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We have a lot of people that live on the street here in middle Tennessee I have found and getting worse. I know of a mother and her 26 year old son that lives in a car in Florida.
Across some of the biggest U.S. cities, rent prices are continuing to rise for lower-income Americans. Meanwhile, an estimated 553,000 people experienced homelessness in 2018, according to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) data.
Its a real problem, and despite the usual discussions by elected officials to solve the problem nothing changes. Tgere is not one place in the country where minimum wage gets a person an apartment. A possible solution could be using the vast amounts of empty land to build basic housing for people in this situation. There are many cheap yet durable materials that can be used, for those suits in Washington that will howl about costs. People have built tiny homes themselves for a small cost.
The street homeless does not even tell the full story. Many also are "invisible" homeless. They couch surf, live in illegal and unsafe dwellings ( with multiple other people usually) or live in cars and vans. Once in this position, its very hard to get out of it. Even those who work while homeless face challanges that are expensive. Eating out all the time, occasionally having to grab a cheap hotel or hostel, and more medical issues that can result from this life make it hard to save money to escape. The stres is enormous. A large percentage of Americans also live paycheck to paycheck, just one emergency away from disaster.
Best defense is saving money early on in life, which may help during crisis periods like this. Having family and a strong network can help too. Its scary how this can happen to many of us. Life is unpredictable, and something can change very quickly and not for the better.
This should come as no surprise considering the absurd cost of housing in places such as those cited in the article (i.e. NYC, Seattle, LA) mixed with paltry salaries, including those in "professional" occupations.
It’s getting much worse here in “paradise” as well. In yesterday’s paper there was an article about the escalating rents here in SW Florida. Basic three bedrooms will run you well over $1000 a month. Add a pool and you can be up to $1500. Considering the lower wages paid here in Florida the article stated that housing is running as high as 50% of income, which is crazy! I do know how people pay rents like that, which I’m sure is why the homeless population of working people is growing.
since they are homeless, that is sad.
we try to help where we can. one example:
once a month, we pay for and prepare meals
for our local homeless shelter (for men only).
which brings up my enduring question:
why, exactly, are these men (mostly) homeless?
taking their word for it: drugs, drinking, etc.
mental illness is not even in the top five.
if these are actual facts, then i see the
homeless population DEcreasing due to
the high-powered drugs available and
the inevitable overdoses.
which brings up my enduring question:
why, exactly, are these men (mostly) homeless?
The answer is pretty clear in the article cited here and the discussion: earning enough for rent can be difficult to impossible. No need for drugs, alcohol, felony record, mental illness or all the other convenient excuses. People who work, and work hard, and work full time or more, can't afford rent.
I don't think building vast "projects" out in "the empty space" is even on the right road to a solution. If there were jobs out in those empty places, the situation would be self-correcting.
But that's what's become more and more evident: there aren't enough jobs, the number has been declining in real terms for a while, and there is no simple fix.
The answer is pretty clear in the article cited here and the discussion: earning enough for rent can be difficult to impossible. No need for drugs, alcohol, felony record, mental illness or all the other convenient excuses. People who work, and work hard, and work full time or more, can't afford rent.
I don't think building vast "projects" out in "the empty space" is even on the right road to a solution. If there were jobs out in those empty places, the situation would be self-correcting.
But that's what's become more and more evident: there aren't enough jobs, the number has been declining in real terms for a while, and there is no simple fix.
And the jobs that are available don't pay well and many of them are day labor jobs or part time. It's a horrible mess. At my grandson's school a family sleeps in an old RV in front of the school every night. The dad actually has a job and they don't look like drug addicts or alcoholics and it's clear that they make a real effort to send their kids to school in clean clothes. It just makes me feel awful that people have been reduced to that. In this area (suburban Sacramento) four or five years ago you could rent a two bedroom apartment for $700-$900, now they rent for $1300-$1500. I don't know how or when it ends...it's really tragic.
It’s getting much worse here in “paradise” as well. In yesterday’s paper there was an article about the escalating rents here in SW Florida. Basic three bedrooms will run you well over $1000 a month. Add a pool and you can be up to $1500. Considering the lower wages paid here in Florida the article stated that housing is running as high as 50% of income, which is crazy! I do know how people pay rents like that, which I’m sure is why the homeless population of working people is growing.
Miami ranks number one, or was at least, for people spending the highest percent of their income on housing.
LA is right up there with the number of homeless. You can chose between many YouTube videos of all the encampments.
My feeling is that these cities should look at pod housing like in Japan and supply common restrooms. Sewage is a big problem both for the homeless and the residents that have to live and work in that area. Of course there are many homeless that have mental problems and that is harder to address. I would think that there should be some way to put this potential workforce to work cleaning up their area instead of creating squalor? Maybe the cities could have requirements for homeless that wanted a pod to sleep?
The answer is pretty clear in the article cited here and the discussion: earning enough for rent can be difficult to impossible. No need for drugs, alcohol, felony record, mental illness or all the other convenient excuses. People who work, and work hard, and work full time or more, can't afford rent.
I don't think building vast "projects" out in "the empty space" is even on the right road to a solution. If there were jobs out in those empty places, the situation would be self-correcting.
But that's what's become more and more evident: there aren't enough jobs, the number has been declining in real terms for a while, and there is no simple fix.
And so it becomes apparent what affect robotics/automation, offshoring, acceptance of the drug culture, and allowing forty million undocumented aliens into the U.S over the past fifty years has had.
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