CBC/Canadian Brodcasting Corporation: Research project and 'beautifully surprising' result...

[hunter]

14. We ought to be paying people to experiment with lifestyles having a small environmental footprint.

We might start with those who are currently homeless.

The success of these experiments would be measured in terms of happiness, not "economic productivity" as it is currently defined.

We also have to face the fact that some people are unemployable, not necessarily for physical disabilities since there have been many advances in assistive technology, but for people with mental illnesses or addictions that make them impossible to work with. Many of these people are in prison, constantly in and out of jail, or homeless. Prison is expensive. Medical problems caused by homelessness and street drugs are expensive. People without hope, without tools to express themselves, without safe places to live, can become violent.

Everyone deserves a safe comfortable place they can call home and a community that supports them. Societies that cast off the unemployed and the unemployable are broken.