Alameda Study Shows Homeless Are Previously Working Seniors

[daredtowork]

Not "irresponsible, lazy, addicts" after all, eh...?
http://www.contracostatimes.com/tri-valley-times/ci_27224378/alameda-county-among-new-homeless-growing-number-seniors

At least this is what is happening in Berkeley while Mayor Bates twiddles his thumbs, builds luxury condos for the uber rich, and imagines avoiding building low income housing will push those (black) undesirables out. As mentioned in previous posts I found out at the Berkeley city council meeting that my subjective impression that my West Berkeley neighborhood had become whitewashed over Bates tenure was not wrong: black demographics in Berkeley have gone from 30% to 10%. I believe that can be directly tied to policies meant squeeze low-income people out while unconscious prejudice (in the most "progressive" city in America) blocked any real stepping stones at the bottom.

This article was included in a post I have in GD about how the average taxpayer forks over $6000/year in corporate welfare and only pennies to the poor. Yet it's always "we can't afford" any more aid (should be rephrased as INVESTMENT!!!) with cuts directed at the most vulnerable.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026023001

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Glad you posted this.

This past summer we traveled some seven thousand miles to the Midwest and back. Now,this little blurb will no doubt piss the well off members on this board. If one has roots in the working class and I mean getting you hands dirty and living for paycheck to paycheck. First you see the struggle signs,second you relate to most of their circumstances,third one can do some kind of intervention to help. Back to our thread,when at the end of a days driving,you find a campground for the night. BTW,we have made this or similar trips for the last ten years,and what was the big eye opener this year was the huge increase of Senior's living month to month in R/V parks. Not as a traveling Tourist but as matter of economics,here are a few of the things we discovered,loss of a job,loss of their homes as a result of job loss,bankruptcy as a result of job loss or over whelming medical bills,and the many are moving from area to area to find part time or permanent jobs because their Social Security or Pensions just doesn't cover there needs. If one thinks our Seniors are all living the fat cat life,get real,there are unknown numbers struggling to get from today to tomorrow. Yes,there are is a small number of Seniors that have to financial means to afford a 200k R/V,and that is a story in it's self. Bottom line,it might cost seven hundred or less for a lot in a R/V Park,you typical home has fixed expense of three grand or more. You will never see any of these stories on the Nightly News or see this in the Paper of Record New York Times. Not every Senior is a greedy Geezer.

[daredtowork]

2. I'm glad I stumbled across it

My previous assertions on the matter were based on subjective impressions from attending housing meetings and listening to the tsunami of desperate phone calls that come in daily at the Center for Independent Living. It's nice to know someone actually did a survey.

This just increases my anger at the obvious stalling the Bates regime has done over low-income housing though: and the obvious motive behind it. By the way, the wife of Mayor Bates is Loni Hancock, a State Senator. I'm sure she shares his beliefs. She's never deigned to respond to any inquiries I've made to her as a constituent over the years.

Frankly, that's my chief complaint with the Democratic party in California, and my gut feeling about why they are losing elections to apathy nationwide. They are so busy wining and dining the rich to assure their after-political-office high status jobs that they totally blow off their poor constituents. They don't even bother to respond to respond to them anymore. They don't care about those votes because they assume some mass email campaign will have them wrapped up.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. There is a under the Radar theme running

across this Nation and that is our elected officials are in major denial of is really happening in their Cities and Towns. Optics and Sound Bites are the coin of their little empires,and if don't pay to play,f--you. Our modern Dem Party has and is mirroring the Rethugs by doing the Wall Street Model of money and power over the needs of the Populace. And we wonder why folks stayed home in this last election. When you see a 30% to 10% outflow number of any Population Group. That in it's self should raise red flags as to what is going on.

When talking about families in turmoil,here is a hard number that should scare the crap out of anyone. Clark County Nevada Schools(CCSD) has somewhere north of 300k students,now saying that,here you go,58% of those said students some 178 k are nutritionally deprived(fancy way of saying they don't have enough to eat)and the local Media and Power Structure is lame or plain crickets unless there is a photo op to be had. And the largest Democratic Party Group stayed home during this last election cycle and we lost big time in the House Race as well as in the state races. Scary part,the School Board is for the most part controlled by a group that has their religious agenda.

[daredtowork]

4. I am so grateful I still have a roof over my head

I'm holding onto it with everything I've got. I feel I don't deserve it, I'm incredibly lucky to have it. Everyone around me is being pushed out. It's like watching a dystopian nightmare in slow motion: the kind where people who are still comfortably housed will just smile and nod and think you are exaggerating things if you bring it up.

The really sad part about the Bay Area is this place is rolling in money. We could institute mincome here if we wanted to! But people have their eyes on the "global" picture here and could care less about what is happening to the people around them.

[JDPriestly]

5. Thanks for posting this.

I worked with homeless people for a number of years. That was about 20 years ago. When I see the homeless of today, I am shocked at their ages. It is just my very subjective impression, but I think that the homeless today are a much older population than the homeless of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It's scary.

And the discussion about reducing Social Security benefits or needs-testing them is very frightening because the elderly can barely make it or not make it at all on the Social Security benefits of today.

This is a very bad situation in California, but even in the Midwest, it is extremely difficult for a senior to get by on only say a benefit of $900 or less per month.

[daredtowork]

8. This is where the elderly didn't use their political power

The AARP has not aligned itself strongly enough on the side of people in poverty in general - preferring to focus on how they "earned" Social Security. Thus many people on Social Security, even though they benefit from entitlement programs like Medicare, end up joining the Tea Party and screeching against anything that's needs-tested. No one ever "deserves" help in their estimation. Everybody who is poor is "other" in an economy of scarcity.

There are many Seniors who didn't work in the formal economy, who unemployed a lot, who became disabled, or who for some other reason did not earn many Social Security credits. I know someone who was gay and who traveled with his husband (who had the full time job) for years and often did ad hoc work. He ended up with the minimum in Social Security. When you get the minimum, you usually are able to be declared disabled on the basis of the chronic conditions of the elderly, and SSI can make up the rest - that gets it up to the $900. So many Seniors ARE living on a needs-tested program all-ready!!!!! It just doesn't sink in that this is what it is. They figure they just get it by virtue of being elderly: i.e. they "deserve" it.

If the AARP is going to continue to only take it's stand on the fact that they are earnings based, they are going to have to also represent an increase in taxes, because "earned" Social Security isn't paying enough to live on in old age. But if they were honest about Medicare being an entitlement -that some entitlements should perhaps be reframed as investments or just the right thing to do - they would take a stronger stand on behalf of the disabled and needs-based programs as well.

[JDPriestly]

9. Yes. Thanks so much.

[mackerel]

6. Maybe there are a lot less blacks in West Berkeley

but I see it as more Latins in West Berkeley. A lot working poor Latins there. There is also a lot of non-present landlords in that part of Berkeley. Actually though the biggest changes in that area have come to Emeryville.

[daredtowork]

7. Looks whiter in my neighborhood

But even if it is a shift to "latin" - should would be establishing a racial economic class hierarchy here? If "latins" are the next step up, that means, next the latins will be pushed out by Asians and Indians, etc.

I see no up side to blacks=poor=pushed out unless you are one who happened to grab their spot.

[mackerel]

10. The Asians are actually the non-present

landlords. (Indians are Asians)

You might be right but in the area where my mother-in-law lives around Alcatraz & Sacramento there are still a fair amount of black families. I'm not sure of the numbers so it like you said it could definitely be in decline which is sad.