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I spend a lot of time outdoors in my local state parks. I thank those guys everyday. They built some really cool stuff. Things that are still standing and still functional.
In my area it would seem that we could keep folks endlessly employed just by having them fill potholes. I mean, our roads are realllllly bad.
Thank you for your input! This is the kind of thinking we need.
Why don't we call them housing developments. Language matters. The purpose is transitional housing until people find a way to get on their feet.
Yeah, Obama blew it there too. He should have insisted on single payor.
LOL housing developments are the exact names given to the housing projects, for the same reason you're using that name. They were also used for the same reason, transitional until spineless politicians decided not to kick out people who didn't want to leave because they loved free housing more than working.
In all seriousness, I know you have good intentions, but how do you handle the people who don't want to leave and enjoy the free housing, yet don't want to work? How do you handle the spineless politicians and bureaucrats who won't make them leave to make room for more temporary residents? How do you prevent these people from becoming a permanent underclass with no incentive to move on, as was done to many Black citizens in projects, aka "housing developments" since the 60s?
This is a real issue and has to be considered.
Once again, here are solutions that avoid creating new housing projects, Hoovervilles, or "housing developments":
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom123
We shouldn't have bailed out Wall Street in the first place.
Here are some solutions:
- Increase taxes on companies that don't have the majority of their employees in the U.S. Some will leave, some will change.
- Increase tariffs on goods from countries that don't have at least a trade policy with us that isn't at least neutral to our interests. Hopefully that will make American goods less expensive compared to imports. I haven't run the numbers.
- Enforce our immigration laws by deporting more people and going after employers with huge fines, so the low end jobs illegals are taking can be taken by working class / poor American citizens. Give current illegal residents 1 year to apply for a non-citizen work permit and give them last dibs on available jobs.
- Create a pool of part-time, temporary, non-union, low end government jobs for the unemployed instead of handing out unemployment checks. Workers can use their free time to apply for jobs or go train for a permanent, IN DEMAND POSITION. See Hawkins Humphrey Act of 1977.
- Encourage people to move to places where jobs are now, like people used to do in the past. People now seem to have the mentality that they can remain in an economically devastated area with no future job growth, and the federal government (aka the rest of us) need to come in and save them.
As a side issue: why is single payer needed for the entire country? Not everyone agrees with that, so why can't people advocate for this within their own state? I'm sure if Mass, Cali, and a few other liberal leaning states got together, they could create their own single payer together or individually. Citizens who love single payer can move to states that provide it, OR the single-payer states can offer residents of non-single payer states to join their pool. Why do you single payer advocates want to make the rest of us do it too?
Last edited by Freedom123; 01-14-2011 at 03:04 PM..
Well, I think we're going to need more than that. A lot of people might not qualifiy for section 8. I am on another forum and people are really trying to just keep a roof over their heads. The rate of doubling up is 12% in the past year in terms of people moving in with others. What of those who have no "others" to move in with? What happens when all the shelters are full?
Your right about Section 8. Before I moved to where I could afford to live on my fixed income, I got on Section 8. It took five years of waiting. The people just now who lost their job and home are not going to gain anything until they pop up at the head of the line. Which could be longer now for all I know. And you have to HAVE enough income to pay your portion and utilities and food. If you can't you don't qualify.
I think that whats going to happen is there are going to be a lot more "Waltons" style houses, where multi generations end up living together. McManstions would work quite well. They are already being sought out to be purchaced as group homes.
When I was homeless, especially when the weather was bad shelters filled quickly. They filled less quickly in good weather but you still never knew if you had a mat on the hard floor for the night or not until you got in the door. Shelters will never fufill the need for emergency housing for the people who are without.
I think we'll see more tent cities. I think more cities will set them up like Ontario CA did. They had to evict a lot of people in a couple of days who came there from elsewhere since they had plenty from Ontario to fill up the space. Having a guarenteed place you can go to sleep with relative safety is more important than the exact arraingements very very quickly when you are inside it.
We do face a very bad problem most wish to ignore. I don't think that government should do it all but someway they need to help. But we need to take very great care not to find ways to "hide" the problem. So those who are okay can say, gee, look, I don't see any homeless people now. Things are better. But the homeless people are at the camp outside of town or in some semi-abandoned place where they don't have to. If you make it SO invisible then you risk the mindset of it becoming "not a problem" to the rest and those who are trapped are truely trapped outside of society.
If you do that you have the foundation of the permenant underclass which doesn't belong to anyone's world but their own because nobody else wants to see them. Not immediately of course but we must take great care to think ahead and of the concequences of what we do and the appearances it will have to those who barely notice what they don't want to. The homeless are already pretty invisible and we don't want to finish the job.
LOL housing developments are the exact names given to the housing projects, for the same reason you're using that name. They were also used for the same reason, transitional until spineless politicians decided not to kick out people who didn't want to leave because they loved free housing more than working.
Ok, that might have been the case then, but what I propose is a work for housing program. As has been suggested, even filling potholes works.
I used to work in a shelter and always took issue with the "empowerment" model. Women would come in and get free shelter and food and not have to look for work. I disagree with this.
LOL housing developments are the exact names given to the housing projects, for the same reason you're using that name. They were also used for the same reason, transitional until spineless politicians decided not to kick out people who didn't want to leave because they loved free housing more than working.
In all seriousness, I know you have good intentions, but how do you handle the people who don't want to leave and enjoy the free housing, yet don't want to work? How do you handle the spineless politicians and bureaucrats who won't make them leave to make room for more temporary residents? How do you prevent these people from becoming a permanent underclass, as was done to many Black citizens in projects since the 60s?
This is a real issue and has to be considered.
You're right..they were initially "transitional" and "temporary" but those terms have dropped by the wayside over the years and aren't even on the radar scale anymore when they talk of "government housing".
Hey, I am not saying I have the answers, which is why I am generating discussion. I just know that two older people who could not find work killed themselves and I would like to not see this become a trend. I see more people coming in to the Food Bank for food these days and of all colors. Some I am sure never thought they'd be at a food bank getting food.
If you read the history of housing projects, they were also built and planned as temporary, transitional housing for poor people. The reason they became permanent is because no one wanted to be singled out as the person who approved kicking poor folks out once their time limit ran out, if the poor person decided they preferred free housing instead of getting a job and moving on.
The same thing would happen again. Spineless politicians would say it's "temporary" to get the citizens to approve this project, but would grant unlimited extensions, as they are doing now with unemployment "benefits". Come on, if they can't even stop giving people free checks after 2 years, how would they ever kick a person out of free housing because a time limit? The media and the opposing political party would have a field day demonizing them!
I understand dependency and comfort zones made people less likely to move on as times got better. Which can be a trap they get themselves caught up in.
Not sure what the solution is, but it should be a solution that benefits America as a whole, short term relief and long term benefits for the country.
I'm almost tempted to say a funded community farm where they put in a days work for food and boarding and also take education classes for different skills at night, where they would have a better paying job to look forward to.
But, since they would be funded, the people running it would have a vested interest in keeping the gravy train going, like for profit prisions.
Dishonesty and Corruption is rampant.
It also almost sounds like Fema Camps, which I don't advocate either.
A think a lot of the problems we face today is our loss of morals.
I'm not part of any religion, but I can see how the conditioning could help society if people believed someone was watching over them, to be honest with one another in all affairs and to help one another.
Instead we live in a society where its profits and materialism at all costs over anything else.
Ok, that might have been the case then, but what I propose is a work for housing program. As has been suggested, even filling potholes works.
I used to work in a shelter and always took issue with the "empowerment" model. Women would come in and get free shelter and food and not have to look for work. I disagree with this.
Right..so would you kick them out if they just wanted to take without any give back ?
It's not done today with our social entitlement programs.
Emotions run high when a program doesn't work and doesn't produce what the social engineers envisioned.
Many people are NOT inclined to earn what they get for free.
I volunteer at a food bank. Thankfully, I am the one on the side of the desk doing intakes and NOT needing the food. There but for the grace of God go I....
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