Feds.
Before, homeless students or students without a regular address were penalized - kicked out of the district - for not having a permanent address or living situation, thanks to an ingrained GOP "Tough Love/punish the troublemakers" philosophy.
Taking care of "Our Own" at this point in time is pretty much a local psychological barrier component, not an economic barrier. There is no double standard here except from the Right Wing and the Prosperity Worshippers.
BTW, while the homeless population has grown, the growth is not as great as people want to pretend it is - what has happened is that homelessness in the US is now openly visible, when before it was just swept under the rug or into jails.
Undocumented immigration is at an all time low; counting the burden on service requirements from both the uptick in homelessness and any refugee population seeking asylum here barely comes to a half the burden erased from the decrease in undocumented immigration who have also sought and received services over the past decade and a half.
So this canard of "we can't feed/house/take care of our OWN", so why should we care about anyone else is strictly political - and pretty much local and state politics.
Haele
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