It was really warm today- mid 90’s, and the crappy kind with enough humidity and no breeze to make it really suck. Other than that, just the usual, work, gym, dinner, blog, recliner, bed. Had two hamburger patties and some sliced tomatoes for dinner, and I just remembered two food related things I wanted to share with you.
The first of which is I saw a video (I don’t know where gb, ig, tiktok, twitter) and a guy said that a big reason that food preparation and seasoning is such a much bigger deal than it was a couple decades ago and said he thinks it is because people smoke so much less. I thought that was an interesting take. Obviously the availability to get lots of things and our exposure to them through mass media and our increased wealth are also much larger factors. But the smoking thing was interesting, I thought.
The second is the hamburgers I had were two of those premade patties you find in the grocery store with the ‘fresh’ (not frozen meat. I saw a bunch of them there all for like 1.69 because they were way marked down and thought I would snatch them all up and freeze them. And so I did. I know I have talked about this before, but I am gonna talk about it again.
Being broke sucks and you have heard me bitching about it. But we all go through it from time to time, and our definition for most of us is still pretty fucking good. But you know what REALLY sucks? Poverty. Poverty is a fucking death sentence, it just takes a real long time to kill you and does so in the cruelest of ways. I’m bitching about being being broke in between a few paychecks, but I am not poor in any way, shape, or form. If I had a water heater blow up tomorrow I could get it fixed. I could go to the doctor. I’m sitting in fucking ac using the internet. But poverty is a whole different ball game.
And it is so expensive. Poor people can’t plan ahead and buy a half dozen hamburger patties for whenever. They can’t pick up a pork shoulder because it is on sale and throw it in the freezer. We all know the issues- too broke to pay on time and late fees accrue. Can’t afford the doctor so then have to pay for an emergency room stay 3 weeks later because you didn’t get the problem taken care of. And on and on and on.
Being poor and homeless are really fucking awful and humiliating, and recently there have been a whole bunch of bills passed in towns and states going after homelessness. And I get that it is a problem. But criminalizing poverty? What the ever loving fuck are we so historically illiterate we don’t remember how we reacted when we first read about debtor’s prisons as a kid? Bloody hell.
So obviously I am opposed to that kind of legislation and action but I am also an absolute piece of shit because I have no fucking idea what the answer is. I mean if I had worked my whole life to build a business and a homeless camp sprung up across the street and all my customers stopped coming and people were crapping on my stoop every night, I’d be fucking livid, too. But what the fuck am I, one person, supposed to do.?
It’s just really frustrating that the reason so many things have been an issue my entire life are still issues because there is no easy solution and when there is, someone screams socialism and well there goes that fucking idea. And the only ideas that ever seem to get any traction are the really bad ones like “Let’s just ignore it and maybe they will go away” which eventually becomes “LET’S TEAR THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN AND BURN ALL THEIR SHIT AND THROW THEM IN JAIL.”
I mean we can’t even do cheap, easy, ecologically sound shit. I have no idea why we have all these stupid damned ornamental trees in every public space when we could have apple and peach and cherry or the specialty from whatever region you are in. Or why every available green space that doesn’t have a prior official use isn’t turned into community gardens.
Everything is just such a fucking mess. But my discount hamburgers with tomatoes from the garden were really good, and that makes me a pretty lucky guy.
The War for Ukraine Day 916: Last Night’s/This Morning’s Butcher’s Bill
narya
Two things I would do: first, invest a BUNCH in public education. Just a couple of fucktons, at all levels. Second, postal banking. One of the ways poverty is expensive is that there are fees for things like cashing a check. I have a lot of other ideas, but those are my first two.
japa21
Chicago area was broiling. Upper 90’s, dew points up to 80. Feel like temps 110-115.
satby
Like so many things, a lot of the problem with homelessness was exacerbated when Reagan eliminated federal funding for hospitals for mentally ill people. And subsequently they ended up on the street. Not that mental hospitals were all that great, but eliminating them with no plan for the patients? All homeless aren’t mentally ill, but a large percentage are, or have addictions. Teens fleeing abuse or homes where they aren’t accepted because they’re gay.
It’s a tough but not unsolvable problem and pilot programs offering the intensive support needed to get homeless people back to stability show a lot of promise. But that would take money, billions of dollars we’d rather piss away on elections and stupid Congressional show hearings. Infuriating.
Edit: Everything that has been bad in my adult life was fruit of the Reagan years. Joe Biden started to finally dismantle some of it and prove (again) that Keynesian economic policy works. He’s been a great President for people like me.
Hildebrand
It took years to tear communities and neighborhoods apart, it will take years to build them back up again. The problem is that just under half the country sees such projects as communism or socialism, even though we know that building such communities and neighborhoods is what it really means to be ‘pro-life’.
So, we try to vote in decent folks who want to do what’s best, who will chip away at the problems through economic policies that support the poor, and try to convince people to remember that we are better off when the ‘least of these’ are cared for without questioning whether they are worthy.
And we never give up on hope – because despair is the weapon of the oligarchs and robber-barons of our present age. We win when we don’t give up. It’s hard, but it’s the only way forward.
Manyakitty
Two things: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/2024-08-27-corn-sweat-midwest-dew-points-humidity-heat-index
HumboldtBlue
Trump campaign staffers assaulted an Army civilian employee at Arlington Cemetery yesterday and violated the Army’s rule on taking photos and videos in a prohibited area. The media will not say a fucking word, they won’t go after Trump about this egregious insult, if it had been anyone even remotely connected to the Democrats it would be the lead story for the next fucking year and it would be the end of a career in politics for a dozen or so people. Not so with that fat fucking traitor.
VFX Lurker
Here in California we have public servants and students without homes. Thry have jobs, but they can’t find affordable apartments, so they live out of their cars.
California needs more affordable housing.
twbrandt
Those of us who grew up in middle class families in the USA live such sheltered lives. We have no conception of the stress of simply existing experienced by those living in poverty. We have no idea of the daily terror felt by those live in war zones like Ukraine, or Gaza, or Sudan.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Smoking and food show up again this week. I saw a video on the twitter the other day that explained that Phillip Morris bought General Foods and Kraft back in the late 80’s. So even though people are smoking less the ol’ cigarette company is still using their usual tactics to addict people to shit junk food.
SpaceUnit
Homelessness is a huge problem in Denver. And it’s spreading out into the burbs now. Obviously there’s all sorts of things that cause homelessness, but even if you had a magic wand that could fix all the broken people and even if you gave them all 20k to start a new life, you would still have about 5,000 people in this town who have nowhere to live because the housing just doesn’t exist.
strange visitor (from another planet)
they don’t put fruit bearing trees on public streets specifically BECAUSE city planners don’t WANT poor people eating the bounty. apparently, feeding people reduces their initiative.
Starfish
The west coast leaves its homeless on the street while a lot of non-profits make money not solving the problem when the east coast co-ordinates its services.
We are very weak on services for mental health care and drug addiction. None of it is at a price point where the people who need it most can afford it.
BellyCat
Poverty grinds people down in every imaginable way. Existential panic does terrible things to all. Being intermittently poor is actually a kind of gift that permits insight and compassion for this condition.
bbleh
… there is no easy solution and when there is, someone screams socialism and well there goes that fucking idea.
THAT, I think, has been a VERY big part of The Problem for a VERY long time. The good news is, I think it’s changing. I don’t think “socialism” (or “communism”) has nearly the punch it used to have, and for an increasing number of people it’s not a bad thing at all. Like, for all the scorn “Obamacare” gets from a vocal — and increasingly small — minority, it’s VERY popular and for good reason. And then there’s SOCIAL security, not to mention Medicare.
“Oh, you don’t like socialism? What about Medicare? You’re ON Medicare, right?” “Oh yes but I paid for it.” “Well DUH, that’s what socialism IS — we all pay into good things and we all get good things. It just evens out the bumps. You have fire insurance, right? If your house burns down, you’re gonna get more than you paid in, right? We share the burden, right?”
Yeah you can’t fix stupid. But I don’t think collective solutions — including but not limited to risk spreading — are nearly as toxic as they used to be.
Starfish
@SpaceUnit: One of my former coworkers in Denver lost his job in early COVID and is homeless. We tried to help in small ways, but big mental illness that is not consistently treated is hard.
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue: I read that earlier today. Also in that NPR story:
Steven Cheung. How do you know he’s lying? His lips are moving.
Mousebumples
I saw something on bsky earlier that Reagan had his own HERITAGE CREATED Project 2025 like thing.
But, yes, Reagan is the source of so much terribleness.
Now to go find that link again..
Eta –
SpaceUnit
@Starfish:
The city of Denver is actually trying to address the problem.
Most of the other municipalities that make up the greater metro area have caps, moratoriums and strict zoning restrictions that make it very hard to build affordable housing.
ETA: You can build all the condos, townhouses and single family homes you want. But apartments? Nope. Government subsidized section 8 housing? Fuck no.
Hungry Joe
POSTCARD UPDATE — SERIES 2
Postcards to Swing States:
Yesterday — 6
Running total — 53
satby
This is a great ad from Monica Tramel in Montana, describing one aspect of the local housing crisis there. I wish more people realized how much of the crisis is the outcome of policies passed by Republicans out to personally enrich themselves while pricing unit out of the reach of average people.
Maxim
Long term: teach empathy in schools, starting in kindergarten. It works, which is why it’s become a 4-letter word on the right and why they’re trying to ban social-emotional learning, which is a related skill set.
Mousebumples
@Hungry Joe: thanks for the inspiration! I need to get Thank You notes for my daughter’s last day at Wrap Care, for her teachers, but I should do that next!
Percysowner
For those who think the Cybertruck doesn’t provide enough protection from the bad guys, US Armor Group has the car for you.
With all the addons it’s only $475,000.
I can’t imagine being paranoid or rich enough to buy this.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Mousebumples: … “conservative thought leaders”.
There’s an oxymoron for you. Even in 1980, much moreso today.
Craig
@satby: Yes. Reagan, mourning in America indeed. He and his cronies destroyed this country. In California we have a sprawling homeless problem. Reagan started that rolling as Governor by closing mental health facilities rather than reforming them.
dmsilev
@Scout211:
He’s a perfect fit for his job, I’ll give him that.
Starfish
@SpaceUnit: Oh, you fancy people! You can build condos and townhouses and not just pretend that they don’t exist so you can crank up your already exorbitant property values.
People keep saying “Build!” and all that gets built are million dollar condos.
satby
@strange visitor (from another planet): Fruit bearing trees are messy, get infested with bugs if they aren’t cared for, and left to “just grow” will cease to produce the kinds of fruit you would want to eat in a few years*. We’re unaccustomed to eating small, native, non-hybrid fruits now. Pretty much every fruit you get at the store is hybridized far beyond what it started as.
* I have 5 fruit trees in my yard. They’re a lot of work for very little reward, honestly. Only the crabapples are reliable producers without massive pruning and pest prevention.
bbleh
@HumboldtBlue: @Scout211: heh heh heh. well, boys will be boys, you know! plus also President something something Our Troops something, so what’s a few rules broken, misdemeanors committed, military cemetery personnel assaulted, whatever, amirite? let’s not make a big fuss out of it! after all, it’s not like somebody hid top-level classified secrets in his bathroom or anything, right?!? haw haw haw!!
Ksmiami
I’ll just chime in and say a universal income for every U.S. citizen would be easy to administer and would go a long and dignified way to help. And compared to wealth created in this country we could give everyone a million dollars and the program would cost half a billion- Pennies compared to what we spend on defense
Suzanne,
Because you have to pay people to pick that fruit, and no one wants to do that.
In one of my favorite dumb zoning rules stories, Phoenix has an area that used to be primarily citrus groves, but has been pretty rapidly developed in the last few years. So, to “honor the regional historical character”, they have an overlay district rule mandating that every commercial development has to have a certain amount of citrus trees. Except that the developers don’t want to deal with that. Citrus trees use a lot of water, and they require a bunch of maintenance, and they don’t grow fast so there’s not much shade, and once they start producing fruit, there’s a lot. And no developer wants to deal with oranges falling on people’s cars and shit. So they apparently use some citrus tree that they bred to not bear fruit. So. Great job. We get some dumbass rule — because citrus are not native and they use a ton of water — and the end result is more money spent on a worse outcome.
Pete Downunder
My late father once said that after he quit smoking he discovered that for years he’d been eating food he didn’t like.
SpaceUnit
@Starfish:
To be fair, I’m probably just as much a nimby as anyone else. I live in a condo right next to a park and I’ve got a million-dollar view. If they razed the park to put up a bunch of high-rise tenements I’d be pretty upset.
I get that people want to protect their property value and quality of life.
Oh, and by million-dollar I don’t mean that my condo is actually worth a million. It just has an incredible view.
Ohio Mom
Poverty is my biggest fear for Ohio Son. There’s only so much (that is, not much) money we can sock/shelter away for him.
Very importantly, Social Security and Medicare have lots of rules that basically require poverty, including caps on how much money you can earn without losing benefits. Those benefits include health coverage and the social workers who will look after him.
Being poor without an end in sight is debilitating, and if you are able to manage anywhere near well, it takes smarts, creativity, and cunning. Which are not adjectives I would use to describe my kid.
Oh well.
mrmoshpotato
@japa21: Dropped to 75 with these thunderstorms rolling through. 🎉
Fuck that heatwave (and my most-likely broken AC.)
Geminid
@Percysowner: Sounds like that tricked-out Lucid is made to be a status symbol, a form of conspicuous consumption.
Jay
@Percysowner:
The “norm” with “protected vehicles” is they look just like a Luxury Car or SUV. You can tell the difference on a road scale. That way the people targeting you don’t know if it’s a Mercedes 500SEL or an armored Mercedes 500 SEL.
The WankPanzer 2000 how ever, advertises from miles away that it’s just begging for an IED, RPG or Javelin missile.
satby
Also, the FBI just raided RealPage’s corporate offices to investigate rental price fixing. Never heard of them? They’re a huge reason why rents have become so unaffordable the last few years. Pro-Publica has the story.
Math Guy
It is easier to raise a healthy, well-educated child than it is to fix a broken adult. In the long run, providing good pre-natal care, child care, education (with free school breakfast and lunch), and decent health care is more cost effective than not doing so.
different-church-lady
The answer is: convincing people to vote for policy makers who will fix it.
I know… easier said than done.
caphilldcne
@HumboldtBlue: sadly these people are playing Calvinball and the Supreme Court injustices will let them do it.
Suzanne,
@strange visitor (from another planet): “They” don’t put fruit trees on public streets because they require maintenance, make a mess on sidewalks, and most cities don’t have the resources to deal with it.
And it only takes one incident to scrap an initiative. I have seen it happen. One tree falls on a car or someone gets sick from eating a rotten apple and it’s over.
satby
@Ohio Mom: There’s a conservator trust of some kind, which you probably have already set up for him. We had one for my sister, primarily so she could be in a better nursing home than just public benefits would cover for the last years of her life. Her conservator, her son, managed the trust. She never had access to it or controlled it so it never put her benefits in danger.
Jay
We know how to fix the unhoused problem, we just arn’t willing to do it.
There are more “reasons” for not doing it than doing it.
satby
@Math Guy: You do know that even with all that mental illness can strike, right?
HumboldtBlue
SpaceUnit
On the upside, not wanting affordable housing in our neighborhoods is the one thing Republicans and Democrats agree on.
Math Guy
@satby: Yes, and a decent society would care for those afflicted with mental or physical illness. But investing in our children is, in the long run, is cheaper.
George
@strange visitor (from another planet): Fruit bearing trees are not a good part of urban forestry because they require more care than non-fruit bearing trees. And the fruit rots on sidewalks and in park strips, drawing in rodents. No one wants to, or should, eat fruit that has been nibbled by rodents.Public orchards that can be well-maintained by volunteers would be a different story. Edit: I see Suzanne and satby beat me to the punch.
satby
@SpaceUnit: Weird. Both in my hometown of Chicago and here in South Bend, mixed income developments have been going up for at least a decade, replacing the vertical slums that were the 1960s version of affordable housing. Because it turned out that isolating poor people away from the rest of us was bad for all of us.
Michael Bersin
A year ago we had a dustup here in west central Missouri over homeless people using the regional library branch locations, like, you know, everyone else.
Forget the homeless and the unhoused, our society has even bigger problems * (June 30, 2023)
The good lord blesses public libraries and the librarians that staff them.
One of the administrators of a small local shelter pointed out that 80% of the instances of unhoused individuals/families in our locale could be solved by giving temporary assistance for rent when a tenant has a financial crisis – like the choice between a car repair so they can get to work (and getting evicted) or paying rent (and losing their job when they can’t get to work). She pointed out that helping people at the margins with that temporary assistance helps keeps them homed – it’s a relatively minimal cost and a great social/humane benefit.
I learned a lot at the town hall and other meetings.
Craig
@Suzanne,: WOW! Ugh. I have a pretty good sized orange tree in my backyard, but it’s Oakland. It just grows, I get tons of cue ball sized great tasting oranges for most of the year. And yeah, somebody has to pick ’em; off the tree, or off the ground. I’ve got a picker and try to drop bags at my favorite bars, the community garden next door, and trade with my neighbor for her Meyer lemons, but damn, sometimes I’m just picking old ones off the ground and bining them.
Jeffro
It’s supposed to hit a high of 102 degrees here tomorrow, in central VA.
There’s no escaping climate change and global warming, folks. Earthquakes, sure. ‘Tornado Alley’, easy. Hurricanes? Pretty easy to do (except for when they wander way inland, and flood stuff).
But there’s no way out of it except the obvious: switch to a green energy economy as fast as possible, and throw all kinds of resources into mitigating the Great Transition.
For the next 20 years or more, it’ll be hot. Oddly enough, each year will also be the coolest one we’ll have…until the next one.
Gretchen
People keep asking why they youngs aren’t having kids. My daughter has an infant and a 2yo and daycare is $4000 a month for the two of them in our not-very-expensive city. I saw someone today saying a family of 4 ought to be doing just fine if they make $75,000 a year. Oh really? On the $27,000 they have left after they pay for daycare? Or the $17,000 they have left after they rent a 2 bedroom apartment? Just put the car repairs on the charge card, don’t take the baby to the doctor when they get sick because you can’t afford the $30 copay and the $20 prescription?
Ksmiami
@Michael Bersin: that’s why I think endowing every American with an emergency fund, no strings attached would actually solve a lot and sure some ppl would make dumb decisions etc, but if it helps reduce poverty and homelessness, why not try
Michael Bersin
@Ksmiami:
Bingo!
Gretchen
@Michael Bersin: our son had to move, needed last month’s rent at the old place, first, last, security deposit at the new place. He’s got a decent job but needed us to spot him several thousand dollars to keep him housed. We can’t really afford it – we’re retired and we’re not going to be adding to the nest egg – but we’re not willing for him to live in his unworking car.
Jeffro
And since that last climate change note was so gloomy-doomy, let me just add on a positive note: many of my neighbors are on a tear with letting most of their yards go back to nature, planting native plants and grasses, stopping the use of pesticides and fertilizers, etc.
Over half the development has solar power, in part or in full(!) Here at the Fro household, we haven’t had an electric bill in over four years now, and we actually make money selling the excess back to the grid (thank you, VA Dems, for passing that legislation!)
Despite the severe drought, I hardly see any watering going on. Oh well lawn, we’ll see you next year.
And on and on. There’s good stuff going on – it’s just hard to see and appreciate, sometimes!
the pollyanna from hell
I am poor. Gloria Drygarden is poor. We talk almost every day by phone, but we are an ex-couple because I don’t feel I can be the ally she needs while I am poor. Poverty destroys family and community.
SpaceUnit
@satby:
Yeah. I was being a little tongue-in-cheek.
Jeffro
@Michael Bersin: yup – VASTLY cheaper to keep people homed while they sort things out.
(see also, “Evicted”, by Matthew Desmond)
Craig
@Jeffro: my mom lives outside RVA and it blows my mind when she tells me multiple times a year about tornados and tornado warnings. The whole time I grew up there had zero tornado warnings.
Nelle
I highly recommend Poverty, by America (Matthew Desmond). I just finished listening to it and it’s not long. He emphasized the necessity of strengthening the unions as well as correcting an unbalanced tax structure that funnels more money to those who have. Poverty is very expensive for all of us.
Michael Bersin
@Gretchen:
Barbara Ehrenreich described exactly this in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001).
Nelle
@Gretchen: We moved to Iowa to help take care of grandchildren (two days a week) and cover when the kids are sick so that the parents don’t have to miss work. In my small neighborhood, I’ve met five other retired couples who have moved to be closer to grandchildren and most do some part time child care. I’m told that it is too much for us at our ages (73 and 80). On the other hand, I’m more fit than I was ten years ago; I had to go back to the gym to be strong enough to keep the little ones safe. But the costs of child care are overwhelming.
hitchhiker
I don’t think people with stable families who live in stable neighborhoods can ever imagine not having that context. Even if you leave home and completely “make your own way,” that shit exists as the backdrop against which you move and breathe. Stability exists. You know that it’s there even if you never take advantage of it. That is just a different way of being in the world.
My people could not take care of me and my seven siblings. Mostly they gave up — they knew what they were supposed to be doing, but just could not. Coming out of a situation like that and walking into adulthood is a high wire act every day: which dozen of a hundred important things will I fail to understand in time to fix it? How bad will the crash be, and how will I recover, and how will I hide the latest failure?
In my early 30s I married my 3rd husband, whose life had been shaped by more than his share of wretched luck, but who had never for one moment had to consider what it might be like to have nothing and nowhere to go and no idea how to get there anyway. At some point during our courtship it was like a big curtain came down behind me, and I understood that now I would be one of those people who did not have to worry ever again about being homeless. Ever. My backdrop was changed, so I was changed.
Simple.
This is what I think is missing from every conversation about how to “deal with” homelessness and poverty. We’re fucking it up because we really don’t believe that every person has value. We just don’t. We expect people to somehow prove their worth and earn generosity points, instead of assuming that we all have worth and acting accordingly. As David Simon once said in an interview, poor people are not stupid. They know there’s no place for them, no jobs for them, and they can see that no one wants to deal with them.
piratedan
@Craig: you might check with the local government entity or food bank to see if they have a gleaning program. When I lived in the city (Tucson), I had a mature older grapefruit tree that would kick off at least 500lb of grapefruit annually. When it got close to time, I would contact them to come and collect the fruit and get a receipt for an in kind donation. Less wasted fruit and it went to a place where it would do the most good.
Gloria DryGarden
@satby: reversing the shit Reagan did would be good. Some people need their institutions.
and fairness in reporting, I want that back. Even if it’s trickier cuz of all the internet streaming.
there ARE communities w public green spaces growing food.
does John cole write all those slogans going by up on the mast head? Pretty entertaining stuff..
Anoniminous
@Math Guy:
Yup.
But as the Clintons said “the era of Big Government is over” so everybody has to eat shit so the 1% can maximize profits.
Chet Murthy
@Gretchen: I remember in the early 90s, people were talking about how Germany and *esp* Italy weren’t having kids. I visited a uni in northern Italy, was taken to dinner by a prof and his family (wife, 2 kids, one a baby) and the way that basically every woman in the restaurant just went like a beeline for the baby when we entered was stunning. B/c so few babies. So few babies.
And I learned that France was different, b/c the French government had made a -point- of making sure that day care and preschool were available for all French families at low cost. So the French continued having babies.
I mean, it’s not hard to do the math. Sigh. Unless one is the sort who thinks that whips and manacles are part of the math, I guess.
the pollyanna from hell
@Gloria DryGarden:
Everybody writes, curates, and nominates them to John, or more productively to wg.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
The “ticker” is basically community nominated pithy sayings from commenters.
Chet Murthy
[deleted b/c superfluous]
eclare
@Michael Bersin:
That was a great book.
Gloria DryGarden
@piratedan: I wish your grapefruit tree could grow in my city. Our food banks get a lot of food rescue, leftovers from a farmers market, gardeners who grow extra on purpose. Young people on bikes w a wagon come pick stuff up. There’s a company called “we don’t waste” that connects w many collections, and they supply many smaller foodbanks around town, as well as offering regular weekly food distribution.
I have seen many amazing foods at the food banks I go to, because broke/ edge of poverty. Sandwiches, meats, produce, sometimes organic produce, salads, drinks, dairy, amidst ordinary SAD stuff, sometimes allergen free stuff, spices, coffee, and even, once in awhile, yes-there -is-a-god, chocolate. Cookies, chips. Sometimes almost nothing desirable, so one has to keep going. This week I am eating the little chocolate quinoa cookies that they serve on united airlines. There were boxes of them.
a lot of cities are getting way better about the food gleaning and rescue. It helps so much!
john cole, I did lose my hot water heater and my furnace last year. I had to get help to pay for them, it was a bear, took some effort, and fight. So I know how a person can get too tired to keep fighting anymore.
wjca
As @VFX Lurker: implies above, a big part of the homeless problem is a lack of housing. Not even, necessarily, a lack of affordable housing. Just a flat out lack of housing relative to the population.
If you’re going to pass a bill to “do something” about homelessness, think seriously about creating more housing — which, let’s face it, costs significantly less than putting people up in jail cells.
Gloria DryGarden
@SpaceUnit: not in my back yard, nimby.
Is what they call it, In community discussions around Denver, where we have had so many encampments in very public visible places, and yet where are people to go?
I can’t even donate my B tent, because when cops come break up an encampment, they throw everything in the trash.
Gloria DryGarden
@wjca: housing first seems to be what I hear, when I’ve been at community meetings. Like, first, housing, then work on the rest of what us needed.
Mai Naem mobile
The poor get penalized for being poor and the rich get rewarded for being rich. Sometimes in small stupid little ways. The banks with long wait times in the poorer neighborhoods..The lack of big grocery stores in poor neighborhoods. Corner stores in poor neighborhoods which charge more for their goods. Having money to buy in bulk at Costco/Sam’s Club which is cheaper. Having the money to buy the tire warranty so you don’t have to pay for a new tire all over again. Gas prices being higher in poor neighborhoods. Depending on public transportation with limited running times which limit job opportunities. Having a tax deduction for car registration/mortgage interest deduction. Check cashing fees when you don’t have a checking account. Not having the money for expenses so more likely to bounce a check leading to not having a checking account. Let’s not even talk about having any even minor legal issues. Another black hole for money.
Timill
@Ksmiami: Um, what? Split half a billion between the population of the USA and that’s about $1.50 each, not a million…
$iM per family will cost about $85 trillion (85,000,000,000,000)
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Percysowner: holy shit, we ‘re living in delta city!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMtqRir7dco
wjca
At a Federal level, sure. But just for the record, in California the elimination of state mental hospitals happened earlier and was driven by progressives. The argument was that it would be better to have the mentally ill in “community care” than to have them isolated in the hospitals. Which might even have some merit, although the advocates didn’t feel moved to do little things like trial programs, to see if it actually worked.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of magical thinking involved. No provision was made for housing in the community. No provision for mental health care there either. So we went from a flawed solution to a major disaster, both for the mentally ill and for the communities.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Starfish:
Exactly. “Market Urbanists” (they go by another name but if I mention that, it brings even more of them out…and now just wait for the usual suspects in here to take the typical “reply guy” approach to get the last word in in 3…2…1) run Denver, it’s basically a pro-development, hyper-gentrification approach pushed by self-professed “progressives” working on creating an Exclusively White, Urban-Living Theme Park. Black and Brown folks here (and in every metro area or state that deals with this) know them for what they are and push back as best they can while being displaced on a daily basis.
Denver’s trying some things specifically aimed at the homeless issue, but in terms of it’s approach to development and housing, it’s pro-developer, market-rate-cures-everything bullshit that has nothing to do with the homeless. Many of us here have spent the last 4 years pushing back on these racially tone deaf, entitled white “progressives”.
Their “brand” has become toxic to a degree (the founder of the local cult took down their original FB page prior to running for City Council because it had years of ableist, ageist and bigoted commentary–and made it impossible to see who were members or followed it), not only here but elsewhere. But, they own our Great White Dope of a Mayor and 4 city council people outright. We’re the face of the party that’s lost.
And we have “valued commenters” here that have been pushing this bullshit for years (it’s why I started commenting after close to 15 years of mostly lurking) and it’s no surprise they are in this thread tonight. They also happen to be the same Loyal-Dems-But/Tonya Harding Dems crowd. No shock there.
Reminder everybody: the people nationally and in here pushing this market urbanist bullshit are pushing something that was originally started as an astroturf group in CA funded mostly by Peter Thiel.
That’s right, people in an almost Top 10000 blog who will join in bashing glibertarian billionaires like him actively promote an agenda he and others (the Kochs are also big players) have massively funded since the beginning.
And when this is pointed out, their only answer is “SQUIRREL!!!!” Basically they say “well, our approach sucks [although we’ll never admit that] but what’s yours?” as opposed to trying to defend something that has *always* had the exact opposite of what they claim it to be. They’re always trying to bait one into debating them on terms they set. Fuck that shit, they need to be stopped.
The issues are more fundamental then the bullshit “zoning reform” these clowns push for on behalf of developers. They’ve succeeded in the push for the commodification of housing and never look at the issue of income inequality as another underlying factor in the *affordable* housing crisis.
Glibertarians wound up a crop of mostly white, entitled bros (but not exclusively, the original head of the CA astroturf group was a woman active in libertarian politics), who were already predisposed to be pricks and told them they’re doing the work of MLK Jr on housing.
These are either people on the real estate industry payroll in one form or another (planners, developers, builders, real estate agents, architects, etc) or people too clueless to know that the only folks who say these things are being paid.
And the developers are laughing at the latter group from their mountain homes in Telluride, or Aspen, or a yacht.
These people promote something funded by the cringiest people (Thiel, etc) on the planet. It’s intended to create wealth thru increased commodification of housing that is pushed by the most powerful financial actors and promoted by the biggest newspapers and enacted by big city mayors and loads of electeds. It’s a movement to lift market controls supposedly to address a manufactured scarcity rather than prevent more manufactured scarcity. As I said before, it’s pro-commodification and that’s a massive part of the problem.
The Proud Boys of Real Estate.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Suzanne,: lots of things “require maintenance”. functional cities pay for most of them. it could be a WPA style way to put people to work, but for some reason…no.
SpaceUnit
@Gloria DryGarden:
I know. It’s heartbreaking.
BR
@satby:
That’s not universally true about fruit trees. I have planted public orchards of hundreds of fruit trees, but you have to choose the species properly. Stone fruit are a mess and don’t work in public orchards. We’re lucky in California to have a huge range of options that can grow on the streetside / in public space and not be a problem, and produce fruit around the year — Apples, Avocados, Citrus (Oranges, Lemons, Grapefruit, Limes, etc.), Persimmons, Pineapple Guavas, and a bunch of others. All of these when mature in coastal areas of California will grow without irrigation. Plus if there’s irrigation, Bananas are great.
One of my biggest frustrations is the idea of turning empty urban land into community gardens where folks get a little plot to grow veggies. Veggies always take more work than perennials (fruit trees especially), and that work falls on the few dedicated people who keep the community garden going, or the whole thing ends up as weeds. We’d be far better off with low-maintenance fruit trees in cities.
Trivia Man
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Phillip Morris owned Kraft, then they bought Nabisco and went from Really Big to Enormous. But Kraft spun off and went public about 2008. Annual revenue at the time was about $55 billion – that is a lot of food of all kinds. You would be hard pressed to name 10 common grocery brands without naming several of their products. Including Miller beer, another so-called vice.
A couple years later Kraft split in 2 – Mondelez took the cookies, crackers, gum, coffee, and all international. Kraft kept the grocery items like meat, cheese, and capri sun. Mondelez was about 2/3 of the original pile.
In 2016 Heinz and 3G capital from Brazil, with help from Buffet, bought out Kraft. Funny direction – Kraft was like 3x the size of Heinz. And that is where it is now. Plenty of junk fod, but the cigarette connection is long gone.
Citizen Alan
@Craig: The primary reason why I am not an atheist, I think, is that I cling to the belief that there is a hell for people like reagan. I don’t think I could face living in this world if I were forced to accept the idea that the evil people that are responsible for the vast majority of our suffering will never ever face any sort of accountability, if only in the afterlife.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Gloria DryGarden:
Where do you live in Denver? I’m on two Registered Neighborhood Org boards and what you describe is something we try to navigate on a regular basis. The most progressive City Council person who was trying to make a difference was ousted last year, helped by $800K of dark money from a developer in order to put in a market urbanist clown…who lives 4 blocks from me.
If you’d like to get together sometime (hell, come over, I’ll make dinner), that would be great. Water Girl has facilitated several of us in Denver meeting offline.
Trivia Man
@wjca: My memory is that Reagan was governor of CA when they did that. It may have been proposed by progressives but I bet devil ronnie made it worse.
Chet Murthy
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis
Apropos of “the market can do no wrong”, here’s an article I saw in the Guardian back in the spring. It’s about how the UK government solved the problem of inadequate housing, back in the 60s, only to undo the solution under Thatcher. Basically, no more buy-to-let housing: you can buy a place to live in, but that’s it. And crank up the taxes and such on rental housing, to force landlords to sell off. And it apparently worked! Until … haha, Thatcher decided to rip it all down.
Josie
Two things that America does not do well – lift up people out of poverty and make it easier to have and raise children. Of course there are other problems that need to be solved, but these two are not that difficult to figure out, and yet we have not made it happen.
Craig
@Citizen Alan: I feel you. Agreed.
Ruckus
John, I live in LA county and have to cross it somewhat often for the VA. I take the Metro rail system, all electric and it takes me almost all the way across LA county for 30 cents. The bus on each end is more. The parking at the train station is $3/day. And some of the passengers are less than delightful, although mostly everything is fine. Been riding for almost a decade and have never seen any real problems and have met some very nice people.
All of this is to discuss poverty. There are people that ride for free and do so because it’s air conditioned and likely a better place to sleep than the sidewalk. LA county has what almost 9.75 million people living here – and I imagine that the homeless are mostly not being counted in that number. Now there are deputies/police on board at times and often at some stations. And ridding for free is discouraged. There are also some concepts of helping the homeless here in LA. There have been built a number of mini homes, which are rather small separate homes – one group is https://hopethemission.org/our-programs/tiny-homes. Search LA tiny homes. 62 sq feet with some common services, some place for the homeless to live. I used to own a business very close to LA downtown and used to see a fair number of people that had no place to live other than the street. Encampments under raised freeways was a place, not a very good one and now I see modern tents on some streets, I think someone is providing them, the homeless certainly aren’t buying them. I imagine that in any large city there will be homeless. Most of the one’s I’ve seen when I traveled all around this country for work for 8 months or more a year for a decade have homeless, I’ve seen them ride the raised commuter train in Chicago years ago and almost every large city has some visible.
wjca
I can imagine being rich enough to buy this. What I can’t imagine is being dumb enough to waste so much money. (You don’t stay rich wasting money on nonsense.)
Manyakitty
I think they’ve made some progress in Utah, too. They repurposed abandoned hotels and motels, staffed them with social workers and provided access to services. The residents had to apply and follow the stated rules (not religious, even though there’s no way the LDS church wasn’t involved). Ultimately, they discovered that if you treat people like… people, they’re more likely to succeed. It takes a while and I don’t think there are time limits as such, but it really makes a difference. Can’t easily get a job without an address, this gives them one. Offers stable transportation. Laundry facilities and supplies. Pantries and closets. Life skills. And so on.
wjca
Sorry. I have no use for Reagan; never have. But while he may have signed the legislation doing this, the bill was written and passed by the Democrats in the legislature.
Chet Murthy
@wjca: This isn’t an excuse, but: the Great Sort had only just started, and there were a ton of Dixiecrats still left in the Democratic Party. Took 30 more years to get most of ’em out.
Gloria DryGarden
@wjca: whoever did it, we oughtta reverse it.
Btw, there a new movie being advertised, about Reagan. The actor got his voice fine, smooth, soothing, and I don’t trust him. Nit sure I’ll be able to stomach it. Someone give me report, once it comes out.
Gloria DryGarden
@Maxim: we do teach empathy in schools. And sometimes there’s an itinerant expert, or a curriculum fir the classroom teacher, to teach social emotional learning. Plus we build it in, during situations, always a learning opportunity. Rewards fir student if the day, cuz they showed caring, now they get to wear suoerman dose fir he day. Or for the hour. If you rotate through several kids a day, you can give pos reinforcement to everyone in a week.
It gives me hope. People need those skills.
Ohio Mom
@satby: Yeah, we have a family trust and a special needs trust, and people in our families who are supposed to take over but I don’t trust any of them to actually step up.
Ohio Mom
@Gloria DryGarden: I have a friend who is very into the Housing First movement so now I know a little about it.
Such a simple idea: give homeless people places to live. Then you can start helping them address their other issues. But first as roof over their head.
And it works! Not 100% but nothing is going to be 100%. People are able to start pulling their lives together.
wjca
Agree completely. But any time it is suggested, there’s a contest between our RWNJ Republicans and our progressive Democrats to see who can denounce the very idea most vigorously. The progressives have the numbers, so they typically win on volume.
But spend the money needed to create the community care originally proposed? No way! I guess it’s more important to spend big bucks on a high speed rail project that, even if it ever gets built (not the way I’d bet), won’t get significant use because it doesn’t go anywhere useful,
Gloria DryGarden
Sorry, my tablet swallowed this post. Disappeared once I posted it. Never mind. Sigh.
My dog ate my homework is nothing to it.
Gloria DryGarden
@wjca: wasn’t it in Utah, see manyakitty’s post, that they did a cost analysis, that it was cheaper to foot the bill fir housing than for jail and emergency room care? I heard it was working. But I haven’t followed up
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: just east of Quebec, out past park hill. They used to call it east Montclair, but someone clever, and new, decided to call my neighborhood east colfax. Good grief.
dinner would be lovely. Whereabouts are you? And who’s this we lost on city council? I tried to learn a lot before the last election, what a bunch of complexities that was.
wjca
@Gloria DryGarden:
If someone, somewhere actually did an analysis, good on them. And if they actually funded and implemented it? I’m seriously impressed.
We’d never adopt something that had merely been shown to work by damn furriners. But something from another state does, occasionally, slip thru the Not Invented Here defenses. Here’s hoping.
TBone
I haven’t followed this Finland success story lately, but here’s how they tackled homelessness:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-for-january-26-2020-1.5429251/housing-is-a-human-right-how-finland-is-eradicating-homelessness-1.5437402
Gloria DryGarden
Re well adjusted children raised by supported resourced parents. Yes indeed, important. And like someone said, you still get special needs and mental health situations.
Also, I want to emphatically add, not forcing people to have children, who dont want to or feel unable to have them and raise them. Unwanted children, or kids w parents w no clue how to parent.. they are, I’m pretty sure, part of the behavior challenges we see every day at school. Not all of it, of course, kids are kids, they’re learning.
Hungry Joe
Another way it simply costs more to be poor: My credit cards give me “rewards” of anywhere from 1% to 3% on just about everything I buy; I get a not-poor discount. And a lot of times I get a 10% senior discount, just because I’m an old guy. This probably started when senior poverty was a bigger problem than it is today, but why does it persist? I’d like to see discounts for younger people — say, under 30. They’re the ones hurting these days.
Chet Murthy
How strange, it appears that comments on Tony Jay’s Brexitania post have stopped at #15. I commented, and it didn’t appear, and no new comments on that post since 11:19pm ET.
Gloria DryGarden
@Michael Bersin: brilliant!
in Denver there’s some newer law that people can’t sleep in public places. Once I was sitting reading at my library, and a guy was asleep sitting stretched out in the chair next to me. He was quiet. It was snowing. The librarian çame and woke him, to tell him he couldn’t sleep. No doubt, policy required it, and the law, but it bothered me. I don’t imagine he was sleeping well outside in the cold at nights. I would have been quite happy to sit there holding space for him to be safe and get some rest.
i wish I had dared to ask the librarian to postpone waking him.
Jay
@Chet Murthy:
Working now.
Gloria DryGarden
@BR: I feel uplifted by your comment.
There are apple trees on the streets, or overhanging fences in Denver. Sometimes a plum, or an apricot. I go pick them sometimes, at the right time
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: wow, your comment is #108, that’s a sacred completion number. And at 12:12, how cool. Gonna read it later.
success in Finland, or anywhere, it’s uplifting
–Im still on about hope as a quality if not a strategy.–
plus it keeps my mind out of the gutter
(unless I’m learning about them in a Tim walz video)
Gloria DryGarden
@Ksmiami: could use a million dollars. I’d use it wisely, too. Promise.
Belafon
Texas has skipped screaming socialism and gone straight to “We’re Republicans and it’s anti-Christian to give homeless people money” to stop cities from trying to actually fix the problem.
BR
@Gloria DryGarden:
Great to hear. I wish folks would plant front yard / sidewalk / parkway fruit trees everywhere.
Manyakitty
@Gloria DryGarden: yes, pretty sure you’re right about that.
Gloria DryGarden
@Mai Naem mobile: not just banks w long lines. Voter suppression shit, like fewer polling places in poorer neighborhoods, esp targeting poc. Less ballot drop off places. Etc.
Gloria DryGarden
@Mai Naem mobile: not just banks w long lines. Voter suppression shit, like fewer polling places in poorer neighborhoods, esp targeting poc. Less ballot drop off places. Etc.
@hitchhiker: amen
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: that’s a super man cape, for showing care, or other teamwork in the classroom
Gretchen
@Gloria DryGarden: My grandson is on the spectrum and not great with social skills. Part of his IEP involves « friendship class » . It’s really helped. Some kids have to be taught these things, and they can be taught. And the right wants to ban them like it’s going to make them commies or something.
Gretchen
Why is the right so passionately opposed to social emotional learning? Because if the misfit kids learn how to make friends and everyone stands up for each other there won’t be anybody to bully? Grandson’s school is also pretty proactive about bullying. I thought it was that way everywhere now, but just heard that someone threatened to get a gun and blow my great nephews f-ing head off and the school was just, kids say stuff. They moved him to another school.
Gretchen
Why is the right so passionately opposed to social emotional learning? Because if the misfit kids learn how to make friends and everyone stands up for each other there won’t be anybody to bully? Grandson’s school is also pretty proactive about bullying. I thought it was that way everywhere now, but just heard that someone threatened to get a gun and blow my great nephews f-ing head off and the school was just, kids say stuff. They moved him to another school.
@Gretchen:
Gloria DryGarden
@Gretchen: good heavens!
I’ve seen autism children go off with the psychologist, and heard a little about what they work on.
Recognizing facial expressions, recognizing emotions, in others or themselves, was the theme for one child, kindergarten age. With spectrum, each child is on their own development time line. I’m so glad your grandson gets friendship group training. How sweet. People need help w different things. It’s cra cra, the movement to not teach this stuff.
(like jdv, or orange cheeto couldn’t learn a little empathy? I sure wish they’d had a chance to, before they became such purveyors of ill wishing and etc.)
Ruckus
@Craig:
One of the reasons we have homeless is the shear number of people in LA County. 9.75 million. I doubt that there are enough jobs for this many people. Now a not unreasonable percentage of that 9.75 million is retired but still, it’s a large number. And notice of course that the population of the country has also grown, are there enough jobs? I seriously doubt that there are enough for everyone. OTOH, it is a rather nice place to live.
Ruckus
@hitchhiker:
Part of what makes this worse is that so many people don’t have a clue what they want to do for a living until they get to early adulthood. And it’s likely they never will. So what happens is that they have a difficult or impossible time making ends meet which makes things worse and once it gets bad enough, it is almost impossible to do enough to fix it. We have a such a wealth inequality that it can be impossible to fix. And a lot of that changed with the maximum tax rate being lowered. So we have millions of people with little way to get to reasonable, so they don’t and still costs go up. Which makes the situation worse and the rich – richer. Which makes the situation worse. You can see how this circle goes around for a while till it gets so bad, that it’s almost unfixable.
Ksmiami
@Timill: 330 million get a million each over time, not at once. So it’s 10 k per 1/2 yr. Sorry, I should have been more specific
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: there needs to be a better plan for the post ai society. Even white collared workers will be displaced
cmorenc
@narya:
Postal banking is a nice idea, but how does it get paid for? Postal banking would require hiring the requisite additional $taffing. If you’ve been to a post office lately, they often are very busy places with significant 15-minute lines waiting for the two available clerks serving folks sending parcels and certified mail. Although the majority of carrier-delivered mail is now junk mail adverts, seems that FedEx and UPS have not strangled demand for Post Office parcel services at the customer service window. And so, unless postal banking staffing gets subsidies (either in surcharges to people using the Post Office’s Parcel Service, or from general tax revenue) – postal banking customers will need to be charged the cost to run the banking services – which is pretty much what regular banks are doing unless you are such a big depositer they can comp you because they can reinvest your deposits in revenue-producing loans to other people.
Don’t misunderstand – I agree postal banking is a great idea that would help especially lower-income people. But it’s not somehow a “free” service to provide, it will cost to run and that has to be paid for, somehow.
Elizabelle
@BellyCat:
True. Certainly makes it easier.
Just Some Fuckhead
Who are you again?
wjca
Are you sure their thinking isn’t “We’re Republicans and cities are run by Democrats, so we can let them give homeless people money.”? Wouldn’t want Democrats to be demonstrating that a well run government, as opposed to their poorly run state government, can fix problems.
wjca
How did we pay for it before? It’s not like it’s a radical new idea. We used to do it.
Yeah, you’d need to get rid of DeJoy, but that needs doing anyway. And the increase in the Post Office total budget would be a rounding error in some other budgets.
BellaPea
@HumboldtBlue: I saw an article about this from the WP on my morning news feed. The article had over 8,000 comments–I read several hundred of them and NOT ONE defended the Orange Idiot. Most of the comments condemned him in no uncertain terms, with most saying they were sick of seeing him. It might be a ray of hope.
Bucky Reynolds
Great article.
Paul in KY
@Mai Naem mobile: The law, in its infinite majesty, forbids the rich and poor alike from begging in the streets, sleeping under bridges, etc…
Anatole France, I believe.
chopper
@strange visitor (from another planet):
everything requires maintenance. but cities like to minimize the amount of maintenance they need to do. it’s one of the reasons the local libraries aren’t built out of straw
TerryC
@Hungry Joe: Yep. The safety net for older people right now is amazing if they get good help navigating it. We just convinced my father-in-law and his wife to move into assisted living. It’s an amazing facility with prepared and served meals three times a day and more. They have enough resources to cobble together 24 months of private pay for their new home but after that it will continue to be covered by Medicaid!
I am shocked at how nice it is and how Medicaid will cover it all. Shocked. They were living in hoarder-squalor and from that into extremely nice is startling!