Million Dollar Murray
Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
Date Published: February 13, 2006
Publisher:
The New Yorker
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell explores efforts to address the problem of chronic homelessness and the 'power law' theory that drives them. As Gladwell writes, the amount of money it takes to solve the homeless problem could well be less than the amount it takes to ignore it.
More Quotes from Million Dollar Murray:
“You know, when he was monitored by the system he did fabulously. He would be on house arrest and he would get a job and he would save money and go to work every day, and he wouldn’t drink. He would do all the things he was supposed to do. There are some people who can be very successful members of society if someone monitors them. Murray needed someone to be in charge of him.”
-- Marla Johns, social worker, Saint Mary’s Hospital, Denver
"Being fair... means providing shelters and soup kitchens, and shelters and soup kitchens don’t solve the problem of homelessness. Our usual moral intuitions are little use, then, when it comes to a few hard cases. Power-law problems leave us with an unpleasant choice. We can be true to our principles or we can fix the problem. We cannot do both."
-- Malcolm Gladwell
