The Libertarian Solution To End Homelessness

[Alex Libman]

I truly hope that everyone will see this upcoming documentary film called Destiny's Bridge. It is about the "Tent City" of Lakewood, NJ, where I am currently a resident:





Tent City is a voluntary institution that exists as the result of local supporters and mutual aid, saving the taxpayers 1-2 million dollars a year! It is a perfect example of how more can be accomplished on a voluntary nickel than on a dollar that has been stolen from the taxpayers by the corrupt and inefficient racket called the Welfare State! The government here has done nothing to help the homeless, and everything that it could think of to try to shut this place down... The film covers the personal stories of several individuals, as well as the never-ending harassment from the local government.

This film is an authentic look into the lives of otherwise-homeless individuals living in a little village of about 100 tents and shanties - a homestead that has been built on "public" woodland over the past 7-8 years. This film will be particularly enjoyable to people interested in off-the-grid living, agorism / homesteading, the small house movement, government corruption, protests / civil disobedience, and voluntary charity. It also explores some very complex issues, like the underlying causes of homelessness in America, artificial scarcity, sustainable living, personal responsibility, addiction, love, hope and despair...

When this documentary is a success, it will attract donor and volunteer attention to help set up another voluntary village for the homeless, someplace where the government wouldn't be quite as oppressive as it has been in Lakewood, NJ. (I'm obviously promoting the idea that the best place to do this is the Free State of New Hampshire.) The name of this new project (a 501c3 charitable organization), like the film, is Destiny's Bridge.

Libertarians are often mindlessly attacked for "not caring about the poor". Tent City is living proof that the very opposite is true - it's the government that hurts the poor, and it's the voluntary sector that has the power to help them! My quixotic efforts to keep the government from shutting down this existing Tent City will continue, but that is a separate battle - Destiny's Bridge is an idea whose time has come!

Please help me spread the word about this documentary film! Please share the trailer with your friends. Visit DestinysBridge.com for more info, and subscribe to it on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.

[anaconda]

What's the libertarian solution to panhandling?

[Alex Libman]

What's the libertarian solution to panhandling?

That's not what this thread is about. But - on private land, it would obviously be up to the property owner to set policy. "Aggressive panhandling" (and aggressive anything else) is obviously out.

Now, let's get back to the issues of this thread - the Tent City of Lakewood NJ, the Destiny's Bridge documentary, unemployed people living cheaply in tents / shanties, etc...

[anaconda]

That's not what this thread is about.

This is an awesome development, and great to see! I am interested in the movie! I will be interested to see how they approach the difficult problems of "homelessness" that extend beyond the availability of housing. Uptake for drug abuse, antisocial behavior, sickness, job skills, etc.

[Alex Libman]

The government doesn't like people taking care of themselves.

I suspect that, all kidding aside, that really is one of their motivations, at least on some level of group-subconsciousness. Tent City is saving the taxpayers lots of money - as Minister Steve Brigham (who is the lead organizer of this Tent City) pointed out recently at Town Hall here... It's really making the government bureaucrats look bad...

This is an awesome development, and great to see! I am interested in the movie! I will be interested to see how they approach the difficult problems of "homelessness" that extend beyond the availability of housing. Uptake for drug abuse, antisocial behavior, sickness, job skills, etc.

Thank you very much for your interest! I'll post updates on this thread about local screenings, future digital distribution, etc.

[jmdrake]

I suspect that, all kidding aside, that really is one of their motivations, at least on some level of group-subconsciousness. Tent City is saving the taxpayers lots of money - as Minister Steve Brigham (who is the lead organizer of this Tent City) pointed out recently at Town Hall here... It's really making the government bureaucrats look bad...

I read the comments on that article. Very disheartening.

Wait until tent city expands to over 250 people and then it will cost us $3 million to get them out!! Don’t wait!!!! Evict them now!
Besides, this is NOT a normal way to live! No matter how much we save…

Really? So the real problem is it ain't "normal?"

[osan]

That's not what this thread is about. But - on private land, it would obviously be up to the property owner to set policy. "Aggressive panhandling" (and aggressive anything else) is obviously out.

Now, let's get back to the issues of this thread - the Tent City of Lakewood NJ, the Destiny's Bridge documentary, unemployed people living cheaply in tents / shanties, etc...

OK, let us examine this a bit so I may understand more clearly. We have "unemployed people" living "cheaply in tents". With you so far.

Being unemployed, I feel it is reasonable to assume these people have no substantive investment portfolios or even much of a nest egg. Why, after all, would they be living cheaply in tents if they could live in houses?

So, if these people living "cheaply in tents" have no income and at best a very small volume of cash on which to so live, what do they do when the money runs out? How will they eat? Even if we accept absolute bare minimal living, which some may refer to as "mere existence" with a measure of justification, wouldn't at least a bar of soap be a not unreasonable desire for the sake of rudimentary hygiene? Where will the $$ come for that, or are we suggesting blowjobs in exchange for Ivory?

Seriously, when all the money runs out, what then? Shall these people simply roll over and die for the convenience of their fellows? If not, whence their daily sustenance? Shall they band together to pool resources and hunt local wild game? Granted, NJ has an almost grotesque over population of deer, but even those will not last forever if tens of thousands of people are expecting to eat venison daily. If only 100K people end up in tents, that leaves only about 5 deer per capita. That might sound like a lot, but over time it is not nearly enough to support sustained predation at the rates in question. 100K may sound like a lot of people, but in the grand scheme of the larger population it is a tiny proportion - just over 1%.

Let us not entertain such cities on private property as this is not likely to happen with any frequency. Let us consider public lands. They pop up like mushrooms... where? State parks? Not the best locations from several points of view such as basic services such as water and toilets. So if you have, say, 100 people living in a tent city, that is 100 people crapping and peeing somewhere every day at least once. In time, you will not be able to take a step without landing a shoe or, gasp, a bare foot in a steamy fresh lunker, courtesy of one of your neighbors. Or does everyone agree to poo in one place? Now THERE'S a healthy solution. Thus far, things are not looking so great.

So... we perhaps go closer to town... perhaps the fairgrounds? Likely the same problems as out in the woods. Town square? OK... assuming there are public rest facilities. Will there be enough so that when that outbreak of cholera hits everyone will be able to $#@! their guts out when needed and not have to wait in lines? Porta potties? Sure... who pays? Speaking of which, how will the rest of the townfolk feel about all this? I can smell the tragedy of the commons somewhere in all this, but never mind that for now. What about the dreaded property tax and... wait for it now... "fairness"? How fair do you think people in a $#@! hole like NJ are going to feel it is that they are paying $15K in property taxes on their 1/8 acre "estates" while those in tent city pay nothing? How fair will they find yet another tax hike because funds are needed to "support" our less fortunate brethren? I can also smell "redistribution of wealth by stealthy and back-door means" somewhere in this as well.

And we have not even begun to address the teetering economy and unemployment in households where there is an actual house in which people live. Strip away all the noise elements and get down to the basics here and what we see is a growing, if albeit artificially contrived, scarcity of resources. As the scarcity grows, so do the various pressures upon one and all not living off a huge investment portfolio and who can afford Gulstreams as mere toys.

Staying with me, what do we see as the inevitable outcome of growing demand in an environment of similarly growing scarcity? Must I spell it out? OK, I will: people will begin to lose their sense of humor about things and in turn, their manners. They will eventually begin to quarrel and the little that this one may have will be looked upon with great covetousness, if not outright avarice and in time quarreling will devolve into violence. The historical record on this is long, ugly, and vigorously unequivocal on this. And I say this not because people will not cooperate to make things better as communities, but because they will not be able to. They hold claim to what basic resources to which they may add value and sustain themselves? VERY few and almost certainly not enough.

Example: say I am the only guy in "town" with a rifle. It is not terribly unreasonable to find that I become the town hunter. I spend my days in the woods depopulating the deer. Am I working for free? Probably not. I do, after all, have to have ammunition... so whence does that come? What about other needs? I can use only so many blow-jobs in exchange for that which I provide, which in this case for many is life itself. And once again there is the issue of relations with those still in houses.

Oh yes, this sort of thing stands to go out of control. Perhaps that is what Theye want. After all, would these tensions not provide an ideal and readily accepted pretext for further usurpation and action pursuant thereto? "Normal" townfolk are sick to death of the filthy squatters who get free rides on someone else's nickels for at least some services. Taxes have gone up to pay for this $#@!. The tenters are hovering on the edges of... what? Nothing good, so they are not exactly the happiest campers... literally. Perhaps violence has broken out already in spots or is just threatening to do so. Everyone is tense and miserable. In comes 'Bammy with he rescue trux full o'food'n'stuff. Loahd puRAYUZ 'Bammy, or whatever other scumbag wretches forth such hairballs into the laps of the "community". Nevertheless, what do we feel the likely response shall be? Nothing less than a grand lay-down. $#@! my freedom and my rights because I need to eat. $#@! my freedom and my rights because I want those filthy tenters outta my town. $#@! my freedom and my rights because...

And the list of reasons to say $#@! my freedom and my rights will be twenty miles long. This, I believe, is part of Theire strategy - to wear people down so far by making it impossible for them to succeed on their own that they simply give up due to the artificially imposed practical barriers. In the end, a full stomach will trump civil rights. Let things go far enough, but not too far, and you will get the proles to eat from you hands, or the end of your pecker, such as may please you at a given moment.

Tent cities in a world as heavily laden with conflicting populations and interests as is this one, especially in crap holes like NJ where the population density cannot be sustained without great artifice, can perforce only be short term solutions, and there time and size are mutual antagonists. Grow one and the other must of necessity shrink. This dooms the "solution" by virtue of fabric. In other words, it is a non-solution.

Yes, we are in some deep kimchee and Theye are loving it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that we see clearly how the suppression of prosperity destroys the fabric and spirit of a culture. Given this, why are we not out hanging these bastards by their necks until they are dead?

[Alex Libman]

I apologize for the delay in my response.

OK, let us examine this a bit so I may understand more clearly. We have "unemployed people" living "cheaply in tents". With you so far.

First of all, "unemployed" is a somewhat inaccurate term to apply to all Tent City residents.

What most Tent City residents have in common (excluding 1-2 political activism nuts we have here, hehe) is that they cannot afford better housing. And the term "afford" doesn't merely mean having enough savings / income to get an apartment for a few of months, and then likely fail to make rent and get evicted again, ending up penniless and worse off than before. It's not worth-while to commit to an apartment unless you have some security about being able to afford it on a long-term basis, and have enough money left over for other things as well. As the result of countless regulations, zoning laws and other contributing factors to artificial scarcity, property tax, etc, a one-bedroom apartment is pretty much impossible to afford for one person working full-time at near-minimum wage.

Almost all Tent City residents I know -- even the drunks and the addicts -- look for work at least some of the time. They go to employment agencies, and they stand in certain places where employers pick them up for a day's construction work. People tend to go through cycles of discouragement - at the peak of this cycle they make their best effort to get their lives together and find work, but then they get disappointed and surrender to their addictions for a while...

Some residents are in their 60s and 70s. A few are physically or mentally disabled. Some are living off disability or veteran's benefits (a disproportionately large fraction of TC residents are vets), which isn't enough to afford an apartment. Some work full time, but haven't yet been able to leave Tent City. Some have a large fraction of their salary deducted because they're behind on Child Support payments... One very resourceful Tent City resident makes a respectable amount of money collecting scrap metal. At some point we had an artist who would intermittently get lots of money by selling an artwork, but then have no income for months. So they cannot afford an apartment, but they could be off welfare, pulling their weight, and have a fairly decent quality of life in a place like Tent City.

Tent City does have a significant turn-around rate - people come here when they're down on their luck, and leave when they've had full-time work for a while and were able to afford better options. I don't have the exact numbers, but I'd say that of the hundreds of people who've come through Tent City, only a (highly visible) minority stayed more than 1-2 years.

As I state above, government is the cause of many problems that Tent City residents are having: it in effect discouraged job creation in the area, it multiplies the cost of rent, it creates resentment against them by stealing in their name and accomplishing very little positive with that money, it stifles voluntary charity, it makes addiction worse through prohibitionism, etc.

Tent City is the free market answer to the problem - it routes around government BS and provides a lower cost of living, which is what the marketplace demands.

Being unemployed, I feel it is reasonable to assume these people have no substantive investment portfolios or even much of a nest egg. Why, after all, would they be living cheaply in tents if they could live in houses?

So, if these people living "cheaply in tents" have no income and at best a very small volume of cash on which to so live, what do they do when the money runs out? How will they eat? Even if we accept absolute bare minimal living, which some may refer to as "mere existence" with a measure of justification, wouldn't at least a bar of soap be a not unreasonable desire for the sake of rudimentary hygiene? Where will the $$ come for that, or are we suggesting blowjobs in exchange for Ivory?

My ideal would be to see Tent Cities where everyone can pull their own weight working at least part-time, but currently this isn't the case. I do support legalizing prostitution, but I think everyone will have better options for employment. We need voluntary organizations that make it easier for poor people to find at least part-time work. Poor people can also pull some of their economic weight by building their own shelter, building and tending greenhouses that grow food, etc.

At present, our Tent City relies heavily on a network of local volunteers who donate food, bottled water, and other survival essentials. For example, one champion supporter (Jeff "the Chef" Doucette) cooks a weekly meal for the entire camp. He also alleviated our drinking water shortage with the aid of two 120-gallon tanks - one kept at the camp to dispense water, and another in his truck to bring refills for the first. We also accept financial donations (ex. via PayPal and BitCoin), which go to things like trash bags, propane (with which we heat food and water), and gasoline for the electrical generator (which powers the groundwater pump for the shower, and the car batteries which now recharge my laptop, which has also been donated).

Voluntary charity is not only far more moral than the Welfare State, but it is also far more efficient, and it averts the danger of centralized power inevitably being misused to tyrannical ends.

Some people help the poor for religious or altruistic reasons, but there are also rational and selfish reasons to do so. Homelessness and extreme poverty are problems that the free market needs to solve in order to flourish, and people who help solve these problems should get all the recognition and respect they deserve. I'll comply with any donor's request to remain anonymous, but I encourage them not to. We need to build a culture where voluntary philanthropy is valued, and where building a Tent City gets you more respect than driving a Lamborghini - then that will be the death of the Welfare State, and all other Statism along with it!

Cost-effective solutions to poverty often call for ingenious technological solutions. Like Howard Roark agreeing to architect a housing project for the poor in exchange for nothing but an agreement to retain creative control, because the economic design challenge fascinated him, many competent individuals will find perfectly selfish motivations to voluntarily help the poor. Rational people will help eliminate poverty - not because they see themselves as "their brothers' keepers", but because they love innovation, efficiency, and freedom!

Seriously, when all the money runs out, what then? Shall these people simply roll over and die for the convenience of their fellows? If not, whence their daily sustenance? Shall they band together to pool resources and hunt local wild game? Granted, NJ has an almost grotesque over population of deer, but even those will not last forever if tens of thousands of people are expecting to eat venison daily. If only 100K people end up in tents, that leaves only about 5 deer per capita. That might sound like a lot, but over time it is not nearly enough to support sustained predation at the rates in question. 100K may sound like a lot of people, but in the grand scheme of the larger population it is a tiny proportion - just over 1%.

You're way off on some imaginary tangent. No one is advocating a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (with the possible exception of one particularly nutty he-man "troll" I've met on the FSP forum, whose nonsense was debunked to pieces).

If we really needed to produce our own food, it would be more efficient to grow potatoes, beans, corn, kale, mushrooms, hemp, etc. But that's not really necessary in the modern world. We never have any real shortage of food at Tent City - donated canned beans, perfectly fresh bagels, and yesterday's surplus pizza (donated daily) are the worst case scenario. We usually have a BBQ several times a day here. There are about a hundred chickens and some rabbits living in Tent City, but I've only heard of a couple of occasions of people eating them - they are said to reduce the population of ticks.

What the homeless in the USA lack the most isn't food, but land! This obviously isn't because USA is some tiny overpopulated island like Hong Kong, but because so much land is hoarded by the state; the so-called "public land", from which homeless people are being bulldozed! Keep that in mind the next time some socialist tells you that "public" government institutions are necessary to help the poor!


(Gotta run. Will finish replying later.)

[osan]

I apologize for the delay in my response.

(Gotta run. Will finish replying later.)

Who was that masked NJ-ite?

Seriously, I hope you all can pull it off, but it seems to me that the odds are agin' you not because the people are incapable, but because government is going to do its best to torpedo you. The very last thing they want is an independent colony to do its own thing. This is doubly dangerous to Themme if that colony begins to prosper because the rest will see it and want to do the same. This is why the interminable grey blandness must be universal and uniform to a fairly high tolerance. The minute someone steps out of sync and starts achieving more, the rest see it and want the same. That is the beginning of real trouble for the tyrant and he will therefore not likely tolerate it.

[KrokHead]

What's the libertarian solution to panhandling?

Panhandling is pure libertarianism done to the bone. No politics, just the pure freedom to ask for money to keep buying the drugs libertarians want legal!


No matter what there will always be homelessness. Michael Moore came up with putting homeless people in storage facilities, because they are heated and air conditioned. Obviously it was a joke he came up to say Americans aren't taking care of the problem. But I'd rather store myself than sleep on park bench.

[Alex Libman]

Panhandling is pure libertarianism done to the bone. No politics, just the pure freedom to ask for money to keep buying the drugs libertarians want legal!

You are forgetting that restrictions on human action mustn't necessarily come from that overgrown mafia gang that calls itself "government". In a free society, restrictions can come from parents / guardians (with legitimate power over their children / dependents), property owners (with legitimate power over their property / territory), contractually-established entities, etc.

A shopping mall most definitely can have a "no panhandling" policy - and most probably would. Homeless shelters / philanthropically-subsidized residential neighborhoods for the poor / etc can legitimately set policies about things like alcohol and drugs. I personally don't think it's good to throw people out just because they have an addiction, but that's up to the people in charge. As institutions compete for donor money as well as beneficiary patronage, the marketplace will decide... "If you don't like the rules, then go to a differently-minded shelter, if you can find one."

There are also new alternatives to panhandling. For example, I have an idea about organizing some "homeless" folks / Tenters to pick up trash on "public property" around the town (and there's an unusually high amount of litter here in Lakewood, NJ). We'd take a "before" picture of a littered place, then an "after" picture of it all cleaned up, and then post them on the Internet, maybe make some YouTube videos of us working, etc. And we'd use that to solicit donations. "Invent your own job, and see if anybody will pay."

No matter what there will always be homelessness.

If there's a super-abundance of places where otherwise-homeless individuals can go, including very tolerant ones that will take anybody, then being homeless (outside of such an institution) will be just another "lifestyle choice".

And, if all land is private, people would inevitably be some place where they have the owner's permission to stay. Homelessness is only really possible when you have a "tragedy of the commons" on gov't territory.

But that doesn't mean homeless will have no place to go. It's a big universe out there, and all human beings have some value. People feel good about themselves when they help others - sorry, Miss Rand, some amount of altruism is hardwired into our brains...

Michael Moore came up with putting homeless people in storage facilities, because they are heated and air conditioned. Obviously it was a joke he came up to say Americans aren't taking care of the problem. But I'd rather store myself than sleep on park bench.

Think about that for a moment - why is it cost-effective to build storage facilities that people could live in, but not residential facilities that are just as affordable? Regulations! Duh!

Like I've said in my Town Hall speech quoted above: "there is an abundance of land, and 21st century science and technology make shelter ever-cheaper to construct".

Government intervention into the marketplace is the only reason why the poor are paying $1000/month rent, instead of buying a $1000 mass-produced Tiny House, placed on donated untaxed land, and being set for life!

[fisharmor]

Panhandling is pure libertarianism done to the bone. No politics, just the pure freedom to ask for money to keep buying the drugs libertarians want legal!

Actually, panhandling is a symptom of statism done to the bone. If panhandlers were to try to work, or make things to sell, or otherwise try to improve their lot without begging, then they immediately hit barriers.

As my brother says: give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and now he has to get a license.

No matter what there will always be homelessness.

Yeah, but in a libertarian system, the homeless will be voluntarily homeless.
When was the last time anyone in the US saw a genuine hobo? But that seems like a perfectly acceptable life to me. How come leaving your office job and putting everything you need on your back and going out into the world is only acceptable if it's a vacation?


Back OT: definitely looking forward to seeing this, and keep up the good work!

[helmuth_hubener]

Michael Moore came up with putting homeless people in storage facilities, because they are heated and air conditioned. Obviously it was a joke he came up to say Americans aren't taking care of the problem. But I'd rather store myself than sleep on park bench.

Most storage units are not heated nor cooled, nor ventilated in any way. That is not to say one couldn't live in one.

[Origanalist]

The government doesn't like people taking care of themselves.

[PRB]

The government doesn't like people taking care of themselves.

Not just the government, home sellers and lenders don't like it either. people don't care about the bigger picture of the economy, they usually only care about their own paycheck, this is why broken window fallacy is so hard to understand (or even when understood, ignored)

[Origanalist]

I suspect that, all kidding aside, that really is one of their motivations, at least on some level of group-subconsciousness.

Oh, I wasn't kidding. And I don't think it's subconscious at all.

[Alex Libman]

I can't really talk about this film about Tent City without also talking about my own experience at Tent City, and vice-versa...

The local bureaucrats here have a pretty effective plan for destroying Tent City - lure everyone away with "one year of free housing", and then, when they don't have as many people to deal with, send in the bulldozers and tear everything down! Needless to say, I'm not taking that deal, but most people are... Talk about selling out for a mess of pottage! I think they'll regret it. The housing will probably be one year at an overpriced (for the taxpayers) fleabag motel whose owner is friends with the legislators. And some people may get kicked out over drugs, etc. And what will they do when the year is up??

Perhaps a good way to explain my position on Tent City, as it fights for its very survival, is to quote my prepared remarks that I've previously read at the Town Hall. The first is from the Lakewood Township Committee Meeting on April 18, 2013, when the legislature passed an ordinance essentially banning homelessness... *[FB] [G+]

I am here to speak out against this ordinance, and any other ordinance that seeks to harass low-income individuals on so-called "public" land.

I am not homeless. I am a resident of Tent City, which is a voluntary community of low-income individuals. We are not the caricatures of homelessness that exist in many people's imaginations - we are human beings, flawed but nevertheless worthy of our Natural Rights!

What does it really take to shelter a human being, in proportion to his or her labor? I do not know any resident of Tent City who has not earned the Right to a few square feet of space, to put up a tent among the trees to call home.

In a competitive free market, the cost of housing would reflect economic reality - there is an abundance of land, and 21st century science and technology make shelter ever-cheaper to construct. We can pull our economic weight! And we can help each-other.

The root cause of homelessness among low-income individuals is government intervention into the marketplace, through countless restrictions and taxes and regulations and zoning laws that create artificial scarcity and multiply our cost of living. It would take not 3 minutes but 3 bookshelves to describe all the ways in which the government hurts the poor!

The land upon which Tent City is built was stolen from the marketplace by the government, until it was homesteaded about 7 years ago and put to a very good use.

We've built Tent City! The government has done nothing but stand in our way!

Tent City is supported by many great volunteers from every community within Lakewood - Christian and Jewish and Muslim and Atheist alike. We are working hard to solve the problem of poverty in America - the only thing we cannot solve is the "poverty of the spirit" within the government of Lakewood!

I cannot speak for other residents of Tent City, but I personally do not seek and will not accept any handouts of tax-payer money. All that I want from the government is the recognition of my negative Rights - to life, liberty, and property. These are the principles upon which this Great Nation was founded, and that this ordinance would sadistically betray.

Please, please stop hurting low-income individuals. We are your neighbors, and prospective employees. Let us all work together for mutual advantage, through voluntary cooperation rather than government force. We can make Lakewood a better place to live for everyone, tent-owners and mansion-owners alike.

Thank you for listening.

The official minutes for that meeting were never made public.

On May 23rd, I gave them a fully-fledged libertarian rant: [FB] [G+] [TW]

Hello. My name is Alex Libman. I am a resident of Tent City.

I am here today to tell everyone about a gang problem that we have at Tent City. There is just one gang, but they are armed and dangerous, and they have a total hegemony of power over Tent City. This gang is harassing all residents of Tent City, and many other people who live in Lakewood Township.

I've lived in Tent City since March 1st of this year, and I personally have not experienced any acts of theft or violence, except for the theft and violence that is routinely perpetrated by this gang. Whenever I am fortunate enough to find some work, like loading and unloading trucks at the Lakewood Industrial Park, this gang demands a fraction of my paycheck as protection money. Whenever I go out to buy something, this gang demands payment as well. For example, if I was to buy a pack of cigarettes, this gang wound demand tribute of at least 3 dollars.

The people involved in this gang seem to identify themselves by wearing certain gang colors. The enforcers of this gang wear blue, and have shiny pieces of gang jewelry pinned to their chests. Persons wearing those gang colors routinely harass residents of Tent City, and sometimes abduct individuals who haven't done anybody any harm and put them in a cage. They also routinely harass the supporters of Tent City, by preventing them from driving into Tent City to drop off donations, and putting their names on some sort of a vindictive "list".

In another example of their harassment, the enforcers of this gang routinely bully Lakewood residents who are trying to peacefully solicit a ride from a friendly stranger driving past them. On this gang's turf, hitchhiking seems to be a protected privilege.

This gang believes that Tent City belongs to them. Such claims are an insult to the rational principle of Property Rights, as understood by philosophers from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas to John Locke to Thomas Jefferson to Ayn Rand; and economists like Bastiat, Mises, Hayek, and Friedman. To the best of my knowledge, this gang has no legitimate rational argument to the land upon which Tent City is situated. They didn't originally homestead this land from the wilderness by bringing it into the human economy, nor did they buy it from a legitimate owner through a voluntary sale of property. They didn't build Tent City - it was built by various homeless individuals and their supporters, over the course of approximately seven years, under the undisputed leadership of Minister Steve Brigham and the Lakewood Outreach Ministry Church. All of the gang's claims are based on nothing but violent force.

Like any other gang or mafia organization of sufficient size, they do provide some protection and other services on their turf. For example, they maintain a coercive monopoly over Waste Management, and some other services used by Tent City. They often use this monopoly as leverage, providing or denying services however they see fit. In absence of this monopoly, Tent City, with the help of its supporters, could have obtained those services from another agency - one that is operating voluntarily in a competitive free market, and is thereby incentivized to provide a better quality of service more efficiently.

This gang does many things for many people, but everything that it does is ultimately grounded in violence and theft. When it robs Peter to pay Paul, both of them are victimized and corrupted by the power that this gang obtains in the process. This gang's ultimate interest isn't in helping Paul, but in strengthening its own power, for which end it can reward its friends and punish its enemies. This gang's actions in the name of the poor create a culture of resentment and complacency, displacing a culture of voluntary charity and genuine interpersonal compassion.

The gang of which I speak is obviously "government" - at least that is the name by which it calls itself.

Nationwide, this gang steals-and-spends an average of about $62,000 dollars a year for every family that is below the "poverty line". $62,000 is about 150% of the median household income in Lakewood Township, and almost 4 times its per-capita GDP. Where does this money go? The residents of Tent City are some of the poorest people in America, but I don't know any household in Tent City that is getting anything anywhere close to $62,000 a year! (LOL!)

But I am NOT out to petition that this gang steal more on my behalf, nor am I asking for a greater share of the loot. I am not accepting anything from this gang, if I can avoid it. My only demand from them is that they stop stealing in my name - and leave me alone!

I cannot speak for other residents of Tent City, but more and more people are starting to realize every day that the Welfare State is a racket that only disempowers the poor. It reduces them to a political slogan, in whose name Trillions of dollars are stolen and misappropriated year after year!

Tent City is living proof that more can be accomplished with a voluntary nickel than with a dollar re-appropriated by this gang! If this gang gives you free crutches, it first breaks your legs!

I am not here to accuse any specific individuals or "departments", but the very idea of what "government" represents - a monopoly on force. A society that is civilized should have no need of violence, except in self-defense. A society that is rational should have no authority except for the recognition of empirically-verifiable facts. All (sane, adult) human beings should be equal in their negative Rights! All fundamental laws that govern a civilized society should be grounded in Reason, and not the whims of any person, no matter how popular or charismatic, claiming any "divine right" to tax or legislate another!

I realize that we do not live a rational society yet, and even under the best circumstances this transition would require decades, but there are many things that rational individuals can do, even today. No matter how entrenched and powerful this gang may be, each individual is still free and responsible for his or her own actions. Every individual has a choice of whether they contribute to the aggression that is routinely initiated against Tent City and its residents and supporters. Every individual has the choice - if not to help Tent City, then to simply leave Tent City alone.

Thank you for listening.

The official minutes merely recorded that I "complained about a gang problem at Tent City"...

And, on June 6th I wanted to set the record straight about the specifics of some inaccurate (or downright slanderous) local news coverage about Tent City: [FB] [G+]

Hello again. My name is Alex Libman. I've now been a resident of Tent City for over 3 months, and a resident of Lakewood Township for about 3 years.

I am here to express an opinion on several recent news stories that have mentioned Tent City, which I believe to have been inaccurate, and to help clear up any false perceptions that those stories may have perpetuated.

On May 29th, Asbury Park Press reported on the sensational arrest of a 47-year-old man who was driving in Manchester. This story, including in its headline, repeatedly claims that the perpetrator was a resident of our Tent City.

To the best of my knowledge, neither the police nor the press have made any effort to investigate this claim. He obviously was not in the census. No one has ever presented any evidence tying that man to Tent City. No one at Tent City has ever heard of such a man, and everyone who would know believes that this claim is false.

This is a perfect example of how the truth about Tent City gets distorted - no one makes an effort to gather the facts, and people always assume the worst. Tent City only has a handful of "bad apples" among its one-hundred-plus residents, and they're there only because Minister Steve isn't legally allowed to evict them.

This man arrested in Manchester was NOT one of ours!

---

Another misleading news story about Tent City was published in the May 30th issue of The Voice Of Lakewood. This story uses obviously-biased sources. Some people, if you buy them a bus ticket far enough, will tell you whatever they think you wanna hear!

It mistakenly makes references to individuals who are not actually staying at Tent City, like a couple of traveling campers from Texas. Is Tent City somehow required to prevent all of its residents from having any visitors?! Do they expect the construction of some sort of a Berlin Wall?!

That story implies that Minister Steve is somehow *obligated* to stop being Minister Steve, and start being an unpaid border guard for the benefit of Lakewood Township! The "Consent Order" from March, in section "2-G", clearly absolves him of any responsibility. Furthermore, as "a man of the cloth", he holds himself to a higher standard of ethics.

Minister Steve is not some kind of a landlord! No resident pays him or anyone else a cent to stay at Tent City. Minister Steve is a respected leader in Tent City; but not a member of any "hierarchy" as that article claims!

He is a deeply religious man, who has been consistently devoted to helping the impoverished of Lakewood for more than 12 years! In his words, religious devotion to the "Hebrew Scriptures" requires him to "show mercy to the poor". I personally am an Atheist, but even I understand that a person like Minister Steve cannot be *ordered* to turn people away!

That article makes numerous other misleading or inaccurate claims that I do not have the time to cover here tonight. This includes the notion that the Consent Order is somehow binding on individuals who have never signed it.

Thank you for listening.

[Alex Libman]

I've also written this (as comments to a news article) about the economic situation that is the root cause of unemployment:

I've been a resident of Tent City in Lakewood since March 1st. Pretty much all Tenters I know are looking for work, if not full-time then at least part-time.

I personally don't feel that anybody owes me anything - hand-outs, a job, or anything else. If/when I work, it should be a voluntary, mutually-beneficial agreement between myself and the employer. For example, there are some jobs that I would be happy to do even for below "minimum wage" - if that's what my labor is worth relative to everyone else's.

The biggest problem is with all the ways in which gov't gets in the way of employers coming into the region. These "special deals" the gov makes are just for show. If the gov't gives you crutches, it first breaks your legs!

Why would a company do something in NJ, where the gov-backed mandatory unions can demand ridiculous collective deals? Why do business in one of the highest taxed and regulated states in the nation?! Jobs are moving South / West, to the more economically free states within the US. And of course many jobs are moving abroad.

USA has the highest nominal corporate tax rate in the world! We could get away with it back in the 20th century, when the rest of the world was even worse off, but today Russia actually has a 13% flat income tax! Etc. The point is, NJ and USA are losing their competitiveness.

If we can't still be smarter than the good folks in India & Africa, then we should learn to live in shanties and raise chickens like they did!


[Message break due to character limit on that site.]


[...] there's a major documentary coming out about what it's like to fall behind on your ridiculously-inflated rent and end up "homeless" in this region.

It's tough, but life goes on.

But, again, the government continues to screw things up...

Did you know that if you take all the government spending that's supposedly for the poor and divide it by the number of households below the poverty line, it comes to about $62,000 a year?! [FB] [G+] [TW] Think about this for a minute. [...] Needless to say, the poorest of the poor here at Tent City aren't getting anywhere close to that! (Nor should we.)

The taxes actually hurt the poor more than they help, and they also create stigma and discourage voluntary charity in the process!

"Welfare" is a racket!

And it doesn't stop there... You wouldn't believe in your wildest dreams some of the things the municipal government has been doing to the homeless in Lakewood! Fortunately, thanks to Minister Steve and Jack Ballo, the people here have a voice, and it will be heard!

People can watch some footage from the film at http://DestinysBridge.com/

[Working Poor]

I like it. I send you my best wishes and look forward to hearing more.

[amy31416]

//

Lots of interesting stuff here.

[Working Poor]

I would like to see this getting a lot more media attention.

[Alex Libman]

That's what I'm trying to do, but (obviously) I'm not a "media relations" / PR pro. The local rag press and MSM are against us. We could use all the help we can get, particularly with the promotion of this documentary. I'm really hoping my libertarian / Ron Paul supporter friends will help get the word out...

[Czolgosz]

Cock at :58.

[Alex Libman]

Good points, fisharmor, thank you.

Cock at :58.

And "pigs" in the background:


Minister Steve Being Arrested by Alex Libman, on Flickr

Now let's be serious...

Having roosters around is just good survivalism (even if they do wake me up at like 4am). Chickens turn old bread into protein better than any mammal, though people in Tent City almost never eat them - they also keep down the bug population, which is very important for everyone's health and safety. (The couple who takes care of the birds here are vegetarians, and so are a number of other people in the camp.)

The shot you've mentioned is of a good man being arrested...


Minister Steve Arrest Protest by Alex Libman, on Flickr

[Alex Libman]

I've clumsily started something like a chat-room about Tent City / Destiny's Bridge on Facebook, and introduced the situation to some of my FB friends. (Clumsily because I refused to use "social networks" before just a couple of months ago, when someone asked me to use it "for the cause", and sometimes FB doesn't behave the way you expect...)


Some very interesting people were able to weigh in...


L. Neil Smith [FB] [TW] [WP] [WQ]:

All I have to contribute to the topic is this, but it is enough.

Buy a copy of my book Down With Power: Libertarian Policy in a Time of Crisis. Over my 50-odd years as an activist and advocate, I am convinced that involuntary homelessness and poverty are the result of deliberate practices on the part of the government and its various corporate symbionts.

We can see this clearly on the world stage, where there is widespread hunger but no shortage of food. What creates starvation is a political class whose greed and lust for absolute power stands in the way of freedom from both misery and tyranny.

There is also the United Nations, whose upper echelons (although the "embedded media" ignore it) have openly declared that they want to see 90% of the human race exterminated.

The only action you can take that will have any lasting meaning or effect is to read my book, and then join me in speaking out to end both taxation and economic regulation, which are the chains by which we are held captive. The result will be an immediate 8-to-10-fold increase in real wealth and purchasing power, and an end to the problem you're concerned with.

L. Neil Smith's Down With Power: Libertarian Policy in a Time of Crisis, winner of the 2013 Freedom Book of The Year Award, is available at Amazon.com, B&N.com, and other such places, in both dead-tree and e-book format.

Mary J. Ruwart [G+] [FB] [IN] [WP]:

L Neil Smith is correct: most homelessness is a direct result of zoning and building restrictions, which keep housing prices high. When I was renting to low income tenants, the city of Kalamazoo enforced ridiculous codes (like the length of a kitchen counter), so that landlords would have to do expensive renovations, raise rents, and drive the poor out of the city. The inspectors told me they did this deliberately and were proud of how they were "cleaning up" the city. They didn't think about the homelessness that would and did result.

Davi Barker (The Muslim Agorist) [G+] [FB] [IN] [TW] [YT] [FTL] [SS]:

I wrote this years ago about a particular homeless man who got himself out of poverty in a very libertarian way, entrepreneurship. Of course it was the city that came and shut him down in the name of helping him.

Minimum wage, licensing laws, and vending permits have a lot to do with it too. I've been trying to think my way into an actual solution since I wrote this, but so far everything I've come up with would be criminal. But my short answer is, if you want to help the homeless, train them to be Agorists.

Alex, I love what you're doing.

http://www.examiner.com/article/what-about-the-poor

L. Neil Smith:

Here's something that may interest you.

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle497-20081214-04.html

I first wrote this speech in the early 1970s for delivery to Libertarian Party audiences. I gave a version of it at a Future of Freedom conference in Culver City, California in 1987; among others in the audience was the great Robert Anton Wilson, who came to me afterward and praised the speech and my delivery highly. Made me blush and almost made me weep.

The version here has been modified to support my social contract, the "Covenant of Unanimous Consent" but you can disregard that aspect of it if you wish. The general idea is the effect of freedom on the economy. I'm going to prepare a more generic version in the near future and probably make an audio recording of it.

Here you go ...

Unanimous Consent and the Utopian Vision -- or -- I Dreamed I Was a [Libertarian] In My Maidenform Bra

By L. Neil Smith <lneil[shift-two]netzero.com>

"There's no single Libertarian future, but as many different futures as there are individuals to create them."

L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 497, December 14, 2008

Thank you, Mary. Robert LeFevre used to tell some very funny (and infuriating) stories about his attempt to open a restaurant in San Francisco. I suspect Robert Heinlein drew some of his "The Tale of the Twins Who Weren't" in Time Enough For Love from LeFevre's experience.

One story involved the requirement for a legal occupancy notice -- we've all seen them: "This Room Seats 120 People". He had a sign maker draw him up a nice one on poster board, only to be told he was in violation: the sign had to be made in cast bronze, and by some odd coincidence, the Mayor's brother just happened to have a foundry ...

It cost something like $800 in the 1950s. How many jobs in the kitchen did that wipe out? I've always said that poverty is the government's most important product and its proudest achievement.

[Alex Libman]

From the Destiny's Bridge blog -- Tent City / Destiny's Bridge Documentary Soon To Go Public --

The documentary entitled "Destiny's Bridge" has been edited into an 86-minute DVD, which will be available to the public following initial public screenings, expected to begin during the first or second week in August 2013.

Independent film maker Jack Ballo has woven a tapestry of images and stories into a compelling narrative about the plight of the people of Lakewood, NJ's (USA) "Tent City", and their hopes for a new type of community following the concept of Destiny's Bridge; it is expected that Rev. Steven Brigham (widely known as "Minister Steve") would have a prominent role in the management of such a community, as he has with Lakewood’s Tent City since at least 2006.

More to follow...

[WP] [FB] [G+] [TW] [SU] [TU] [PIN]

DVD cover:

[amy31416]

Hobnobbing with the bigwigs, eh Alex?

Awesome stuff.

[Alex Libman]

Hobnobbing with the bigwigs, eh Alex?

Just wait till I get to Ron and Rand.

[Darguth]

Would love to see the documentary if there are to be any screenings in the southeast or mid-Michigan areas.

[kcchiefs6465]

When is the entire documentary going to be available?

I've seen a community such as the one you are living but never anything so extravagant. You guys really did good for yourselves, it's a shame the harassment you face by the local pigs. Hopefully you are able to retain your home.