Carman: Blame The Man

I actually have some real knowledge on the topic which Diane Carman screws up in this morning's DP.

As an operations project manager for one of the largest Landlord's in the country, I was interested in what Diane had to say about Landlords.

To start, she says:

"A new arrival from New York City e-mailed me recently expressing alarm at the number of homeless people on Denver's streets. He was shocked by the beggars everywhere. If New York could solve its homeless problem, he said, surely Denver could."

Apparently the new arrival from NYC never went outside. I seriously doubt anyone who has ever been to NYC would call the homeless problem "solved." I know the lady who used to urinate in my doorway when I lived there would probably not consider it "solved." This sort of misrepresentation from Carman is to be expected, especially since she thinks that nobody else in the world has problems besides Colorado.

But I digress...

According to Carman, the reason we have homelessness is because people don't get their security deposit back soon enough and late fees are too high. This leads to eviction, which leads to homelessness.

In actuality, what leads to eviction is: NOT PAYING YOUR FRIGGIN' RENT!!!!

If you pay your rent on time, you don't get charged a late fee and you don't get evicted. Crazy stuff, I know.

Also, if you are down to your last dime so that you need your deposit back before you can rent elsewhere, then your path to homelessness was set long ago.

I'm not making light of homelessness or that it is a problem, but it is caused by a number of factors - unemployment, mental illness, medical conditions, bad luck. It is not caused by unscrupulous landlords (and believe me there are a lot of these).

Instead of talking about the real underlying factors, factors that generally put more of the blame back on the homeless individual, Carman would rather Blame The Man.