Ready, Willing & Able | The Doe Fund

It is correct that those who are mentally and physically incapable of working should be protected and guaranteed shelter. But the advocates are fighting to protect a fictitious group designated the "socially dysfunctional."

In defining social dysfunction, Sklar distinguished this newly invented class from homeless people with mental or physical impairments. According to Sklar and the advocates, the socially dysfunctional are impaired in their ability to "act correctly" or in their "own best interest" and therefore should not be asked to work.

Anyone who cares about the homeless knows that identifying any group of humans as socially dysfunctional is not only demeaning, but ridiculous.

I speak from long experience. Every morning, the formerly homeless men of my organization, Ready, Willing & Able, fan out across the city in their bright blue uniforms, cleaning streets and improving neighborhoods.

Every one of these hardworking men could once have been described as "socially dysfunctional." They have overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers - lack of education, substance abuse and incarceration - to achieve self-sufficiency. They've clearly made decisions that were not in their "own best interest." Yet today, they are building better futures for themselves and their families through work.

For too long, advocates have ignored the capacity of the homeless to become self-sufficient. Rather then encouraging independence and self-reliance, advocates have acted in a paternalistic manner that has impeded the progress of those they seek to serve.

The city has made great strides in meeting the needs of homeless people over the last decade. But you'd never know that if you listened to the advocates. For the past 20 years, they have concentrated on housing as the sole solution to homelessness. No mayor could ever create the amount of low-income housing required to meet the need, yet each is demonized for his failure to do so. Endless litigation has sapped every administration's energy and obscured its efforts to address the problem.

The system is not perfect, and a great deal remains to be done, but it is a vast improvement over the conditions that existed even a decade ago.

The majority of shelters are no longer operated by the city, but by nonprofit groups. There are facilities to meet the specific and varied needs of the mentally ill, drug-addicted, physically impaired and those capable of work.

The Bloomberg administration is making solutions to homelessness a priority even in these hard economic times. The mayor has reached out to the advocacy community, which should seize this opportunity to make progress in meeting the needs of the homeless.

It is in the best interests of the homeless that the city win its appeal of the Sklar decision. Instead of labeling the homeless "socially dysfunctional," we should be encouraging them to work and realize their human potential.

McDonald is founder and president of the Doe Fund, a homeless service agency.