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Yes they are most Americans can't afford a 400 dollar emergency let alone hundreds of thousands in medical bills. Medical debt is the surest way to the poorhouse and once your there good luck climbing back up.
Yes they are most Americans can't afford a 400 dollar emergency let alone hundreds of thousands in medical bills. Medical debt is the surest way to the poorhouse and once your there good luck climbing back up.
Plenty of people have climbed out of poverty. Is it difficult? Sure, but most things in life are difficult.
As far as medical debt causing homelessness, don't pay the debt. They'll ruin your credit, but they will usually deal with you and let you pay $100 or whatever you can afford a month. If I got in a situation like that, paying my mortgage and putting food on the table would come first, everything else, I'll pay it when I can.
No, but how you choose to deal with a cancer diagnosis is. My sister passed away from a rare, aggressive form of sarcoma, and she made choices regarding her financial life as it pertained to her illness and diagnosis. Not only did she not ruin her financial life, not one person in our family had their financial lives affected at all, minus the various gifts and well wishes we paid for.
My father-in-law lost the ability to move or speak for the last 2 years of his life, and it didn't ruin my mother-in-law. In fact, all told it cost our whole family about $300 per month to handle all of the bills related to just helping her out with an extra aide.
Etc.
If you accept that life ends in death for everyone, discard the notion that there is some amount of money spent on healthcare that will grant immortality, and make a conscious choice to not bankrupt yourself or your family, no medical diagnosis will cause financial ruin. And before you ask, my wife and I have already had this talk, we both agree completely, and she is a registered nurse who has worked bone marrow, pediatric cancer, cardiac stepdown, hospice and is currently doing outpatient chemo. No medical issue will bankrupt us because we choose to not allow that to happen.
The total homeless population from all causes is 0.17% of the population, or approximately 1 in 600 people. That includes druggies, mental illness and those that choose such a lifestyle, in addition to those "down on their luck" for whatever reason. We have essentially full employment at this time. Can it happen to "anyone"? I suppose. So can winning the lottery.
Full time employment is all very well I suppose, but at what wages?
Throwing that out there simply denies fact that in many areas of the USA even when employed "full time" housing costs make getting an apartment or whatever still very dear.
There is an unhealthy tendency on CD for persons to examine issues only through their own myopic view of things. As such they totally disregard empirical information and or research which clearly proves they are incorrect.
Many people are simply rent/housing burdened. That is they are paying a large share of monthly income towards housing. If and or when they cannot hold that together attempting to find another place can be daunting. Pile onto this mental illness, substance abuse and so forth.....
Can "anyone become homeless" Sure, it happens every day to men, women and children of all ages. If are evicted from your apartment/home or otherwise thrown out on street, where are people going to go? The more fortunate ones have family and or friends who will take them in if not locally then somewhere else. However not everyone has that sort of luck.
Years ago many urban areas had low income housing such as SRO hotels, residence hotels, boarding houses, rooms for rent. But in years after WWII (if not before) local governments clamped down on such housing because it was felt they didn't set the right tone or whatever. Even places like the YMCA or YWCA who once provided housing largely have cutback or are gone.
In New York City, LA, San Francisco and other areas many homeless are not totally destitute; that is they do have income of sorts (pensions, Social Security, disability, etc...) but simply cannot afford rents landlords are asking.
As stated years ago they could have checked into a SRO, boarding house or even a "flea bag" hotel. But those things are largely gone.
A lot of these people burned all bridges due to their drug and substance abuse problems .
Yeah, whatever. Keep telling yourself that.
It can happen to you. Easily.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ottomobeale
My point is in high cost coastal areas, even professionals are having a hard time coming up with rent. IE a layoff is more common than incapacitating mental disease.
Again, with homelessness, it’s about services, not costs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Volobjectitarian
If you are not mentally ill/disabled or a chronic addict, no.
Apologists for "turn them all loose" psychiatric policies and "but it's a disease" addiction blame shifting like to compare everyone to the mentally ill and hopelessly addicted, but everyone isn't like them.
We aren't all one bad day away from homelessness, or one bad decision, or one missed rent payment, or whatever. Neither are drug addicts or the mentally ill. Homelessness is the result of chronic or patterned behavior, not random, one time events. Drug addicts have repeated, daily, constant destructive behavior. Mentally ill who do not take their meds have repeated, daily, constant destructive behavior. It's not "oh no, I smoked a joint and now I am homeless!!" or anything.
Sorry, but to be homeless, you have to engage in dedicated behavior towards that end and maintain that behavior over a period of time sufficient to wreck/collapse all of the safety/recovery infrastructure in your life, both internal and external. And even then, you have to make sure you do noting proactive towards remedying your situation once you do become homeless.
You’re no more uniquely qualified to avoid homelessness than any other homeless person. The caprice that can have you here one day and there the next are just as likely to strike you.
90% of homeless people thought the same **** you’re saying here, and still found themselves on their asses. Arrogance isn’t a barrier to it happening to you too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by slackercruster
Yes, homeless all over the place. But local is relevant. High $$ cities are very easy to end up on the street. (Talking about non mentally ill homeless.)
Not true.
High cost cities have services, and services are the key. Fact is, Tulsa is cheap, but hardly prepared to deal with the hard issues the way Los Angeles is.
absolutely. The line between having it all and homelessness is paper thin.
All it takes is coming down with a mental disease, a bad decision, a job loss, or any unforeseen bad circumstance. None of us knows what tomorrow holds. It can all come crashing down in a nanosecond.
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