What Don't You Know About Homelessness?

[justaprogressive]

Perhaps a lot! Last year my wife and I (ages 69 and 70) despite having $7000+ in the bank and being pre-approved for a mortgage (we lost our first home in the 2008 Countrywide scandal) were unable to find anywhere within 100 miles to rent,(We have pets.) and there was nothing on the market for us to buy that we could afford. Our 1st 2nd 3rd and FOURTH potential homes we were hoping to buy we were outbid on. We spent May, June and July in a lady vet's house, August, September and October in a nurse's house. Finally we closed on a nice home at the end of October 2022. We give money to the homeless, and we don't stand over them to see how they spend it.

Read On:

"They go into the streets in search of data. Peeking behind dumpsters, shining flashlights under bridges, rustling a frosted tent to see if anyone was inside. This is what it takes to count the people in America who don’t have a place to live. To get a number, however flawed, that describes the scope of a deeply entrenched problem and the country’s progress toward fixing it.

Last year, the Biden administration laid out a goal to reduce homelessness by 25 percent by 2025. The problem increasingly animates local politics, with ambitious programs to build affordable housing getting opposition from homeowners who say they want encampments gone but for the solution to be far from their communities. Across the country, homelessness is a subject in which declarations of urgency outweigh measurable progress.

Officially called the Point-in-Time Count, the annual tally of those who live outside or in homeless shelters takes place in every corner of the country through the last 10 days of January, and over the past dozen years has found 550,000 to 650,000 people experiencing homelessness. The endeavor is far from perfect, advocates note, since it captures no more than a few days and is almost certainly a significant undercount. But it’s a snapshot from which resources flow, and creates a shared understanding of a common problem.

This year, reporters and photographers from The New York Times shadowed the count, using a sampling of four very different communities — warm and cold, big and small, rural and urban — to examine the same problem in vastly different place"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/headway/what-dont-you-know-about-homelessness.html

What’s Homelessness Really Like?
Thirty people answer questions and share their experiences.

[link:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/10/headway/homelessness-mental-health-us.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

[mntleo2]

1. I am a member of The Poor People's Campaign

With Dr William Barber and Dr Liz Theoharis. If you REALLY want to know about the unhoused as well as the working poor, people of color, the elderly and disabled. Go to: https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org where you can learn all about it and its deadly consequences for all low income Americans (as well as those abroad).

As a long time member of DU as well as a lifelong advocate for social justice with low income folks, I can tell you right off the bat, the hatred of the poor is rampant and a huge roadblock for anyone who lives with it. I am not trying to trash DU mind you, there were good people here who understood the plight, but there were a few who were not so nice ~ and this is true pretty much everywhere else.

Dr Barber (now on the faculty of Yale Divinity School), re-animated MLK's The Poor People's Campaign after it was shut down when he was assassinated. You see, poverty is actually an established institution where many live off the backs of the poor. Hate to put it that way but it is true. This is not just drug addicts and cigarette people exploiting the poor. It is in the medical community, social services, food insecurity, housing, the prison institutions, court systems, you name it, someone is there making a living from those in poverty.

Do not get me wrong, there is no shame in the jobs poverty creates, but seldom do these people admit they are doing so. They are proud, thinking they are,"helpin' the witto baybies" when in fact they detest their very clients ~ including their kids. I have written ad nauseum about poverty here and most of the time there are crickets. However there is a poverty thread here om DU ~ if it still exists, I haven't checked in awhile.

As you may notice, there are crickets right now in the important post you have made. You awareness is appreciated. I could write books about it and could post some more about it if you would like. DM me and I can guide you to a whole "underground" movement. We are of all faiths, all colors and all ages. We work in love and compassion for all.

So many hearts for your post!
Love, Cat in Seattle

On edit: Yes there is a Poverty group on DU here: https://democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1118 . Again notice, there are crickets there too, lol.

[2naSalit]

2. So true.

Even though I am not homeless, I live in subsidized NGO owned housing and the property management people at the the NGO are unapproachable and condescending. I found out that someone I know is on their executive board so I went and had a "chat" with him a few days ago. We'll see if things change at all.

I really would like to find other housing, nobody in this complex is here by choice, well the choice of having a cardboard box to live in or stay in your car is about the only choice made there.

[justaprogressive]

6. I'm so sorry that you are in such a situation

Tired of the thinking that it is the homeless's own fault,

Oh they made bad decisions, they must deserve this etc etc makes me (how nice DU has a puke smiley!)

[2naSalit]

8. It's not what I had in mind...

For my retirement years, at all. I went to college so I could avoid ever suffering from this and you know what? It only got worse after I graduated and I had never been so poor or lacking options than when I was young and having hard in between spells which were few and brief than after I graduated.

It's a skewed social stratification system that needs to be exposed and disposed of.


Welcome to DU.

[justaprogressive]

5. Thank you

and please do follow up

[slightlv]

3. Thank you for this article!

I have a lot to say about this... but more than should be put in a reply. At some point, I may diary it. Might be a good release for the feelings of anxiety, frustration, and fear that I live with.

For now, thank you for bringing it to the forefront of people's eyes once again. With private equity firms and conglomerates buying up property and all the "we buy" corporations adding to the misery of gentrification of old neighborhoods, many elderly and poor are finding themselves priced out of the homes they bought with their savings. This was the hedge of many of us to have a roof over our heads in our old age. They are finding ever more creative ways to get us out of our homes and into the streets.

Social Security was supposed to stop this when it was enacted. R's have fought against the New Deal programs since before they were signed into law, and have never backed off. It's reached a crisis point today, when the entire R party is for killing these programs, when instead, we should be instituting some form of UBI everywhere, for everyone.

Again, fodder for a diary. And again, thank you for yours!

[justaprogressive]

7. A great post in it's own right

nt

[mntleo2]

9. There is much to wrote wbout with those in poverty.

Last edited Sun Aug 27, 2023, 11:40 AM - Edit history (1)

At this time is is over 25% of those in poverty in this the country, . But the way "poverty" is calculated is based on averages calculated in the 1960s One in four that you meet on the street are most likely in very desperate situations ~ many of them the working poor, but also the disabled, seniors, low income whites, and people of color who cannot work for wages.

The great sages in the world knew that poverty could end tomorrow. But many people make a good living off the poverty institution. This was known beginning with Siddhartha (The Buddha), The Jewish culture, Hindus, Jesus, St Augustine,The Mahatma Gandhi, and many others. Nonprofits are not even near successful in abolishing poverty because they too depend on the money it brings to them (and tax breaks for the rich).

There is so much more I could write about poverty and perhaps I will later, perhaps in the beginning of autumn as right now I am pretty busy.
Take care!
Love, Cat in Seattle

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R