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I Used to Be Homeless

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Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#91

Post by selectodude »

ska wrote: post #74
deckar01 wrote: post #70

> I was overqualified for most minimum wage jobs. The author lost me here. I have taken jobs way below my expectations to make ends meet. I got startlingly close to not making rent, but I took a job that barely got me by and rode it out until I was able to move to a company that understood the value of my experience.

The author may just have meant that he was rejected from such jobs due to being honest about his education when asked, which is a fairly common practice.

No it's not. I left off 80 percent of my resume when I needed to apply to jobs that were "below" me. Its what you do.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#92

Post by timeseries2018 »

deckar01 wrote: post #89
ska wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author may just have meant that he was rejected from such jobs due to being honest about his education when asked, which is a fairly common practice.

I omit irrelevant info from my resume to taylor it towards it's intended audience. I would downplay and even flat out lie to an employer to avoid becoming homeless.

tailor

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#93

Post by nyghtly »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #37

In San Francisco, nearly $40K is spent per homeless person. How much money do we need to spend and how should we spend it?

"How should we spend it?"

Give people money. Unfortunately, you could only do this effectively on a national level. In San Francisco, $40k isn't even enough to cover cost of living.

You could also give people housing vouchers, but you need to have available affordable housing for that to work.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-expensive-is-san-francis...

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#94

Post by dsfyu404ed »

josh_p wrote: post #7
yters wrote: post #3

I wonder if the high minimum wage makes it harder to employ people who tend to be homeless. I ask because I see many young people homeless these days, and it isn't clear why they are homeless.

What do you mean by "high minimum wage"? Federal minimum wage in the United States is still $7.25 which is not enough for someone to live on, especially in a high cost of living area. I don't understand. https://www.minimum-wage.org/federal

>What do you mean by "high minimum wage"? Federal minimum wage in the United States is still $7.25 which is not enough for someone to live on, especially in a high cost of living area. I don't understand.

He/she means "higher than the federal minimum".

Homelessness problems seem to loosely correlate with cities and states that have higher minimum wage (edit: so do many other things and homelessness problems might actually be correlating with one or several of those).

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#95

Post by nradov »

jaredklewis wrote: post #68
diablerouge wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're underestimating the real estate market. A significant reason new developments cost so much is that the land they are built upon costs so much. For example, in Portland Oregon, where I live, most new developments are being built on expensive real estate in central areas. As a result the apartments built there, even if they aren't particularly nice, end up going for high amounts. This is due to non-physi…

I have friends in Tokyo renting 1 bedrooms in the city center for $500 ~ $900 month. Those buildings were not built as affordable housing. They became affordable housing when other developers built newer, nicer buildings somewhere else in Tokyo. Older buildings had to lower prices to keep tenants coming. Unless there is a literally infinite supply of rich people, I don’t see how increasing supply cannot create more a…

It's counter intuitive but sometimes adding supply actually increases demand. Of course at some point you do run out of rich people, but there are a lot of rich people now so that can take a long, long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#96

Post by yardie »

deckar01 wrote: post #70

> I was overqualified for most minimum wage jobs. The author lost me here. I have taken jobs way below my expectations to make ends meet. I got startlingly close to not making rent, but I took a job that barely got me by and rode it out until I was able to move to a company that understood the value of my experience.

I have been refused jobs where the person highering had less experience and fewer qualifications than me and felt I was a threat. In one case the technical interview turned into me unknowingly shaming them in front of the CEO because they weren’t using modern best practices.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#97

Post by selectodude »

ryanmercer wrote: post #88
DarkTree wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there isn't a big event downtown, or it's a slow bar/restaurant night, you'll notice there's considerably fewer of them. If the weather is harsh, you'll notice there's considerably fewer of them. You observe this and the conclusion you make is that, 'many of the 'homeless' people are absolutely not homeless and simply know they can make much easier money off of people coming/going from bars and restaurants.' or…

>You observe this and the conclusion you make is that, 'many of the 'homeless' people are absolutely not homeless and simply know they can make much easier money off of people coming/going from bars and restaurants.' The homeless population in Indianapolis congregates around the homeless shelters, not around businesses where police will tell them to keep it moving. As such most people here never witness the real home…

Criminalizing homelessness doesn't end homelessness.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#98

Post by toasterlovin »

PSZD wrote: post #64
elliekelly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you live in a state with no income tax, work full-time at your minimum wage job, and live as you describe (which is homeless) your take home pay would only barely cover your $30/day budget. What happens when you get sick and have to miss a shift? Or need to see a doctor? What happens if your job is in New England where it's well below freezing at night for a significant portion of the year? It's disingenuous…

I live on less than 30/day (including rent) working a poorly paid manual labor part time job in a state with income tax. No, I don't own a car. Yes, I split housing costs with other people. > What happens when you get sick and have to miss a shift? As mandated by state law, I get paid for my normal hours. > It's disingenuous to perpetuate the notion that "discipline" is all that's needed to survive on minimum wage It…

Nobody wants to hear that there are some people who are just not equipped for an environment A) with abundant access to addictive substances and B) where economic success is dependent on being reasonably intelligent and able to delay gratification.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#99

Post by dougmwne »

nroets wrote: post #16
josh_p wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "high minimum wage"? Federal minimum wage in the United States is still $7.25 which is not enough for someone to live on, especially in a high cost of living area. I don't understand. https://www.minimum-wage.org/federal

I recently toured for 5 months in the US on my bicycle. My average cost was $30 per day. That included sightseeing, an airline ticket every month and a bus ticket every month. I used Warm Showers and wild camping, so I rarely paid for housing. $7.25 per hour is enough to live on. You just need to work enough hours, do long commutes and be very, very disciplined in all your purchases.

Let them bike tour (and eat cake)? Besides the camping, you also relied on the kindness of strangers for showers and other hospitality. I find your response pretty heartbreaking because it illustrates just how big of an empathy gap we're dealing with in the US between the rich and poor.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#100

Post by manfredo »

alistairSH wrote: post #87
megaman8 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF just passed 300 million/year measure that's supposed to help the homeless and that's in addition to the 240 million/year of funding that's already there. Both of those combined exceeds the budgets of most cities. First I would say, let's figure out how to use that money so that it's actually working. 540 million/year is enough to give the 7000 homeless in SF 77,000$ per year. Let's put that to good use and make su…

Are those numbers correct? If so, that's insane. For $77k/year, SF should be able to house every single one of them with money to spare.

The latest tax increased it from 30k to about 60-70k. As to why it's doing so little, there's a variety of explanations. Some say that homeless often have mental or drug abuse issues that keep them from being able to live on their own. Others (including the mayor) say that the money is more than enough, and we need more accountability of what we already spend. 70k is about the median wage of a single person in SF.
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