Tag: homeless

by Edward Ring   In his final speech from the White House in January 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the nation that the military had joined with the arms industry and had acquired unwarranted influence over American politics. His term for this alliance was the “military industrial complex.” Since that time, Eisenhower’s term has been co-opted by other critics of special interests pooling their resources to exercise a dangerous influence on America’s democracy; one example would be the so-called “homeless industrial complex.” This label has been around awhile, and has bipartisan origins. In 2012 a guest editorial appeared in the liberal Washington Posten titled “Dismantling the social services industrial complex.” In it, the author explains “an odd mirror image of this huge complex has emerged in the very ‘industry’ that seeks to feed, clothe and otherwise meet the needs of the poor and vulnerable in our society. It’s a social services-industrial complex, if you will, one that could prove even more difficult to subdue than its military counterpart.” In 2013, writing for Poverty Insights, author John Roberts asked “Is There a Homeless Industrial Complex That Perpetuates Homelessness?” And in January 2017, a former homeless activist published in the ultra-liberal Huffington Post an article entitled “The Homeless Industrial Complex Problem.” The…