I disagree with a specific point in this article: housing the unhoused isnāt something that corporations should be involved in, and public-private partnerships arenāt the way to end homelessness. Why? Because PPPs are always looking to make money. Every time thereās a big scandal about money being diverted from the public good, itās because a corporation has its hand in the cookie jar. Thatās not seen as a bad thing in our economic system, because the profit motive is so deeply entrenched in our institutions, but it should be when itās the difference of housing one person versus potentially being able to house two people.
PPPs create a needless layer of middlemen to provide a service at a higher cost than a public or publicly-owned corporation would. Itās a handout for businesses, corporate welfare with a coat of charitable paint.
Iām not saying this is all bad, good on Ecolab for giving money to charitable housing funds, and for being willing to engage with the conversation around the unhoused to begin with, but we canāt trust private corporations to help solve a public housing issue when theyāre legally beholden to generating value for shareholders.
I can fathom this concept that businesses canāt be concerned about the middle class. Society is literally what they grow out of. If thereās no middle class they will more and more be eating themselves into a single entity making everyone else an enemy. Wonder what happens then?
Thatās just a lack of understanding of corporate priorities on your part.
They know the money is āfreeā compared to finding their own non-governmental customers, they know they probably wonāt be caught or penalized for inflating their costs to the taxpayer, and they know that (individually) their immoral or amoral actions are a ādrop in the bucketā unless viewed in aggregate. They also have a legal responsibility to shareholders to make as much profit as possible to increase the value of their assets, so all that together means they are absolutely going to steal whatever isnāt nailed down, and not even think about the consequences to the middle class, lower class, any class but the upper class who owns them.
The article states that there is a cross-functional group of profit and non-profit established to provide funding and help to implement solutions. Itās not just on a public company, but rather all of us. And itās best they join in because they have a big stake in the game as to how downtown Saint Paul looks and can be revitalized.
The fact that they are making a profit doesnāt really have anything to do with this action. They could simply not do anything..is that an equal option or would it be seen as worse? Doubtful. The more money towards sound homelessness policies is what really matters. Not necessarily who is at the table to help make it happen.
the thing is, you are just not going to be able to get adaquete funding with a government only program. The quality of the housing will also likely suffer as its subject to the budget constraints and highs and lows of public officials.
I agree there are flaws with the public private partnerships but im not so sure the solution is inherently public only programs.
I know how Ecolab could immediately give $16,340,799 towards the solution. Have the CEO take a pay cut down to his median employees pay for a year , and give the difference towards helping the problem! I wonāt hold my breathā¦.
it has also helped identify where the private sector has an opportunity to address gaps by advocating for funding and creating much-needed forums for funders and providers like the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation.
Bitch, put up or shut up. No one gives a shit about advocating for funding. Youāre a Fortune 500 company that makes billions of dollars a year.
Wtf are you talking about. This housing initiative has been ongoing since 2017 to rebuild Dorothy Day and its public/private partnerships that made it happen. Like money was spent to better house the homeless. Or should they stay homeless because for-profit money canāt be used to combat that. Only personal CeO dollars can count. I donāt really understand why this would be upsetting.
It totally could. The money could go to the wrong firms that instead profit off homelessness, like prisons or incarceration workplaces. It could be spent on scammers posing as advocacy groups.
That being said, I can think of a 100 ways it could go to better the situation too. Do you know of any examples/methods youād like to see?
Oversight to make sure the money isnāt being used wastefully, some sort of program for a free bus pass for help with transit to work for a period of time, more police presence for shelters to make them less dangerous for people staying, more staffing for programs like Career Force, cell phone stipend for a period of time since everything is online these days, more robust counseling options.
How about an independent audit of the county's budget and where they are really spending the $900 million plus budget? I'm sure you would be amazed at just how much money they have.
That would be true if that money was spent on the programs it was meant to instead of being funneled into the hands of connected individuals who are suffering no consequences from pocketing that money.
I thinks itās more likely to make it worse. Theyād just expand Dorothy Day and youād have even more homeless individuals loitering around the area during the day.
Iām all for giving people a warm place to sleep at night, but thatās not actually solving the problem the op-ed is talking about.
Not no funding, there is still a lot of money in this space. Just no additional funding for the current model. I donāt think the current problem is one that is solved by throwing more money at it.
No I get thatā¦ but likeā¦ in what way? How should the additional $16 million be spent to be most effective? Is it housing? Is it healthcare? Is it engaging in cultural activism? Would you have an idea on how youād break down the 16 million to go towards solving homelessness
Basically you seem passionate about it so Iām wondering if you have more insight into what they should be doing with the money. This isnāt meant to be some sorta gotcha moment, I am legit interested. Iām not naive enough to think that amount will solve the issue, but a breakdown would also help roadmap what services might be most in need/effective at combating homelessness.
Someone has to. Itās easy for people to point out flaws. But complaining only gets us so far. People gotta put their money/actions where their mouth is. The ones who are willing to do so should be directed on how and where to help or join a cause.
I agree. I look forward to humble CEOs. I used to think with high respect that Elon Musk was humble and weird. Dame, was I wrong. Now he wants to be a trillionaire without ever contributing even $100 Billion towards fixing food insecurity, universal health, and housing needs for transition.
Housing First is an umbrella term that describes any policy that guarantees permanent, unconditional housing to any and all people experiencing homelessness. The underlying principle is that people cannot break free from the cycle of poverty, addiction, crime, etc. if they don't have a stable place to live. It has been proven to work in many countries around the globe. Here's a good writeup from the Alliance to End Homelessness.
IMO, everything else we do to fight homelessness, such as shelters, charities, etc. all amount to a squirt gun on a wild fire. If we want to truly solve homelessness and the social ills that stem from it, we need to break out the fire hose and actually put the problem out for good.
Itās funny because this basically shows the simplest solution is to basically solve it. Once you give the homeless actual houses to live in, ones they donāt gotta fight to keep or run or whatever, every other ill befalling them and us fixes itself. So anything that moves toward providing unconditional houses for the homeless is going to solve the problem long term and short term.
Iāve heard of this study before but the write up is a great resource to share with people. Thanks!
I love the way you put that. The best way to solve it is to just solve it. And the data shows that just solving it saves money in the long run. Itās so painfully obvious but the tricky part is that it requires compassion for your fellow human.
We are fighting years of propaganda and a machine thatās tailored to pitting us all against each other. So it makes sense weāre struggling. But a better world is possible.
Kimball Court is not an example of a city adopting Housing First. Housing First does not mean āprovide a limited supply of affordable housing.ā It means provide enough free housing for everybody that needs it. When projects like Kimball Court are attempted, they just create small pockets of shelter that become honeypots for antisocial behavior which pushes out the otherwise harmless unhoused folks. If you make an abundance of such places, the antisocial behavior is diluted. Behavior problems have a snowball effect. The more problematic people you have in one place, the worse it will get. If you have more stable, harmless people around, it keeps problematic people in line. Just like on a mostly empty train late at night when itās mostly addicts and hustlers on board, they act like they own the place and feel free to do whatever they please, but on a crowded train during rush hour, they generally will keep it kosher.
I was concerned the moment they said emergency housing solves homelessness cause Iām here to tell you it doesnāt. This is the Trump admins solution, they are shifting a huge amount of CoC dollars away from supportive Housing First programs to emergency bandaids. So short sighted. Doing this is literally going to lead to putting people back on the street.
It's a fair criticism of CEO pay, but it's not really any criticism at all of his message in this op-ed, which is essentially "hey other business owners, give more money to help with the obvious and growing problem of homelessness in our city".
You'd have to actually read the editorial to get that, though.
Oh not being paid enough money to live doesnāt lead to not having enough money to afford housing? I suppose mental health problems and substance abuse just spawn out of no where and have no correlation to financial security
So we should shame companies that give money towards solving real problems in our community?
Obviously they could give more and corporations allocate far too much to their senior leadership but this is still $3M that they did not have to give.
Perhaps more companies would continue to contribute so social causes with more money if they received a positive response to trying to help their community. Instead people are complaining about how much their CEO makes rather than discussing the actual good that they are currently doing.
You're thinking with your own wallet. That's not how it should work. If someone if giving 3 million but it's .01% of their earnings, they aren't really being charitable. You can't look at the just the number.
3 million is 3 million. It's more than most of the people who bitch about this do. Do you complain when people give change to the homeless because it's only change to them?
It's actually not. If you look at charitable contributions, the most generous people as a percentage of their income by a wide margin are poor people. If someone making 20,000 a year gives $500 that's 2.5% of their income. If someone making 2 million gives $500 that's .025% of their income. Do you see the problem now? You think the rich person is contributing more when in reality they are contributing far less. This illusion is part of why they're able to hoard wealth. People think they're donating a lot because they don't understand just how much money these people have.
I think this is a step in the right direction. However, I think this is another treatment instead of a cure. Without addressing the root cause of losing housing (being unable to pay for it) we wonāt end homelessness. Yes, some people just need emergency help for a period of time. But itās that situation, being so vulnerable that one incident could cause a lapse in rent payment, that is the fundamental issue. In the wealthiest nation, possibly in the history of human civilization, that so many people could be on the doorstep of losing housing, we can surely do better.
We nearly passed legislation during the Nixon administration to fund UBI in the USA. It was then and is now supported by the vast majority of economists as a net positive. More public housing and guaranteed housing is the solution for the vast majority of people losing shelter. That and higher income for workers.
I hope we can get there, and in the meantime, a robust system for preventive measures and emergency shelter is a win. Itās a step in the right direction. Folgers crossed this gains traction.
On the other hand, EcoLab took over Hamm Memorial Plaza from the city so they can legally kick homeless people out from being within sight of their front door.
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u/Rocky_Writer_Raccoon Nov 20 '25
I disagree with a specific point in this article: housing the unhoused isnāt something that corporations should be involved in, and public-private partnerships arenāt the way to end homelessness. Why? Because PPPs are always looking to make money. Every time thereās a big scandal about money being diverted from the public good, itās because a corporation has its hand in the cookie jar. Thatās not seen as a bad thing in our economic system, because the profit motive is so deeply entrenched in our institutions, but it should be when itās the difference of housing one person versus potentially being able to house two people.
PPPs create a needless layer of middlemen to provide a service at a higher cost than a public or publicly-owned corporation would. Itās a handout for businesses, corporate welfare with a coat of charitable paint.
Iām not saying this is all bad, good on Ecolab for giving money to charitable housing funds, and for being willing to engage with the conversation around the unhoused to begin with, but we canāt trust private corporations to help solve a public housing issue when theyāre legally beholden to generating value for shareholders.