concern about "false kindness" when it comes to helping people that are homeless or dealing with affordable housing.

The only common issue across all highly homeless locations is relatively inelastic housing supply. IE it will always be relatively expensive here due to topography limitations and the relatively high cost of construction due to our limited land for cost effective development and needed housing permit requirements and labor costs. . This means when you fall in Bellingham and need to get into housing the rent will be and always will be relatively high vs other cities that can expand at much lower costs. ie Cleaveland,OH, Charlotte NC, St Louis MO. etc. There you can have good jobs and get back on your feet for a fraction of Bellingham costs. I asked homelss people if anyone had exposed them to their relative economic chances for success or does all the help they get simply try to help them here where they have a fraction of the likely success rate. They said nobody is helping them with such options. So I call this false kindness where we act and think we are helping where it would be more helpful to show them the cost/benefit of simply going where they are more likely to get on their feet. This is not intended to be a "not in my backyard" approach. In contrast is it is about real help and since people have historically move towards opportunity, I know if I had economic issues here, I would move towards more opportunity, just as I have done before. So at least create another choice for people to take or not. Not pushing people out, simply trying to better educate towards their goals. Win/Win.