The Republicans have been arguing for years that private charities are better at caring for the poor and vulnerable than the government. Either because private non-profis are more efficient (!) or because they won?t encourage people to become dependent the way government programs allegedly will. I?ve had a number of problems with this argument, not least the fact that often private charities are stretched to their limits before the government cuts social spending, and private donations or volunteer resources don?t increase enough to pick up the slack.

But also, my pretty extensive experience with homeless charities left me feeling as though there are a lot of people whom non-profits can?t help. Non-profits, especially ones which rely on volunteers, tend to be kind of capricious about whom they help and how much. I sat through hours of discussions with people who only wanted to help the ?deserving? homeless, or the homeless people who acted grateful and kissed our hands. The rude homeless, the angry homeless, the ones who didn?t grovel or who obviously had major behavior problems, nobody wanted to help. And the last homeless charity I tried to get involved with had wanted volunteers to ask people why they thought they were homeless, and then the volunteers would write why we thought the people (whom we?d just met) were homeless. And then we were supposed to make a judgment about whether the homeless people were sincere about wanting to change, or else they?d be tossed out of the shelter.

So I ended up feeling as though a major strength of government programs was that there wasn?t as much scope for individual volunteers, or even managers, to discriminate. If you qualify for a government program, you get helped, regardless of whether you look nice, or seem to be the ?right? kind of person. Of course, in practice, every government program spawns some horrible bureaucracy that?s designed to frustrate and confuse people, especially people the individual bureaucrats don?t like. But at least with a government program, you have clear criteria for receiving benefits.

The performance of government agencies in the wake of the Katrina disaster has shaken my point of view. Not just becuase of all the horrendous inefficiency, but also because there are so many stories floating around of people with FEMA and the National Guard and various other agencies behaving in a capricious and discriminatory fashion. Some of the stories of functionaries and soldiers pushing people around and denying people access to stuff reminded me very strongly of my worst charity experiences.

So I?m not sure what the take-home message is now. Having good, well-funded government programs is only the start, but then you also have to rules in place to prevent abusive behavior and discrimination? And find ways to attract the best people to those sort of agencies? Or maybe the message is that discrimination is endemic to human endeavors, and no amount of standardization can eliminate it?