Do-gooder Barbara Tiwald wrote to the Journal recently to boast about her hard work and dedication as volunteer for the homeless at the Tiny Homes Village, where the goal is not numbers but outcome.

The THV, she says, “is not about filling up the homes quickly like a business selling a product, but rather must take a careful and educated approach to the problem of helping individuals who have complex and multifaceted issues to deal with…”

Which is another way of saying the village is still mostly empty, which is another way of saying it’s not a village at all. 

With a whopping six occupants in the $5 million “village,” intelligent taxpayers have to wonder if $833,000 per occupant is worth the cost.

You can spot the fraud by the amount of happy babble “very proud” volunteers like Barbara gush about when they’re extolling the virtues of this kind of fiscal flub. 

What you see as wasteful spending is actually a “complex and challenging” issue. 

What you see as a lost cause made worse by more free services is actually a “new and emerging service.” 

What you see as another example of do-gooderism for the sake of self-congratulatory applause is actually a failure to understand the “complex interaction of people who are experiencing homelessness.”

It’s been eight months and there’s no sign of filling the “village.” There’s really no hope of doing it either. 

The homeless can’t get into the village if they’re not “willing to commit to making changes that will help them.” Specifically, they can’t be addicted to drugs, exhibit “extreme behavioral or mental health issues,” cannot be sex offenders, and cannot be ruled a “liability” by the city. 

That’s everybody!

If the bums and junkies on the streets were “willing to commit to making changes” they wouldn’t need the city.

And as further evidence of just how detached from reality these people are, other conditions of residency in the village include participation in the governing village, communal chores, and working with case managers for “personal growth.”

There’s a reason people stand on a corner buzzing like a chainsaw begging for change. It’s lucrative, and it’s easy. You don’t have to shower or be on time. You don’t have to learn any special skills or be particularly good at anything. You don’t have to be polite, and in fact the crazier you are the more pity people will have and the more money they’ll give you. And best of all you can be high as a kite and neither your boss nor the police will bother you about it.

At some point you would think the city would wake up and realize that you don’t help people by doing for them what they can do for themselves, and that in fact you’re doing more harm than good by giving them free food, clothes, shelter, needles, and medical care unconditionally and without end. 

But the problem isn’t that they’re asleep. The problem is that they’re woke, and throwing other people’s money at problems money can’t solve is the only way they know how to feel good about being useless.