typical conservative distortion

Over at Zogby Blog, Kamil has this to say about the homeless:

I never give a dime to the so-called "homeless." I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen in San Francisco, and the "homeless" are some of the best fed people in America. Sure, there are a very, very small amount of people who are actually without homes. But, most of the street "homeless" are drug addicts, alcoholics, or mentally ill. No sense in giving them money, because you're not helping them.

Following in the tradition of the myth of the welfare queen, here's another example of conservatives extending the negative actions of a few to an entire class of people. Are there panhandlers that fake afflictions? Absolutely. But their existence does not mean that there aren't people who lack housing, a conclusion Kamil is oh-so-eager to draw.

His point that giving small amounts of money to people on the street doesn't help them does have some truth in it, of course. Homelessness is a structural problem that can't be solved piecemeal. Given the Zogby bloggers' penchant for small government (except in the realm of national defense, but who's counting?), they'd be unlikely to support any social programs that would deal with the problem of homelessness. So, I suppose, the short version is that the homeless shouldn't be helped? Brilliant. Simply brilliant.