Homelessness in the USA is a

[justaprogressive]

POLICY FAILURE!

Trickle-down has made it impossible for a family to handle even a $400 emergency.
When you can't save any money it only takes ONE event to send you and your
family over the cliff.


I know. I see them.


You get laid off from your job, very soon you can't afford your car payment, that you need
in order to find new work, so it's repo'd. Pretty soon (without pandemic protections anymore)
since you can't pay your rent, an eviction notice goes on your door. Once you're evicted you are
officially unhoused.


SO WHAT ARE YOUR OPTIONS AT THIS POINT IN THE LAND OF THE FREE??? VERY VERY FEW.


Without an angel to give you a leg up you need $5-7,000 to get a new apartment/rental even if someone
would rent to you, without your having an ADDRESS. If you have no safety net (close family/friends)
you are done. There are only bad options, and the cities just want you GONE, and are happy to use their goons,
which some still call the police, (not me), to burn and destroy homeless camps and the pitiful few possessions
these US citizens were able to rescue from their shattered lives.


We created this problem!!! We can fix it! In a country where everyone is what they do, those who aren't doing
work are (thanks to the *(^$#*(^$ PURITAN ETHIC) considered to be nothing of importance, i.e. not worthy of saving.


I'm going to say it again for those who may have forgotten already. These are American citizens with rights
who have been hit by a financial maelstrom, designed to make the rich (the rentiers) richer, at the expense of our
most vulnerable. The response (if you can call it that) of "they must have done something wrong", or "they made
bad choices" is BULLSHIT! I'm ashamed of any American that thinks so.


We need a Federal response, as the cities and the states only want these disadvantaged citizens to remain out of
sight hence out of mind...The numbers of the unhoused grow daily, do I really need to mention the thousands of
no-longer-needed homeless vets to get your attention?. How do you reconcile that with "having made bad choices"?
You can't.


We did RELIEF once before. We need to do it again. Community and infrastructure jobs should be created to move the
unhoused back into American society. Laws against hedge-funds buying up rental housing. Rent-control stopping
landlord from increasing rent 30% (my rent was actually DOUBLED once!!) and actual massive affordable housing so
people aren't spending half their income (plus utilities!) to keep a roof over their heads. I submit that having a
roof over your head as an American citizen should be a right.


I ASK YOU: WITHOUT A HOME HOW DOES ONE PURSUE HAPPINESS??

[PJMcK]

1. Homelessness in the USA is a

disgraceful failure of our nation. Like hunger, it shouldn’t exist in a country as wealthy as ours.

These problems, like gun control, will never be addressed as long as Republicans hold ANY levers of governmental power.

It’s truly pathetic.

[question everything]

2. Sadly, well said. And welcome to DU.

[Johnny2X2X]

3. Destruction of the working class

The Right's ideas started well before Reagan, but it was Reagan who just devasted the middle class. And it was more than the tearing down of the social safety net, it was the destruction of unions and the rise of the greed class.

And Reagan also ushered in deregulation that led to the rise of credit card companies. Credit cards are against usury laws, Reagan allowed them to exist anyway. Credit cards are basically loan sharking. The interest rates are so high it's not fair lending practice. Credit card debt is a killer on the budget of tens of millions of households. People pay their credit cars rather than pay into an emergency fund that will prevent them from having to use credit cards in the future.

And credit cards are so misleading, there is not truth in advertising with them. The APR is not the same thing as effective interest rate and people don't know it. A 29.9% APR is really a 37% interest rate. People do not understand that spending $1000 on a credit card will cost you $3000 or $4000 to pay it back over time. People spend their entire adult lives paying credit card debt. And when they make some headway, another emergency happens and they go right back in debt. And don't even get me started on payday loans, they absolutely should be illegal.

It's about wages. It's about consumer protection laws being absent. A $400 car repair should not be a concern to any household in our country if wages had kept up with growth.

[Arthur_Frain]

4. In Utah the politicians kick off their campaigns at those payday loan locations

Republicans are proud of that sort of thing.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. It's like a pendulem with pay day loans

Dem gets in office and regulates them out of existence, Republican gets in and they pop back up due to deregulation. Same with for profit onlin euniversities and a whol host of other things that rip off regular people.

Pay day loans are a pet peave of mine though. They're absolutely insane and charging people 300-700% interest on a short term loan should be illegal everywhere. And I'm not ashamed to admit I fell victim to them once a couple decades ago. Had a car repair that I couldn't afford and needed my car for work. Borrowed $600 from a payday loan thinking I would have the full money to pay it back my next paycheck. Repair ended up being double what I thought and it took me 4 months to pay back that loan. Total paid back was $1300. That works out to a 350% interest rate. Terrible mistake, but it gave me a look into how they operate and boy are they slick and efficient. They think of everything, the day you are coming in to pay it back, they aleready have your re-up paperwork waiting, and that's what people do, they borrow $600, and instead of paying back the $675 they owe, they are set up to re-up because they need that money that week. So they re-up for $575, so they're out $100 for a 2 week loan that then stretches into months and months. It's insane how they get people into it and keep them there. And they make you sign over everything, if you don't show up, they will clean out your bank account for the full amount. If your bank account is empty, they will garnish your very next check for the full amount.

The co-worker who advised me to use them, was visiting them for literally years. He'd make progess, and then have another emergency. He probably borrowed a total of a couple grand and paid them back $10K.

And don't even get me started on sub prime auto dealerships, it's probably the slimiest thing going, worse than payday loans even.

[Arthur_Frain]

6. We're on the same page.

Never have been able to figure out why usury laws don’t apply to those folks. But when republicans start using you for photo ops, I guess it should be obvious why.

[Johnny2X2X]

9. Suprime auto dealerships

The worst of the worst. There's a chain near Detroit that is so awful that the court they use to repossess vehicles and sue people basically exists to handle their cases. Something like 70% of all cases at that court are suits brought by that one dealership chain.

I don't even think people are aware of how they prey on the poor. High pressure sales technique. Crooked contracts. Lying about credit. Kill switches that activate when a payment is late. It goes on and on.

Wife and I have a friend, we'll call her Ellie. Ellie is a single mother with a disabled daughter who has constant medical procedures, visits, and surgeries. She needs her car to both work and to take her daughter to medical appointments. Ellie works hard, is a great mother, and she does the best she can do. So when her car broke down, it was a 5 alarm fire. She was going to miss work. Her daughter was going to miss critical appointments. She went to Car XXXX in West Michigan and they did a number on her you have to hear to believe.

First, the slick high pressure salesperson learned how desperate and anxious she was. And he fanned those anxiety flames. Then he tells her, "But don't you worry, I think you'll be leaving with a car tonight." What followed was 5+ hours of intense psychological warfare. They told her she can qualify for a car and her price would be X dollars. Then they told her she didn't qualify and they can't help her, but wait, there's a new program they could try for her, and boom, just like that she was getting a car. They did this 3 or 4 times and she was in near tears, when finally, "OK, I don't think we can help you tonight, your credit score is just too low, but just let me check 1 more option with my manager, I really want to help you." So she's devastated, sitting their weeping in an office alone for 20 minutes when they finally come back with the manager, "great news Ellie!, You've been approved for a car!"

And here's the deal they told her was the best they could do. An 8 year old Ford Focus with 90,000 miles on it, but not a sale, but on a lease. And in this new super special and brand new program that they just launched for poor credit buyers like Ellie, it came with a laundry list of awful awful provisions. First of all, the payment was $300 a month, for a car that was worth maybe $4000. Next, car insurance must be bought through them for $125 a month. There were several other mandatory add ons and fees. Her monthly payment with all of it was $500 a month, and the lease was for 3 years. For an economy car with already 90K miles on it. And there was more. All repairs would be required to be done at their garage, at a premium. All oil changes would be required to be done at the dealrship at a premium.

Late payments came with huge fees. Failure to follow every letter of the lease led to fines and fees. They installed a kill switch that could disable her vehicle is she was late on a payment. If the vehicle no longer ran, she would be liable fo the full balance of the lease. And on and on.

So that weekend, she brings her "new" car over and told me the whole story. I was furious. And the first thing I said to her was, "But Ellie, there's no way you have that bad of credit, you don't have debt and pay all your bills." Sure enough, we looked up her score online and her credit was well over 700, she had good credit. She would have qualified for a normal loan at any reputable dealership in town with probably no money down. She could have gotten a much better and newer car for a couple $hundred a month. This place advertises, they have good commercials. She had no idea what she walked into, it was a snakes nest. And the lease is air tight, we had a lawyer friend take a look at it, there was no way out. So she had that car for 3 years, every repair it needed (and it needed a lot) was double the cost of a normal garage. She missed a payment one time and they disabled her car as it was parked at the grocery store while she was inside with her daughter. She had to find a way to get the payment to the bank via wiring it so she could get her car turned back on before it got towed the next day. Just a nightmare, and she paid $18,000 for a car that in the end didn't even run the last several months she was making payments.

It goes on and on. Payday loans, subprime auto loans, for profit scam colleges, credit cards with massive fees and insane interest rates etc. And that's not even all of it. Rents that go up and up, unfair leases, certain neighborhoods targeted for enforcement of parking and zoning laws that lead to more fines for the poor. Even groceries are more expensive for the poor. The poor pay more for almost everything in life than the rich or upper middle class. And that's how we have gotten to a place where a $400 emergency is a disaster for the majority of households in America. It just doesn't need to be this way, and it wasn't always this way in America.

[Ohioboy]

15. They use every trick in the book

My only experience with a payday loan place really sucked, and I swear it was by design.

I just needed to have some quick money to pay for insurance I didn't want to have lapse. The first thing they did that sucked was they made me take more money than I needed. I only wanted to borrow $200.00, but they made me take out $500.00. They claimed it wasn't worth it to them to make loans for less. Oh well, I figured I'd just hang on to it till I gave it back to them.

When I went to pay them back, they wouldn't take a check. They never told me I couldn't pay them back any other way but cash. I guess they thought I'd just have $500.00 dollars cash in my wallet walking around in the bad part of town they did business in.

So, I was faced with going about 10 miles to my nearest bank to take out the $500.00 plus interest just to pay these assholes back all the money I didn't even need in the first place. It was either that or go to several ATMs which only let you take out $200.00 at a time.

It took me a good 45 minutes to complete the run to the bank; and when I got back the place was closed. They F---ing closed at 4:00 PM on a Friday afternoon! A tiny little sign next to the door gave their hours in small print. They had longer hours on every other day but Friday!

I swear this was by design to make it hard to pay, and therefore be charged more interest and fees. They know that most people get paid on Friday. And, they know that most people don't even get off work in time to make to their place by 4:00 PM. They also know that people might assume they could pay by check. They also know that if they can close before, or close to, when the banks close they can make it harder on people who, because of their policy, need to take out large amounts of cash.

Luckily this was the last time I ever had to use this type of predatory lending.

[Johnny2X2X]

16. Aha

Yeah, I remember that now too, been a couple decades since I used them. Yeah, they make you take out a minimum amount at the start. And you had to cash your check and bring them cash. Then they'd re-up you and hand you your own cash back less the interest and fees.

So some people are going to check cashing places and paying $10 to cash their checks, before going to the payday loan, paying $100 in interest, fees, and whatever principle they could afford that week, and then getting the cash back that they needed to survive on after re-upping. Basically, get a $500 check and $110 is gone right away and you still owe the pay day loan place only $20 less than you owed them 2 weeks ago. People do that every 2 weeks for months and months just to pay off 1 small $600 loan.

[leftstreet]

7. DURec

[Prairie_Seagull]

8. Admittedly there are others but if homlessness isn't

Last edited Wed Sep 6, 2023, 12:07 PM - Edit history (1)

the biggest canary in the coal mine. I don't know what is. Many sided problem but we've got it. This is no longer an outlier thing. Factor in climate change and...

[justaprogressive]

19. Factoring in climate breakdown...

We'd better get these people housed!

[Initech]

10. Trickle Down Economics is the worst thing to happen to this country since the Civil War.

When the CEO of a company makes 6,000 times what his average employee makes, and so many of us are living paycheck to paycheck with little hope, it really is a wonder why we haven't broken out the pitchforks and torches yet.

[Johnny2X2X]

13. Joe Biden

Joe Biden is doing his best to dismantle Trickle Down Economics. He's done more for working people than any president since FDR.

[Elessar Zappa]

24. Very true.

I too consider him the best president since FDR. If we can re-elect him, take the House and keep the Senate, perhaps a nail can finally be driven into the trickle down coffin.

[byronius]

11. So true. And so shameful.

We have to get better at this. Discarding citizens for lack of resources is idiocy.

Republicans are idiots. Just a fact.

[Warpy]

12. An old hospital near me closed down and the city decided to convert it

into studio apartments for homeless people. It was nothing fancy, just a room with basic cooking equipment, a bathroom, and a lock on the door. The usual NIMBY screamers appeared but I guess enough of us told them to shut the fuck up that the project went ahead.

I noticed a lot fewer people wandering around, although there were still drunks down and out. I imagine the project is going to improve the area a lot.

[hay rick]

14. Homelessness is a cultural choice.

Americans are indoctrinated to accept it as inevitable and therefore not their responsibility.

The truth is that improvements in economic productivity have increased GDP per person to the point where homelessness should not exist. Technologically, it could be eliminated without throwing anyone else into avoidable poverty. It would require depriving the very wealthiest of just a few of their toys. As it is, they can not possibly use and enjoy all of their toys. They just seem to think counting them is some kind of salvation.

There is no plausible explanation of homelessness that excludes a morally deficient society.

[justaprogressive]

18. What you said

There is no plausible explanation of homelessness that excludes a morally deficient society.
Response to: hay rick (Original Post)

[hunter]

17. We need to rebuild our cities...

... turning them into attractive places where housing is affordable, work is readily available, and car ownership is unnecessary.

Our automobile culture is the root cause of many evils.

[justaprogressive]

20. Well put

You're not wrong.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

21. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

There are so many reasons for homelessness. And they are all social issues that dates back decades.

They got and still are sweeped under the rug.

[ck4829]

22. K&R

[Buckeyeblue]

23. It's a failure to adequately address mental health and addiction

We like to blame both issues on the person. So we don't have a lot of options for people who suffer from mental health or addiction issues who don't have the means to pay for treatment.

Make no mistake, we like to blame physical health issues on the person as well.

In the US, if you aren't well, it's you're own damn fault.

Otherwise, the cost of care, physical or mental, wouldn't be prohibitive (or you could say punative).

[Lady Freedom Returns]

25. Many that are on the streets suffering from physical and mental issues, as well as...

Addictions didn't have them when they first became homeless.

At first they were healthy , ready to get on their feet again. But they found barriers to doing that. Over and over again blocked from employment and the long wait list for help with housing .

And one also runs into the truth about these supposed charities that tell everyone that they are out to help the homeless. Guess what? They don't really. There are those that only help able bodied people, aka people they can have work for them for food and a bed. Then there are those that run or help with scam employment centers to get government money for supposedly training or helping people to find work.

The scams love to partner with church based charities to give them some cover for their operations. People don't question them if they got some church thing backing them. And the scammers share their? Money with the charity from uncle sam.

Oh yeah, don't think these so called charities don't have more than one set of books. I wish I had a camera when I found those papers one of the staff left in the common area.

And let's not forget the businesses out there. They have a list of addresses that immediately gets an application rejected. This list has the list of all the addresses of shelters, homeless mail centers as we as of those scam employment centers.

And we add the many, many different laws that are out there that don't help.....

You have a small window of opportunity to get yourself out of being homeless before it starts wearing you down mentally and physically, which leads to self medicating, aka Addiction. And this leads to a whole new issue.