This is a critical point, thanks for making it. The mythology that all failure is a function of bad work ethic, etc., is a huge barrier to meaningful progress on poverty alleviation.
Anyone interested in reading more on this topic, I rec. this book. It's about people who are near-homeless, not fully homeless, but it's one of the best things I've read on the topic. The author lived with the subjects for several years & does a superlative job of telling their story in that sort of explanatory way (not judgmental or absolving) that HN readers seem to appreciate.
I just read the book Evicted by Matthew Desmond which goes into great detail about how much money there is to be made from this approach.
It's definitely sympathetic to the plight of the very low income tenants but not unjustly so; anyway I found it fascinating and worth recommending here:
Anyone interested in reading more on this topic, I rec. this book. It's about people who are near-homeless, not fully homeless, but it's one of the best things I've read on the topic. The author lived with the subjects for several years & does a superlative job of telling their story in that sort of explanatory way (not judgmental or absolving) that HN readers seem to appreciate.
https://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/...
(excerpt of the book here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/forced-out)
It's definitely sympathetic to the plight of the very low income tenants but not unjustly so; anyway I found it fascinating and worth recommending here:
https://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/...