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Old 11-23-2022, 08:38 PM
Status: "I know more about hot air than most people do. Lol" (set 14 days ago)
 
Location: Glen Mills
927 posts, read 1,212,882 times
Reputation: 595

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This debate comes to me as a result of witnessing a happening while traveling on business in my near back yard. It was far enough away from my home that I truly never gave a thought. Now I cant stop thinking about it.If Norman Rockwell were to put it to art it would move you.

Here it is. I was driving down a street. A young woman was travelling toward me going up the street towards me. The upset. She was pushing a stroller. She was carrying a satchel. The very most upsetting thing she was carrying was a wash tub. I'm so stupid. Yes those who may have criticized my paragraphing and punctuation I'm
Stupid. It's not how I relate but what I relate I feel important. Here is why I am stupid. I didnt stop. I just drove on. Then it hit me baby stroller -- wash tub
This woman and her child were living on the street. I did go back but it was too late and I couldnt find her. You might think what could I have done anyway. I could have stopped. A child in danger and a mother coping. Housing First satisfies need for shelter then there is at least a place to start. Changing a probable hopeless circumstance could be a young womans start. Every time I think this day I'm sick to my stomach. I hope you might take time go to "you tube" look up Helsinki Homeless rate almost extinguished and the difference of Housing First and continuum of care. One scene that was disturbing was a woman had been shared housing by a friend and the PBS cameraman showed things all strewn about this house. Same shoot this womans car was repoed. She looked pretty healthy and in this scene she was sitting on a step while kids were playing on floor things strewn about. Putting it together she had a car, housing and health. She had child care. She could be working but she wasnt. Her help was to help her regain order and self confidence. It's all very upsetting. It's easier to just "dont care" both her and i.

Young womans problem earlier in this story was not my problem but next time I will make it mine. It's time we care all of us.
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Old 11-23-2022, 09:57 PM
 
14,182 posts, read 11,431,159 times
Reputation: 38731
It's not that I don't agree that there is a lot to address with the homelessness crisis, but the image of a woman with a baby in a stroller, a satchel, and a (plastic?) wash tub doesn't scream "homeless" to me. My first thought was "mom taking her kid on an outing to the beach/lake/park."

I will take your word for it that there was more to the picture that you didn't share, because it would be very embarrassing to assume that someone is homeless and needs help when they actually aren't and don't.

In terms of your proposed debate, I don't think there is one right answer. It is a waste of resources to select one solution and try to apply it to everyone. For example, housing first works for some people, not for others. There are definitely people for whom that is the immediate need and everything else can build from there. Then there are many for whom it doesn't work because they do not care about and often will not even accept housing until their more immediate problems (mental health, substance abuse, etc.) have been addressed.
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Old 11-28-2022, 06:11 PM
 
257 posts, read 161,535 times
Reputation: 335
I pasted that drink themselves to death part. They are watched over so they don't so much.


Traditional homeless shelters typically have very strict rules that include a zero-tolerance policy for drinking alcohol. That's why so many won't go and prefer being outside.
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Old 11-29-2022, 08:22 AM
 
Location: Kansas
25,557 posts, read 21,738,439 times
Reputation: 26133
My first thought would have been that she was out walking and saw a garage sale with items she needed. Those with a child get priority in public housing "if" they want it. Living on the street with a baby would probably get one a visit from Child Protective Services quickly, or at least I would hope so.

With the numbers of economic immigrants pouring through the southern border, I don't see any way to solve the homelessness of the 1/2 million people living on the streets before that started. Sadly, poverty in the US is an industry, like the prison industry, so enough people are making money off of it at the top of the pyramid to never the solve the problem that puts a ton of money in their pockets.

Some people choose to live on the streets for whatever reasons.
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Old 12-01-2022, 01:23 PM
Status: "I know more about hot air than most people do. Lol" (set 14 days ago)
 
Location: Glen Mills
927 posts, read 1,212,882 times
Reputation: 595
Default Housing at our fingertips

Housing. What do I know about housing? I just sell real estate and in my days following my duty in the Military worked 53 years in Real Estate related Businesses. Somehow as the ups and downs have been in the economy today things appear to me to be much worse.
I drive about in urban Chester, Philadelphia and suburban areas of Chester, Montgomery and Delaware County and see so many vacant large buildings that could be retrofitted to suitable housing. Whose going to pay for the retrofitting. Answer we will one way or another.
HUD will play an important part in American rescue and probably will exercise its influence. Unfortunately probably too little too late. The cure has to start at the municipality level if you own a building you have some varied choices when regulated: purchase, improve or tear down. You've got 18 months to execute a plan or you will be fined heavily. Couple this with funds that are watched over and prevent corruption. How??? Honestly.
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Old 12-06-2022, 10:07 AM
 
3,863 posts, read 2,063,163 times
Reputation: 9807
Quote:
Originally Posted by Norm Barnes View Post
Housing. What do I know about housing? I just sell real estate and in my days following my duty in the Military worked 53 years in Real Estate related Businesses. Somehow as the ups and downs have been in the economy today things appear to me to be much worse.
I drive about in urban Chester, Philadelphia and suburban areas of Chester, Montgomery and Delaware County and see so many vacant large buildings that could be retrofitted to suitable housing. Whose going to pay for the retrofitting. Answer we will one way or another.
HUD will play an important part in American rescue and probably will exercise its influence. Unfortunately probably too little too late. The cure has to start at the municipality level if you own a building you have some varied choices when regulated: purchase, improve or tear down. You've got 18 months to execute a plan or you will be fined heavily. Couple this with funds that are watched over and prevent corruption. How??? Honestly.
You just forgot one thing: the people themselves - if that woman would take your money, then tell you GFY - she has rights to do what she wants and doesn’t need your interference?

Be careful to assume - she could be borrowing or given a free bathtub - for the baby or gardening? She could be living in the neighborhood.
If you have seen the baby with her - dirty, unkempt, looking unhealthy or dressed unseasonably- sure your duty is to call the authorities - it is called a welfare check.

We have a safety net for people in our country.
Most of the time and the main problem - the safety net is not welcome. Now what?
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Old 12-06-2022, 12:35 PM
 
5,250 posts, read 4,639,824 times
Reputation: 17351
Not addressing the OP's initial concern regarding the woman he saw on the street, but moreover, the entirety of our housing crisis caused by a compilation of our social ills. The US has seen huge changes in the past fifty years, the disappearance of the steel, shipbuilding, and manufacturing industries, has left us in a predictable situation.

One wherein the only avenue left with regard to living wage employment, lies in the high tech industries that require a completely different kind of worker. The idea that one can go to work after high school and become a real contributor has come and gone, today one will need very complex specialized training in order to find one's niche in the world of advanced technology.

Realizing this, we should ask if we have done our due diligence with regard to how we changed the public school system to better prepare the student for this societal sea change, ask if we, as a nation, created the necessary path to the level of training needed to survive these changes, ask how much we've invested in the idea of equitable living conditions as a fundamental expectation in a democratic society. The answer is that we haven't really created anything--on a widely accessible scale.

We have the same old institutions which reflect the long standing delineation of class, wealth, and education. And they continue to create barriers-or access. So now we see the fallacy of thinking that the nations lower classes will simply stumble off into the dirtiest low paying jobs and inhabit the worst areas of our cities. Those jobs are gone, those old neighborhoods are now the high priced envy of the young professional class who are on that long list of wannabe inner city dwellers. Those people who at one time could and did find their niche in America's worst jobs while living in the worst environs now have little to look forward to in their adult years. We've created a far different class of American.

A long and sordid history of societal abandonment of those on the lowest rungs of society has come to haunt us, and it has created a fearful preview of an uncertain future, tens of thousands of hollowed out drug addicts camping on our streets, thousands of recently emancipated children from the ranks of the unwanted souls in the foster care system, with no place to call home, the poor with no money to gain the needed skills, broken beings who fought and killed while defending the supposed American dream--now living their own version of America's nightmare..

Our much heralded freedoms now extended to those who are free to live in a public display of drug induced squalor, free to rot under the freeways, free to wander the streets lost in a mental fog, unable to care for themselves, and all too often dying outdoors in the cold of winter. Not the country I was told we were in the fifties, not the country I expected to live out my life in, and certainly not the country most of us we want. Homelessness is simply the end of a long and arduous journey in the life of those who have been living on the margins too long. We desparately need to understand the real reasons so many become broken beings who camp on the sidewalks, in old motorhomes, in their cars, or friend's couches.

Providing a warm place, something to eat, help in their attempts to assimilate into the norms of societal expectations, not to mention a complete overhaul of our failed drug laws. We need huge two pronged approach with regard to addiction prevention-and treatment, a thorough revisiting of our job killing trade policies that favor the corporate bottom line while expecting the rest of us to pay the bills for the societal consequences of such policies. And last but never least, a realization of just how interconnected we are with each other, to understand why we need to help others in order to have the society we want...

How to pay for all that.. That's another problem we will need to face--sooner--or later. If later, the bill will be much higher, if sooner, we will need to understand just how much money we all, government, corporations, and ourselves, squander on all that is unnecessary. We will ask that most pressing question of--what IS necessary? Another debate altogether.
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Old 06-05-2023, 12:01 AM
Status: "I know more about hot air than most people do. Lol" (set 14 days ago)
 
Location: Glen Mills
927 posts, read 1,212,882 times
Reputation: 595
Default Not poor enough

Recently learned a tenant I had placed rendered a fraudulent application. The court record of an eviction did not filter down to the record. An independent check with Delaware County Public Access, the Unified court system and a National Eviction Checking Service came back clear. In researching how this could happen. It was fraud. Woman had set up a family member as Landlord. Address showed for her on internet while she actually lived and ran up a bill elsewhere. This is clearly "Fraud". Giving false answers on an application. We go to small claims court and obtain a judgment and she is to leave by 6/28/2023 by agreement. She is behaving like she is "bulletproof" not spoken but it's like she appears to think that since she has 2 young boys and a newborn she can do anything she cares to do even "fraud". She hasnt said it but she behaves like what are they going to do put me in jail. Now get this I am sympathetic to her needs. She is working two jobs and seems to be doing right things for the kids. Here is debate. Today if your impoverish you can get help but if you are working to capacity and can't do anymore questionable. I had an applicant making 62K per year and qualified for a housing voucher. I ask is qualifying "Are they poor enough" or "Are they trying hard enough" in order to be helped. Grant it jury not in on whether she is a casualty of poor decisions or just feeling entitled and put upon. What counseling can be rendered because sometimes ignorance is hard to cure especially since she may think she is entitled. Do I bring a criminal complaint for "fraud" or allow her to continue on with her behavior.
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Old 06-05-2023, 12:42 PM
 
3,695 posts, read 4,959,309 times
Reputation: 2069
Quote:
Originally Posted by Norm Barnes View Post
Recently learned a tenant I had placed rendered a fraudulent application. The court record of an eviction did not filter down to the record. An independent check with Delaware County Public Access, the Unified court system and a National Eviction Checking Service came back clear. In researching how this could happen. It was fraud. Woman had set up a family member as Landlord. Address showed for her on internet while she actually lived and ran up a bill elsewhere. This is clearly "Fraud". Giving false answers on an application. We go to small claims court and obtain a judgment and she is to leave by 6/28/2023 by agreement. She is behaving like she is "bulletproof" not spoken but it's like she appears to think that since she has 2 young boys and a newborn she can do anything she cares to do even "fraud". She hasnt said it but she behaves like what are they going to do put me in jail. Now get this I am sympathetic to her needs. She is working two jobs and seems to be doing right things for the kids. Here is debate. Today if your impoverish you can get help but if you are working to capacity and can't do anymore questionable. I had an applicant making 62K per year and qualified for a housing voucher. I ask is qualifying "Are they poor enough" or "Are they trying hard enough" in order to be helped. Grant it jury not in on whether she is a casualty of poor decisions or just feeling entitled and put upon. What counseling can be rendered because sometimes ignorance is hard to cure especially since she may think she is entitled. Do I bring a criminal complaint for "fraud" or allow her to continue on with her behavior.
??? Could you care to break down just why you would try to evict someone over past fraud rather than owing money or something more serious? Also if you need a voucher(or can get) at 62k a year, then the rent is too high in the area period.
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Old 06-08-2023, 07:59 AM
 
18,479 posts, read 15,422,249 times
Reputation: 16117
Society has a duty to either provide housing or to stop harassing people who don't have housing. If you want something to be mandatory, you should be willing to pay for it. Right now in the US there is an epidemic of anti-homeless laws, and also laws that make it hard to build affordable housing. Especially in expensive cities like San Francisco. In effect, this combination amounts to society literally "forcing" people onto the street, and then "punishing" them for being on the street. This combination, taken together, is completely inhumane and needs to stop post haste.
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