Upfront "No Job? Get Lost!" Response

In places all over the world there are many unemployed people. In fact, Greece has an unemployment rate of 27%. However, in a town called Svalbard in Norway, if you are unemployed you cannot live there. In the article, "No Job? Get Lost!" by Andrew Higgins, he explains why this part of Norway has a law stating you have to have a job to be a resident.

First of all, the government argues that Svalbard is one of the safest places because they don't allow people who are unemployed to live there. People are free to leave their keys in their cars and sleep with their front doors open. No one has been put in jail since the summer of 2013. It seems like it would be very difficult to enforce this law, but the government of this territory sends the unemployed away.  Sometimes even people who have retired are sent away as well who cannot support themselves. I understand that they are trying to keep the territory as safe as it can be, but I think that it is extreme to kick people out of their homes just because they are unemployed. In Svalbard, where crime is basically nonexistent, the only thing they have to worry about are polar bears and littering. Svalbard, being a place made almost entirely of ice and snow, argues that they do not allow people to be homeless because they don't want their population to freeze to death. Again, I disagree because kicking the homeless out gives them no place to go and no help at all.  As a territory they should help people instead of telling them it is illegal for them to be there.

In conclusion, this article was very interesting, but also made me think about how they treat the people of their own kind.  Kicking people out just because they want their towns to be a really safe place is the wrong thing to do. People who are unemployed should be helped instead of being pushed out because they are going through a hard time. People who are retired did their job and shouldn't be kicked out when they are to elderly to work anymore.  These are reasons why I believe that Svalbard isn't handling their territory well.