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Seriously -- what rest area do they allow people to live in? Every rest area I've ever seen limits how long you can be there -- to something like 8 hours and they have signs saying no camping -- except for a couple that do allow camping for only a limited number of hours.
Walmart parking lots ALLOW the rv'ers to stop and rest there because Walmart knows that many will come inside to shop and fill up on supplies. Those are not people living in the Walmart parking lots -- Walmart would not allow them to live there. I guess you saw those $100,000+ RVs and thought they were living there?
Walmart won't even let you sleep in their parking lot in your car if you don't have an RV even if you are traveling and just want to pull over to sleep for a few hours. I know that for a fact.
Your facts are wrong. The people get kicked out of the rest areas after a day or two and they drive on down the road to the next one. I have given many a 5 dollar bill to one of these people to buy some gas just so they can move a few miles. many Walmarts are good for 4 or 4 days. We parked in the Walmart in Benton Harbour Michigan at least once a month and the same few folks were always camped out in the lot. My wife and I have sat in a few for 3 days doing a reset on our hours of service rules. We were comfy in our rig though. We were in one rest area in Oregon where there was at least 20 different vehicles semi permanently parked. They told me sometimes they would stay a month before getting kicked out and they would leave for a couple of days and then return. This is just a subset of the poor in the USA people but I found them interesting and really they don't add up to a big number.
I very recently finished subsidized housing.
Rents were $400., $500., and $575..
The parking lot had many new and late model cars and not at the bottom of the barrel in car chouces either. Mercedes, Challengers, Camaros...etc.
Almost every single apartment had at least one big screen TV, XBoxes, videos games in it.
All had cellphones and computers, sometimes multiple computers. as well.
Because of my husband's career we've lived in 45 of our 50 states over the course of the last 30 years. Rural and Urban. We've seen poverty. It does exist. It's not pretty by no means. But.. with that being said, we've also seen the same poverty stricken individuals when given the opportunity blatantly turn down the opportunity. And we've seen so called poverty stricken individuals drive better cars than we do, eat better, and all around have more cash. Spend anytime living in an RV park in a poverty stricken area, and you see how a lot of them make their money. Dealing drugs, crime, all perpetrated on their own. The so called rich aren't the only ones keeping the poor down... their own have just as much to do with it..
This piece, although clearly written by a bit of a smart.ss, has a decent explanation of some of the reasons that poverty is a hard habit to break.
If nobody trains you to take opportunity when offered, if the mindset isn't there - it's the rare person who can overcome that. Just like I suspect I'd have a hard time developing a "very wealthy" mindset if the lottery dropped $50 mill in my lap. (Not that I play, but...)
As a child growing up I never had any of those things and we were pretty poor, though not dirt poor. To be honest, I don't really feel I need them
I didn't have a few of these things growing up in a decidedly upper middle class family. It's more about how far technology has come in terms of pricing. Also, my mom has a psychotic hatred of air conditioning.
I'd like to hear more about their idea of "adequate and reasonable food availability" though if it includes things like "temporary shortages". Exactly how many skipped meals does it take for food to be "inadequately available"?
The real answer is one. Having less than what you need is by definition, inadequate.
"For decades, the U.S. Census Bureau has reported that over 30 million Americans were living in “poverty,” but the bureau’s definition of poverty differs widely from that held by most Americans. In fact, other government surveys show that most of the persons whom the government defines as “in poverty” are not poor in any ordinary sense of the term. The overwhelming majority of the poor have air conditioning, cable TV, and a host of other modern amenities. They are well housed, have an adequate and reasonably steady supply of food, and have met their other basic needs, including medical care. Some poor Americans do experience significant hardships, including temporary food shortages or inadequate housing, but these individuals are a minority within the overall poverty population."
Hmm. I guess I was one of the unordinary then. YES, people do abuse the system but this idea that all who are poor have all this stuff is nothing but horsesh**.
And don't worry, I never took a dime from the government...I have my pride. I was poor as hell, certainly didn't have all of these amenities. My clothes were washed in a tub, no game console, no a/c, the heat WAS too expensive and I had to wear tons of layers and freeze in my studio apartment, food was Top Ramen, if you can call that food, didn't get to the dentist for a long time, doctor's visits? Nope, didn't have any of those, no car, no cell, none of that fancy stuff, no new clothes, bottles of shampoo and tubes of toothpaste were cut open to get every last bit I could, Kool Aid was made if I could borrow a cup of sugar from someone and then it would have water added to it repeatedly until there was no more color left in it....but don't you worry, you never had to pay for me. You can just go on feeling smug and better about yourselves that the poor aren't, "really poor".
I didn't have a few of these things growing up in a decidedly upper middle class family. It's more about how far technology has come in terms of pricing. Also, my mom has a psychotic hatred of air conditioning.
I'd like to hear more about their idea of "adequate and reasonable food availability" though if it includes things like "temporary shortages". Exactly how many skipped meals does it take for food to be "inadequately available"?
The real answer is one. Having less than what you need is by definition, inadequate.
As a kid I remember being hungry a few times, not often but a few times. That actually stuck with me, but I never felt like I missed out on the latest gadgets or toys, even though some of my friends had them. To this day I don't have a need for them, don't own an ipod or ipad, don't own a laptop, don't own video games, my tv is hardly what one would call big, unless you consider 32 inches big, my cell phone is a flip phone, the teens laugh at me.
Your facts are wrong. The people get kicked out of the rest areas after a day or two and they drive on down the road to the next one. I have given many a 5 dollar bill to one of these people to buy some gas just so they can move a few miles. many Walmarts are good for 4 or 4 days. We parked in the Walmart in Benton Harbour Michigan at least once a month and the same few folks were always camped out in the lot. My wife and I have sat in a few for 3 days doing a reset on our hours of service rules. We were comfy in our rig though. We were in one rest area in Oregon where there was at least 20 different vehicles semi permanently parked. They told me sometimes they would stay a month before getting kicked out and they would leave for a couple of days and then return. This is just a subset of the poor in the USA people but I found them interesting and really they don't add up to a big number.
People who do that are not necessarily what you'd call poor though. I have a relative that owns a nice house up north but was unemployed for some time, getting a nice unemployment check and he took a couple long vacation trips to Florida during the winter so he could lay on the beaches enjoying the scenery instead of snow.
He would do just that -- stay in rest areas, try to camp out in his car at a Walmart but was told he had to leave. He probably seemed homeless but wasn't homeless by any stretch, just a divorced guy with a good house he was still paying for but wanted to have lengthy vacation in the south too.
He said he was fine sleeping in his car -- and he knew how to get a free shower here and there -- for him a daily necessity and could eat at the casino buffets and have more than enough food. And enjoy himself at the beaches and fishing. If he stayed at hotels then his vacations on unemployment checks would be shorter.
You can't look at people in campers and travel trailers and staying in campgrounds in tents and assume they're poor -- people can have plenty of money and enjoy camping out. When I see people pulled over and sleeping in a rest stop, I don't assume they couldn't afford a motel -- because I do that same thing, I just don't want to spend my money on a motel if I only need a few hours of sleep.
Since just under 90% of the US population subscribes to DirecTV, another satellite service or has cable TV, the modern definition of 'poverty' needs to be examined a lot closer. Here in Los Angeles, seeing a $30K or even pricier import automobile or huge SUV in many driveways throughout a so-so neighborhood is extremely common.
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