This is Real, That's Not • Hacker News Board

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#201

Post by Aunche » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #128

turbinerneiter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't give free housing to the unfortunate and at the same time increase rent on the workers. Workers need to see homeless people every day so they can feel better off and scared to end up like them. Everything else is bad for real estate investors.

The motivations of moneyed interests are obvious. But the contempt the working and middle classes have for the poor is something I'll never understand. I've often been obliged to pay for something I've seen others acquire freely and I say good for them. I wouldn't exchange places with them for a moment. It seems the pettiest of all things to begrudge someone whose life is a disater, even in the rare cases when it is…

There wouldn't be so much contempt for the homeless in California if they weren't allowed throw used needles or defecate everywhere.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#202

Post by tertius » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #123

ggm wrote: post #105

Under the medically justified urgency of covid, Victoria took a significant number of homeless rough sleeping people (as they are called here in australia) into some kind of housing. Queensland did the same using surplus student purpose built dense housing. I'm not going to pretend this "solved the problems" but I am told a number of the less intractable cases got put into a better situation,simply having secure shel…

Homelessness exists because the landlords and business people prefer it. Homelessness is a demonstrated threat of what not paying the rent and having a job will do to you. If you remove that dire threat, the housing market and job market becomes far more competitive for the workers and the owner class is disadvantaged. In the US, we have many more vacant houses than we have homeless people. The market system is incap…

Private property getting in the way again?

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#203

Post by DanBC » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #201

DubiousPusher wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The motivations of moneyed interests are obvious. But the contempt the working and middle classes have for the poor is something I'll never understand. I've often been obliged to pay for something I've seen others acquire freely and I say good for them. I wouldn't exchange places with them for a moment. It seems the pettiest of all things to begrudge someone whose life is a disater, even in the rare cases when it is…

There wouldn't be so much contempt for the homeless in California if they weren't allowed throw used needles or defecate everywhere.

What alternative do they have?

If we don't provide adequate public loos, or addiction treatment, or injection rooms, or mental health care, we should expect to experience the problems that are caused.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#204

Post by noisy_boy » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

vecinu wrote: post #78

I hope my comment doesn't sound tone-deaf or ignorant but this is something I have thought about for a while. As I was watching @lisper's movie "grace of god"[1] and heard the phrase "convince myself that it could never happen to me" (becoming homeless), I started thinking, is this a more American-centric problem? What I mean by that is, can the lack of a social safety net in the US cause a much higher rate of homele…

Beyond the government provided safety net, there is also the factor of social and cultural structures. E.g. in south asian cultures, if you belong to middle class and above, short of calamity, you will not be homeless because it is quite normal for folks to live with parents anyway. Worst case, you can just move back in anytime (bit of that has happened in US as well recently).

Of course, cost of living is a big factor anyway. In asian countries, government provided safety nets are rare but since everything is so cheap, at worst you can still manage to eke out a living and find, say, a single room in not-so-great locality.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#205

Post by lukeschlather » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

dakial1 wrote: post #168

vecinu wrote: post #78

I hope my comment doesn't sound tone-deaf or ignorant but this is something I have thought about for a while. As I was watching @lisper's movie "grace of god"[1] and heard the phrase "convince myself that it could never happen to me" (becoming homeless), I started thinking, is this a more American-centric problem? What I mean by that is, can the lack of a social safety net in the US cause a much higher rate of homele…

This is exactly my thought while I was reading the text. I live in Brazil and while we certainly have homeless and poverty here, this specific situation of someone with skill and education becoming homeless is something ultra rare, to te point that I never saw, hears or read of anyone in this situation. Even very modest people earning little money are able to get a roof over their heads. The usual case of homelessnes…

The problem with student loans is that they are rooted in "need-based" formulas which define how much a student should pay in terms of their parents' wealth. And for upper-class students the gap between what their parents are willing to pay and what the formula says they can pay often is substantial and is made up with loans. This ends up being something resembling a real hardship for upper-middle-class families, since tuition for two kids can easily be 50% of your household income. If someone is paying off a mortgage on a house, it's easy to imagine their only option to pay the tuition without loans is to downsize the house, which is a huge investment of time and money on top of getting a child ready for college.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#206

Post by feralimal » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

ggm wrote: post #105

Under the medically justified urgency of covid, Victoria took a significant number of homeless rough sleeping people (as they are called here in australia) into some kind of housing. Queensland did the same using surplus student purpose built dense housing. I'm not going to pretend this "solved the problems" but I am told a number of the less intractable cases got put into a better situation,simply having secure shel…

I like the observations you make, and I think you are correct in them.

I object to this though:

"Collective failure of imagination"

There is so much wrong with that statement, I barely know where to start.

Government is a collection of individuals. Individuals do have imagination. But in this case, no imagination is even required - as you point out there is the previous 9 months of data.

What we find is no interest in improving the situation of those in the worst position. Have you considered the possibility, that it is government that creates these situations in the first place?

More broadly, I object to the commonly held idea that government is there to help us at all, despite that being what we are taught in its schools. It is there to rule us.

You can confirm this if you can break down the word 'government'. 'Govern' (has root as kyberenetes) means rule with authority. '-ment' means relating to minds, like 'mental'. The word literally means 'rule minds'.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#207

Post by jswrenn » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

dakial1 wrote: post #168

vecinu wrote: post #78

I hope my comment doesn't sound tone-deaf or ignorant but this is something I have thought about for a while. As I was watching @lisper's movie "grace of god"[1] and heard the phrase "convince myself that it could never happen to me" (becoming homeless), I started thinking, is this a more American-centric problem? What I mean by that is, can the lack of a social safety net in the US cause a much higher rate of homele…

This is exactly my thought while I was reading the text. I live in Brazil and while we certainly have homeless and poverty here, this specific situation of someone with skill and education becoming homeless is something ultra rare, to te point that I never saw, hears or read of anyone in this situation. Even very modest people earning little money are able to get a roof over their heads. The usual case of homelessnes…

> Is the average american more in debt than the citizens in the rest of the world?

Sorta. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...

However, I don't know how good of an indicator debt is for one's circumstances, or for the consequences of indebtedness. I suspect not very.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#208

Post by jl2718 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

henrikschroder wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And secondly, the author points she is "upper class"? How can upper class family or individual ever need to borrow loans and also not have assets? In the US, economic class and social class are often used interchangeably, which is wrong. Social classes are cultures, and while ever-increasing amounts of money are needed to perform the rites and shibboleths of the classes, you can still be upper class while being dir…

In the US, economic class and social class are often used interchangeably, which is wrong. Social classes are cultures Thank you for saying that. While my late father had more money at one time than I really understood as a child, my mother's "upper class expectations" referenced in this piece are mostly not about money per se. They are rooted in the fact that her mother came from a low level noble family (my mother…

Sold a title? What?! Most of us peons don’t even know what that means. Can I buy nobility? How much does it sell for? What benefits does it convey, and who would recognize it?

This sounds like a level of old-world elitism that is intended to completely alienate one from the rest of the world. Do you think that had anything to do with your situation? How did the rest of the family take being poor?

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#209

Post by kaitai » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 2:10 PM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #94

eat_veggies wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly right. The existence of homelessness is a policy decision, not a law of nature. We have enough space to house everyone, and we have enough money to run social programs to help people with addictions or mental illnesses. But our cult of individualism says that your successes belong to your boss, and your failures are your own damn fault. So you can die in the gutter and you'll deserve it.

I understand now that ‘social safety net’ means welfare programs. When I came to this country many years ago, I had a completely diff understanding of what ’social safety net’ meant... to me..how I understood it by my lived experience..it was the social/security net family/friends hold so that if you were unfortunate enough to fall, someone will catch you. Maybe it’s different in India now. But my generation remember…

Here is where structures come into play, though.

If you get Section 8 housing assistance in the US, it is illegal to house that relative who needs a hand without an extensive paperwork and approval, which you probably won't get. It is especially difficult if that relative has a drug charge in their past, including "smoking a joint at age 16". (If that relative has a felony drug charge in their past, they also can't get federal student loans ever.)

Many of the things people do to help their families have been made to have bad consequences for poor people in the US. To me, it feels as if there has been a systematic effort to break poor families, take away their ability to help each other, and ensure that they continue to be embroiled in "the system" in the US.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#210

Post by michaelt » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #94

eat_veggies wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly right. The existence of homelessness is a policy decision, not a law of nature. We have enough space to house everyone, and we have enough money to run social programs to help people with addictions or mental illnesses. But our cult of individualism says that your successes belong to your boss, and your failures are your own damn fault. So you can die in the gutter and you'll deserve it.

I understand now that ‘social safety net’ means welfare programs. When I came to this country many years ago, I had a completely diff understanding of what ’social safety net’ meant... to me..how I understood it by my lived experience..it was the social/security net family/friends hold so that if you were unfortunate enough to fall, someone will catch you. Maybe it’s different in India now. But my generation remember…

> it was the social/security net family/friends hold so that if you were unfortunate enough to fall, someone will catch you.

I've no doubt that, for every person who ends up rough sleeping in the US there are 1000 who move back in with their parents. Or sleep on a friend's couch. Or get gifted a few hundred bucks from a loved one to tide them over. Or move in with a partner when otherwise they wouldn't have.

But there will always be some people who don't have any social connections left to spend - if your parents have died, or were abusive, or you're a first generation immigrant, moving back in with them might not be an option. Maybe you've had $300 from grandpa several times before, and lost it to your gambling addiction. Maybe you've stayed with your sister before and scared them with your untreated mental illness.

None of which is common - but if a million people are struggling to make rent it's a simple numbers game: some of them won't have any social connections to fall back on.