The only way we’re ever going to solve homelessness is by giving free housing to homeless people.
Not cots in homeless shelters. Not beds in domestic violence shelters. Real, actual, permanent housing, with a door they can lock and the freedom to come and go as they please.
It seems like a stupidly simple solution to an incredibly complicated problem, but this is the only way we’re ever going to end homelessness for good. Everything we’re doing right now is like flinging thimbles of water onto a house fire, and it’s time to call the fire department. Don’t believe me? Consider that:
- Providing free housing is actually cheaper than what we’re doing right now. Even when you factor in the cost of having round-the-clock mental health staff on hand in housing facilities, giving the homeless housing costs about one-third as much as leaving them on the streets. How is that possible? People who sleep on the streets go to the hospital a whole lot more than anyone else. Being homeless is hard on your health – you are more likely to be assaulted, experience frostbite or heatstroke, or fail to manage a medical condition like diabetes. Homeless people are also more likely to get arrested for minor things like public urination or loitering, and it’s hugely expensive to arrest them, process them, put them in prison and put them through court dates. We save so much money and eliminate so many problems by just giving them somewhere to live.
- It’s extremely difficult to get a job when you don’t have an address. There’s a huge amount of prejudice against homeless people, and the same people who shout “get a job!” are the first to toss someone’s application in the trash as soon as they see “no fixed address”. Having an address also makes it easier to vote, open a bank account, keep up with your taxes and obey the terms of your probation.
- Homeless people waste a lot of time standing in line for shelters and services. Shelters have limited space available, and if you want to make sure you have a bed for the night, you need to be there long before the doors open. The same thing applies to soup kitchens. When your whole life revolves around being in line for vital services for hours on end, it’s hard to make much progress in getting your life together. Providing people with housing gives them more time and more flexibility to return to school, find jobs, or reconnect with family.
- It’s virtually impossible to manage a mental health condition or recover from addiction when you have no permanent housing. It’s just not going to happen. Recovering from a mental health issue requires stability, routine and a safe place to retreat to, which are impossible when you live on the streets. Living rough makes it extremely difficult to show up to appointments, hang on to your prescription medications and avoid trauma. It’s more efficient for everyone involved to provide housing to the mentally ill first, and bring mental health services right to their doors.
- It’s hard to make much progress in life when you can’t accumulate possessions. Think about how hard your life would be if you had no safe place to store your things. When you’re homeless and sleeping in shelters, you can only keep as much stuff as you can carry with you, and most of your energy is going to go towards keeping that stuff safe. You can’t take advantage of clothing drives, because you can’t carry too many clothes. You eat a lot of fast food, because you have nowhere to store or prepare groceries. Showing up to appointments, interviews or shifts is difficult, because you have to lug everything you own with you to ensure nothing is stolen. Having a room with a lock changes everything.
- It keeps children out of the foster system. Ending up on the streets often means losing your children – if you can’t provide children with a stable home, that’s grounds to take them away. Families fleeing domestic violence can find themselves re-traumatized when children are placed in foster care due to inadequate housing. Providing stable housing allows families to stay together and minimizes trauma for children and parents, as well as foster care costs.
- It preserves basic human dignity. It’s hard for most of us to imagine how humiliating and dehumanizing it is to be homeless. Imagine not having access to regular showers, or even toilets. Having nowhere to clean your laundry. Having your schedule dictated by a homeless shelter. Sleeping in rooms with dozens or hundreds of other people, with absolutely no privacy. Being chased out of businesses and public places. Enduring the crushing boredom of having nowhere to go. Being treated as less than human. It’s impossible to maintain hope and dignity in those conditions, and no human being should have to endure that.
We live in a society that treats housing like something you have to “earn” by proving yourself worthy of it, and that toxic thinking has put us in a position where we’re literally willing to spend more money to have people sleeping in the streets. It has to stop. Housing is a bare minimum requirement for human dignity, and it should be a human right. Everyone deserves a safe and private space of their own, regardless of their abilities, mental health or circumstances. No one is asking for luxury condos here – dorm-style settings with private rooms and shared bathroom and kitchen facilities have proven to be effective. This isn’t about who “deserves” housing; if you are a human being, you deserve a safe place to call home.
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
Tag: poverty
from my twitter https://twitter.com/grapholect
Same with exercise. Most studies define “exercise” as physical activity that isn’t part of your job.
💅
the queen could literally intervene and stop british children from being so malnourished that there has been a widespread return of rickets in the country but she won’t. kate and baldy could do something about this instead of going to various ex-colonies of britain and lecturing locals about the dangers of having too many children whilst they are expecting their third inbred freeloader but they won’t. megan markle and ginger are going on a £120,000 honeymoon. whilst children forced into poverty by the tories fill their pockets with food at school just to get through the weekend. the lifestyle and entitlement of the royal family remains absolutely and completely morally indefensible.
Attn poor people: 48 packs of ramen for under $13 on jet
Feel free to reblog but this is around 25-26¢ per pack and we ordered one and it really helps when we are running out of food.
Still available and under $13!!!
Being poor is just a series of emergencies.
Emergencies really do crop up more often for poor people. Necessities, like vacuum cleaners or phones or bedding or shoes, need replacement or repair more often when you only buy the cheapest possible option.
Poor people’s health tends to be compromised by cheap, unhealthy food; stress; being around lots of similarly-poor contagious sick people who can’t afford to stay home or get treatment; inadequate healthcare; and often, hazardous and/or demanding work conditions.
So we get sick more. On top of that, many people are poor specifically because of disability. All of that is expensive – even if you just allow your health to deteriorate, eventually you can’t work, which is – say it with me – expensive.
When you’re poor, even the cheapest (most temporary) solution for an emergency often breaks the bank. Unexpected expenses can be devastating. People who aren’t poor don’t realize that an urgent expense of thirty dollars can mean not eating for a week. Poor people who try to save find our savings slipping away as emergency after emergency happens.
I don’t think people who’ve never been poor realise what it’s like. It’s not that we’re terrible at budgeting, it’s that even the most perfect budget breaks under the weight of the basic maths: we do not have enough resources.
Cos we’re fucking poor.
People who aren’t poor also have different ideas of what an emergency constitutes. The AC breaking in the middle of summer isn’t an emergency when it’s in the budget to just go buy a new one the same afternoon without worrying about how it’ll affect your grocery money; having to take two days off from work because you’re running a bad fever isn’t an emergency when you have paid sick leave.
So it’s no wonder the well off people of the world don’t get it when a low income person is stressed over something breaking or a minor illness. I know people for whom a crashed car – as long as no one was hurt – would just be ‘damn it I liked that car and now I gotta borrow my wife’s’ and I know people for whom it would be ‘I can’t afford to have this fixed but I can’t get to work if I don’t get it fixed and I can’t get it fixed if I don’t go to work hahhaha time to indebt myself to family members who I desperately wish I didn’t even have to interact with because they’re the only ones who can give me rides or loan me money.’
Two very different worlds.
goodness-gracious-great-balls-of:
Full time work should entitle someone to enough pay for rent, food, bills, and leisure activities. Full time work for a full life wage. You put in your 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? You should be able to afford the basic shit you need in life, no matter where you work.
pisses me off that this is considered a radical statement.
I do agree with this but from economic standpoint if you are working at a job like McDonalds as someone flipping burgers and making fries you are getting paid for the amount of skill needed for the job. But if its any other job that requires you to have an actual skill that you can make a career out of then yeah you should be getting paid enough to live a standard life.
If you work FULL TIME you should be able to afford to fucking live. No, it doesn’t matter if it’s flipping burgers, these people contribute to our fucking economy and they MATTER. They should be allowed to be alive.
Jesus fucking Christ do you people hear yourselves?
People like this are why we can’t move on to issues like reducing how many hours is full time, or working out UBI.
We’re going to need to do that. Most people just don’t know what’s coming down the pipeline, without a major change to the structure of the economy, we’re looking at large scale permanent unemployment, even in the “skilled” labor force.
Also? Making food is a fucking skill. Running a fast food kitchen is a fucking skill. Operating a drive-thru is a goddamn fucking skill.
I do not know how to do these things. I have a masters degree and I have no fucking clue how to operate a deep fryer or make coffee drinks. I’d probably not be very good at it, because that kind of hands-on, fast-paced work is very hard for me.
But thankfully, there are people who are good at it, so I can do my job, and they can do theirs, and we can benefit one another by putting our skills to use in different areas. People who work in fast food are not less deserving of comfort and security in their lives just because their skills aren’t valued like they should be. That is a myth developed to deprive people of rights.
My friend works as a medical assistant and I’ve worked at McDonald’s and Starbucks. You know there’s a lot of things you gotta learn in this typa job?
Like in addition to it being physically demanding (standing up for 4-6 hours straight, carrying heavy ice/coffee, constantly getting burned by boiling water and an oven, a lot of reaching and squatting (like a lot a lot I lost 40 FUCKING pounds in a year okay this job demands a lot from the body)), there are actual skills required. Also your skin splits from using so much antibacterial soap.
Do you know what temperature different foods have to be to prevent contamination? If it’s a “cold” or “hot” plate?? Do You know how long food can be out before bacterial contamination can happen?? Do you know the difference between say 1% and heavy whipping cream? Can you teach a chemistry class using milk????? That’s p much what you gotta learn to be able to do. My friend who works as a medic was surprised, because I do more in my day than they do, and THEY told me that. They were shocked how much I actually do; I am on my feet more, talking to more people, I have a working knowledge of food germs food born illnesses and chemistry, I gotta do the same shit with sterilizing my tools the same exact way a doctor sterilizes theirs. Etc etc.
There’s no such thing as an unskilled job. There are only undervalued skills.
“There’s no such thing as an unskilled job. There are only undervalued skills.”
Okay, let’s brake this down. How long does it take to train someone to work fast food? What are the repercussions of that person fails to do their job?
Now, how long does it take to train a structural engineer? What are the repercussions if they fail at their job?
How long does it take to train a plumber? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
How long does it take to train a ditch digger? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
Someone of these things are not like the other, some of these things a little more important then the others.
“If you work full time you deserve a living wage”
No you dont. You deserve to be paid according to the value you bring to the job/company/economy. If you do not want to upskill and increase this value, that is your problem.
Capitalism is inherently immoral, exhibit A.
I still can’t quite fully fathom that there are people out there saying that even if you work a full-time job, you don’t deserve to be paid enough money to survive.
It boggles my brain there are people out there who acknowledge that there are kinds of jobs that are essential for businesses, that there are positions that need to be filled in order for a business to function properly and sanitarily- such as fry cooks and janitors and wait staff- but still hold the position that the people working those positions DON’T DESERVE TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO COVER THEIR BASIC COSTS OF LIVING.
Even if a person moves to a better job, that job still needs to be done. Someone is still going to be hired to do that job. Someone is still going to be in poverty doing that job, even if they are working full-time at it. Someone is still going to need government assistance in order to NOT DIE because that job doesn’t pay them enough money to feed themselves and their family, keep a roof over their heads, and cover the other costs to keep them in reasonable health. So your tax dollars are going to support them instead of their cost of living being covered by the business who employs them because without that support the streets would be full of homeless, starving, desperate people.
Don’t you think that the better way of keeping the streets empty of homeless, starving, desperate people would be to require that minimum wage, which was started SPECIFICALLY to ensure that those doing “unskilled” labor would make enough to live on, pay an amount that allows them to do so? Rather than paying so low it requires additional money from the government to avoid that outcome?
Because I guarantee you, if you think you’d be fine with cutting welfare to people who don’t make enough to live on even though they’re working full-time jobs, the riots that will ensue when those people are forced to find other means to ensure they and their families survive will change your mind pretty quick.
People who are working a full-time job should not be paid so little by their employers that they are living in poverty. End of story.
People who aren’t capable of working a full-time job also need to be taken care of rather than be forced to live in poverty. End of story.
There isn’t a single person out there, even those I despise, who “deserves” to live in poverty conditions.
Nobody deserves to live that way.
That there are those who DO work full-time hours- at grueling, exhausting jobs- and STILL legally get paid so little they’re living in poverty is disgusting, particularly in a society that claims to be as advanced and enlightened as the one we live in.
That you think the people employed in positions you personally undervalue literally don’t deserve to live is pretty gross, too.
…Especially when a lot of aspects of your day-to-day life depend on the people working in those positions doing their jobs, and doing them well.
@pfcanimal
“Okay, let’s brake this down. How long
does it take to train someone to work fast food? What are the
repercussions of that person fails to do their job?”Challenge fucking ACCEPTED asshole.
So a fast food worker takes anywhere from twenty to thirty hours to train. In that time they have to learn:
How to operate the point-of-sale. This is a LOT of data crunching. They have to know where to find items in a computer interface, usually touchscreen, and fast. I’ve worked with six or eight different point of sales and it’s not easy. Then you’ve got system updates that fuck with your spatial memory of where orders live.
You’ve got to teach them proper sanitary procedures. Where and when to wipe down, and with what. Certain sanitizers will make people VERY sick if they’re not rinsed off of tools, but you must sanitize your tools. Sweeping a floor? Dude can you sweep a fucking fourteen-table floor in ten minutes or less? I can do it in six minutes, if there’s nobody in the dining room, and I can do it with getting the corners too.
They have to know how food borne illnesses work, and how to prevent their spread. They have to maintain temperature for ALL their ingredients. They have to operate very dangerous equipment. (A deep fryer improperly operated can cause third-degree burns or worse.) They have to lift anywhere from 10-50 pound boxes regularly.
They have to learn all of this, usually in the space of four to six shifts.
The repercussions of them failing at this? An outbreak of food borne illness in the working population, the youth population, and the elderly population, because fast food is a universal point of contact for these demographics. Every time you eat a burger, you’re trusting that these people did their job right.
“Now, how long does it take to train a structural engineer? What are the repercussions if they fail at their job?”
Four to eight years degree in field, and that means they’re learning a fuckton of math. These are the people who have to not just understand, but live and breathe their profession. A structural engineer builds roads, bridges, and buildings. Infrastructure is important, and these people keep it running.
If they fail at their job, death and dismemberment may happen, property damage is pretty much a guarantee, and hey guess what, how often is it the structural engineer that takes the fall for that shit?
A shitty structural engineer is someone who does not understand that the people doing the ‘menial’ labor on their construction sites are in fact some of the most important. A more expensive education means that yes, they get paid more, but that does not mean that other peoples labor is devalued by proximity.
How long does it take to train a plumber? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
About two years. They have to learn the construction codes, the tools, the flow of water in the city. They have to be aware of structural integrity, they have to be aware of materials and costs, and they have to be able to measure multiple pieces accurately. Can you re-plumb a house? A school? Can you replace a septic system, a toilet, a sink?
If these people fail at their jobs, the least of the repercussions is property damage. If they fail on a big enough scale? Oops your water supply is contaminated with sewage.
How long does it take to train a ditch digger? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
For a really good company: About six to eight weeks. This includes the operation of heavy equipment, safety gear, and reading survey lines.
Ditch digging is heavy labor. Without the proper equipment and oversight of the company (That’s the company being monitored, not the employees) you’re looking at injured people. If you think that risking injury isn’t worth proper pay, then buddy have I got a job for you in the middle east.
Ditches are essential to the drainage systems of a city. Shitty ditches mean that if your drainage system downriver backs up, then you’ve got flooding. If you’ve got a muddy construction site, you’re not gonna get very far. Ditches also serve as micro ecosystems for riparian area fowl and fauna, since we just built on their fucking river.
Also, the people digging these ditches are still people.
Someone of these things are not like the other, some of these things a little more important then the others.
How important is your job, that you feel that anyone not doing the same thing you do isn’t worth human dignity? All of these jobs seem pretty important to me, buddy.
Also: It’s ‘Break’ not ‘Brake’ this down. Go back to fucking grammar school you entitled capitalist-worshiping tool. If you’re making shitty spelling mistakes like that, you can’t be very good at your job.
I’d like to add that, thirty hours is the maximum of time the fast food workers are ALLOWED to learn all these necessities. Just because this is the current standard doesn’t mean it’s the time that should be allocated for teaching – it’s that short because the work is undervalued and a lot of time pressure put onto these people, and moreover fast food companies don’t want to pay for teaching personal so they have to learn on-shift and then swim or sink.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light and maybe punch a few of these “people deserve poverty” ignorant motherfuckers at the same time.
Anyone who says ‘people deserve poverty’ has a) never worked a minimum-wage job, and b) does not understand how FUCKING IMPORTANT minimum-wage jobs are.
Reblog. This could really help someone out.
Reblogging because I remember the days I had to do this so my baby girl could eat
Feed the babies
#FeedtheBabies
how can some people look at the fact that insulin is cheap to produce, yet extremely costly and not think corporations have pricing power especially on inelastic goods such as insulin lmao.
they talk all day and all night about how “supply meets demand” and then casually forget that inelastic goods are a thing that corporations can gut people with.
believing supply meets demand at some fantastic idealist equilibrium in real life is so childish and ignores the realities of the lives we live. supply does not and has not met demand at your magic equilibrium since the dawn of capitalism. it’s just not a real thing.
and on top of this, they genuinely want people to die because they believe a corporation has a right to kill people by withholding cheap goods to make another couple billion? that’s inhuman.
and don’t give me this bullshit that it’s the governments fault because regulations or whatever else garbage you want to spew.
you truly honestly believe if there were less regulations corporations would ignore an opportunity to screw people over when they know they can?
you truly think corporations out of the goodness of their cold dead hearts would throw away an opportunity to make a lot more money than they should just because people are desperate and will die without the goods they hoard?
and you truly think that there would be enough insulin making competition to stop this from happening? that’s honestly fucking wild. you call communism wild but to think this is genuinely … the most absurd thing i’ve ever heard.
you really don’t think these corporations would oligopolize to beat out everyone else? you don’t think their endgame would be to make the most money possible?
and you say I don’t know anything about economics …
These should not be controversial statements.
Steel Phoenix Studios 