Democrat leaders have pushed costs higher than in 50 years, have imported millions of illegal aliens, and – in the process – created the worst homeless crisis since The Great Depression. From Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, numbers are high and growing, objectively staggering.
In 2023 alone, homelessness in America – older Americans, illegal aliens, young, the addicted, and those released from mental institutions and prisons – jumped 12 percent, topping 653,000, almost half the high point in the Great Depression.
The crisis is owned by those who created it, even if they did not mean to create it. Biden-Harris and governors who went along with them opened the southern border, did little to stop human and drug trafficking, and created fiscal conditions making housing, rent, energy, and even groceries unaffordable.
Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) annual assessment says this year represents “the most documented homeless individuals” since collecting data began. This is no longer COVID or Trump’s economy, which was marked by high growth, employment, wages, and affordable housing.
This crisis lies at the feet of Biden-Harris and anti-free market state governors – like Walz in Minnesota, Newsom in California, and Mills in Maine – who pushed illegal aliens, did nothing to stop rising inflation, interest, taxes, and anti-business sentiment, making housing unaffordable. In Maine, for example, homelessness in Portland jumped 65 percent from 2015 to 2023 and keeps rising.
In places like Maine, veterans sleep under bridges, and Portland has one of the highest per capita homeless rates in the country, like New Hampshire. Illegal aliens get two years of free luxury housing, in Brunswick. The outrage is rising, palpable, logical, with grown kids unable even to rent a studio.
Democrats brought this misery on themselves, and on the rest of the nation, with irresponsible thinking – by not thinking. Good education, jobs, and affordable housing require trust in the people, market, laws, and citizenship, as historically understood, not irresponsible spending.
More than 100,000 kids were without homes last year, and homelessness shot up in 41 states from 2022 to 2023, New Mexico to New England. More than half of the homeless are in big cities.
In short, Democrat policies – pro-spending, anti-energy independence, pro-inflation, anti-affordable housing, pro-illegal alien, pro-entitlement, anti-free market, pro-lockdown, anti-liberty, pro-drug legalization, and anti-police, anti-bail, anti-accountability, are killing cities, states, nation.
The canary in the coal mine, a sign of what is to come is the plague of homelessness. Why? Because we have not seen this level since The Great Depression. Can this be fixed? Yes, this is not about Armageddon or the end of the world, it is about speaking the truth and stopping dangerous policies.
The solution begins with restoring accountability to federal and state government, beginning with fiscal constraint and affordable housing, electing leaders with experience and integrity.
Many cities and states tell the story – Democrat overspending, disinterest in history, economic ignorance or mismanagement, illegal alien importation, and blame shifting. That has to stop.
Why? Americans who work cannot afford to be homeless or bankroll growing homelessness – and the trend line is getting steeper. What Democrats will not tell you is we are harvesting their crop, and worse lies ahead if we do not turn back to fiscally responsible policies at all levels.
A recent study by major universities shows we are on track to see homelessness up 150 percent among seniors, even without more illegals, by 2030. Beyond bad economic policies, demographics.
Net-net, there is a way to reverse the Democrat-driven homelessness. In the 1970s, mental institutions were emptied, inflation, spending, taxes, and interest hit highs, with homelessness.
Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. Three years later, inflation, interest, and taxes were down, business up, along with attention to limited government, sound fiscal policies, and no mass illegal migration. He and Nancy Reagan worked to reduce the drug crisis – with it homelessness.
So, can it be done – a return to sanity, an end to rising homelessness, a natural outgrowth of poor national and state leadership? Yes. Here is an open secret: 2024 is the year to start.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
