The Libertarian Solution To End Homelessness

[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!

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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.