If Democrats ever want to escape the stereotype that all they care about is welfare entitlements, then Rep. Maxwell Frost’s (D-Fla.) remarks at a Wednesday press conference create exactly the sort of look they should seek to avoid. Frost stood in front of a microphone and declared, in all seriousness, “You should not be forced to work in exchange for a bed.” Not if you live in utopia, that is.

Frost was touting a Democratic bill provocatively titled the “No Homeless Detention Centers Act,” which expresses left-wing fury that American cities would dare to act to mitigate homelessness.

“You should not be punished for sleeping, resting, eating, drinking, or protecting yourself from the elements,” Frost continued. “And you should never have to choose between being arrested and sleeping outside.”

The only things these three sentences have in common are parallel structure and a reference to homelessness. But the vision they communicate is muddled: does Frost want the homeless to be given a free bed, or left alone on the street? If the homeless are expected to practice basic self-responsibility, why are they not expected to work?

Frost has more reason than most representatives to gripe about the housing market. Upon his election to Congress in 2022, he was allegedly denied an apartment in D.C.’s upscale Navy Yard neighborhood due to bad credit (caused by the debt he incurred while running for Congress).

But Frost’s own experience reveals that he knows how the game is played: living accommodations cost money to build and maintain, and ordinary people spend a sizable portion of their income on either a rent or mortgage payment for the place they live.

In other words, most people do work in exchange for a bed. If homeless people got housing for free, would that not be unfair to a poor family down the street paying as much as they can afford for a simple apartment? Why should some people be subject to a lower standard? Simply because they are homeless? If so, then giving them a free place to live takes away the rationale for giving them a free place to live.

There are exceptions, of course. Some people are unable to work to support themselves because of a physical or mental handicap. They need permanent charity. Other people are simply downtrodden; they find themselves homeless through a series of hard economic circumstances beyond their control. They need temporary charity, but unconditional handouts would degrade their dignity. America has plenty of homeless charities that assist these people, and no one is seriously debating that that should end.

However, Frost tried to make all homelessness into an economic issue. “Right now, there’s a growing effort in this country to treat homelessness like a crime instead of what it is: a housing crisis. Homelessness is a housing issue,” he insisted.

This author is no expert on homeless policy, and so he is uninformed about the existence of the movement Frost decries. But any D.C. resident of any duration could aver that homelessness is more than just a housing issue. Homeless encampments are dangerous places which most people avoid for their own safety. They are known for unsanitary conditions, disease, open drug use, and frequent violence.

This is not because all homeless people are criminals, nor because homelessness makes someone a criminal. But there are a significant number of mentally ill people whose mental illness is the underlying cause of both their homeless condition and the crimes they may commit. Simply offering housing to such people does not necessarily solve the problem because these people do not trust the shelter offered to them or are too mentally unstable to remain there.

Leaving such homeless people to roam the street unmolested simply endangers other citizens. But placing in a structured environment for their own good and the good of others is a plan that Frost and his ideological allies decry as “Homeless Detention Centers.”

There are great reasons to be skeptical of his view, not least of which is the fact that it is held by only a fringe minority, as Frost himself admitted. “It’s not just right-wing organizations,” he claimed. “It’s Democratic cities as well that are pursuing handcuffs instead of housing. That does not end homelessness. It just makes being homeless a crime.” Frost was likely referring to San Francisco’s notable clean-up of a notorious open-air drug market after the city’s ultra-liberal residents got tired of their leaders showing no concern for the public safety hazard. But if San Francisco is not liberal enough for Frost, then who is?

At root, Frost’s contention that “You should not be forced to work in exchange for a bed” betrays an entitlement mentality. The implied notion is that every person is entitled to the basic necessities of life (one might add food and clothing to the list, 1 Timothy 6:8) without having to work for them.

But, if this notion is correct, then how many people would simply stop working? For most of human history, most people have devoted the majority of their lives working to provide the basic necessities for themselves and their families. If everyone treated the basic necessities as something they were entitled to, then no one would actually be working to provide these necessities for everyone else.

Frost’s contention appears to give license to idleness, which stands in marked contrast with biblical wisdom. When confronted with idleness among the new Christian converts at Thessalonica, Paul instructed them, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Even though the early Christians generously shared what they had with one another, receiving that generosity also required that a person did what they could to support himself through his own labor.

That same principle saved the early American colony of Jamestown. In the summer of 1608, “people were fed out of the common store and labored jointly in the manuring of the ground, and planting corn,” wrote colonist Ralph Hamor. Consequently, “glad was that man that could slip from his labor,” enjoying leisure while still eating the food gained through the labor of others. The problem was particularly pronounced among gentleman adventurers who were accustomed to lives of idleness and considered manual labor beneath them.

When the now-famous soldier John Smith became governor in September 1608, he implemented the principle which he took straight from Paul, “He that will not work shall not eat.” As he explained, “the labors of 30 or 40 honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain 150 idle loiterers.” That winter, the colony lost only seven or eight men. But, after Smith was injured in a gunpowder blast and returned to England, the next two winters proved disastrous. Without his careful attention to this rule, most of the colonists died.

This biblical principle is not an absolute moral imperative on the order of “do not murder,” but it is unmatched wisdom that men ignore at their peril.

The notion of entitlement also raises the question: what is work for? Providing the necessities of life is a powerful incentive to work, and so most people do. But, in the process, they are ennobled with the accomplishment of a job well done. They gain and hone skills, make contacts, and — in a word — live life as God designed it to be lived.

The opening pages of Genesis show God instituting work before the fall, as part of his perfect creation. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). And, despite the effects of the curse, work remains a benefit not only to the laborer but to others. To another church, Paul gave this general advice, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Ephesians 4:28).

Instead of debating whether homeless people should be “forced to work in exchange for a bed,” our focus should be: “Who can I serve with the fruit of my labor?” If those with the entitlement attitude adopted this perspective, there might not even be a debate over whether anyone had to work for a bed.