Where will we hide the homeless?

There is a proposal in Hawaii to ship the state's growing homeless population to the mainland.

As the economy continues suffer and jobs remain scarce, homeless people are showing up in places usually reserved for tourists. Some state officials believe it would be more prudent to spend $300 on a one-way plane ticket for each homeless person than to pay $35,000 a year to shelter and feed them. Furthermore, the state has concerns that the sight of homeless people roaming plush beaches will hurt tourism, which overwhelmingly supports Hawaii's economy.

Welcome to the future of America, where homeless people are no longer confined to inner-city soup kitchens and out-of-sight trash dumpsters. The homeless will be everywhere and will include educated people who were living in 3-bedroom suburban homes for most of their lives. The new homeless will look different. They'll be your grandparents and former colleagues. They will be well spoken and mentally coherent. Many will be young adults who couldn't navigate their way into a failing job market despite possessing multiple college degrees. They won't be content to freeze in a back alley in a decaying Detroit neighborhood. They will migrate to places where they can survive in the elements.

Where will we ship these people?

As distasteful as it might be for some folks to picture the new homeless camped out in the parking lot of Whole Foods in suburbia, it's going to happen because of our inability to extricate ourselves from the economic mess we're in. Some people won't even acknowledge how severe the unemployment problem has become. The Rush Limbaughs of the world think there are plenty of good jobs for anyone willing to work.

While those who are still sailing along, bathing in a kind of blissful ignorance, tend to not think about these things, I am here to tell you that current and former middle class people can't continue to drain their savings forever without ending up on the streets. They need jobs. They need to restore their nest eggs.

Tourist areas, tidy suburbs and other places that are usually shielded from society's ills will be inundated by a new wave of homelessness in the next decade if the employment situation doesn't improve dramatically in the next year or two.

Read more about Hawaii's proposal.