Is the US Just Not a Serious Country Anymore?

[Hannah]

6 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Lemme challenge you on this, not because I know what right and wrong is but because I saw a different approach and it shifted my thinking.

In South Africa, the constitution guarantees people the right to make a living by hawking their wares streetside. RADICAL TO AMERICANS, normal to locals.

Its a fantastic country in many ways, but I do find it rather surprising to see South Africa (a developing country) as an example from which the developed and 1st World USA can learn, and I'm trying to understand what the difference in approach is and shift in thinking is that you learned?

The constitution of South Africa (on paper one of the best in the world) does indeed indirectly cover informal trade in the Bill of Rights under section "22. Every citizen has the right to choose their trade, occupation or profession freely. The practice of a trade, occupation or profession may be regulated by law".   One of the applicable laws is the Businesses Act (1992) which recognizes informal trading as a legitimate business activity.  However, cities and towns have by-laws and these include regulations on where informal traders may make their living.   Some are more lenient than others in application of these laws, but relations between informal traders, formal businesses and municipal authorities have not always been amicable and there have been some very nasty skirmishes and incidents when the municipal authorities have tried to apply the law. 

It may be a normal occurrence all over Africa to see street vendors, but its far from an ideal way to make a living and very often a survival tactic, rather than an entrepreneurial choice.  The IMF rates South Africa as the country with the highest unemployment with 35.6% (against the USA with 4.6%).  People turn to informal trade as they have no other choice.   Poverty means that people lack the resources, or access to resources, to start formal business.  More than half of the population lives in poverty and it is the most unequal country (highest Gini coefficient) in the world.

What am I missing that makes South Africa a country to compare oneself to or strive towards?

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, maize said:

I know the voice that says "can't" and urges despair. It is not a truth-telling voice.

We are not helpless.  Oh, one individual alone can't fix things that are broken in a society or a country. And even the efforts of many individuals combined can't fix things quickly.

But broken systems can be fixed and unhealthy social patters can be changed and the good done by an indicidual or a group is never without meaning.

I don't anticipate that human nature--along with it's associated greed, self-centeredness, and fear--driven behaviors--will change. I don't expect that humans in this country or any other will ever live in a utopia free from problems and concerns.

That can't be the goal. 

What we can aim for is addressing problematic issues that crop up in our time and within our sphere, however broad or narrow that may be. We can try to make things a little easier for those around us and those who come after us. We can try to preserve systems that allow for freedom from coercion. We can try to preserve and strengthen systems that keep government and corporate actors accountable to the larger public. We can cultivate a culture of seeking to understand and allow for different choices and different viewpoints. 

We can make the difference that is ours to make--individually and collectively. 

Will the future be without back-slides and discouragements and new-and-thornier problems? Of course not! 

Does our future hold promise of hope and improvement and courageous actions and movements to address those problems? Absolutely.

Onward friends!

I agree with all of this. I’m just not willing to be Pollyanna when considering the scale and scope of the challenges. We have state reps from rural areas who represent fractions of state populations essentially trying to starve (of resources and authority) urban centers/economic powerhouses because they don’t like how those people think/vote. It’s cray and I’m not sure how we begin to reverse it.

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, Hannah said:

Its a fantastic country in many ways, but I do find it rather surprising to see South Africa (a developing country) as an example from which the developed and 1st World USA can learn, and I'm trying to understand what the difference in approach is and shift in thinking is that you learned?

The constitution of South Africa (on paper one of the best in the world) does indeed indirectly cover informal trade in the Bill of Rights under section "22. Every citizen has the right to choose their trade, occupation or profession freely. The practice of a trade, occupation or profession may be regulated by law".   One of the applicable laws is the Businesses Act (1992) which recognizes informal trading as a legitimate business activity.  However, cities and towns have by-laws and these include regulations on where informal traders may make their living.   Some are more lenient than others in application of these laws, but relations between informal traders, formal businesses and municipal authorities have not always been amicable and there have been some very nasty skirmishes and incidents when the municipal authorities have tried to apply the law. 

It may be a normal occurrence all over Africa to see street vendors, but its far from an ideal way to make a living and very often a survival tactic, rather than an entrepreneurial choice.  The IMF rates South Africa as the country with the highest unemployment with 35.6% (against the USA with 4.6%).  People turn to informal trade as they have no other choice.   Poverty means that people lack the resources, or access to resources, to start formal business.  More than half of the population lives in poverty and it is the most unequal country (highest Gini coefficient) in the world.

What am I missing that makes South Africa a country to compare oneself to or strive towards?

Thanks for this!! What made it so interesting to me is that it didn’t ‘feel’ developing to me, even as I know it has many problems. The very notion of codifying street hawking is foreign to most Americans, with poverty being a thing you criminalize and try to ignore/hide. We have levels of inequality in the US that aren’t far off SA and for those who live where that poverty is more visible, again, it doesn’t feel different/removed. What felt different is the extent to which people were willing to see it and try to do something about it and/or change policies to address it. The opportunity for economic mobility felt more real as a result.

[Heartstrings]

19 minutes ago, Hannah said:

a fantastic country in many ways, but I do find it rather surprising to see South Africa (a developing country) as an example from which the developed and 1st World USA can learn, and I'm trying to understand what the difference in approach is and shift in thinking is that you learned?

I think it made sense in response to a post (now deleted) complaining about pan handling and homelessness in America.  Americans find it distasteful to have to see it so we make it illegal, while it’s seen as a way to scratch out a living in S. Africa. That makes it harder for the average S. African to ignore or pretend to not know about.  

Edited April 28, 2023 by Heartstrings

[Hannah]

6 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

 What felt different is the extent to which people were willing to see it and try to do something about it and/or change policies to address it. The opportunity for economic mobility felt more real as a result.

Thanks for clarifying.  I guess its very difficult to ignore poverty when it is so prevalent!   I'm not sure though that the pragmatic approach of the government to allow informal trade is an opportunity for economic mobility as such.  Access to resources such as credit, basic infrastructure such as water and sanitation or opportunities to grow their business is very limited for street vendors who mostly eke out a very meager living.

[maize]

22 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

I agree with all of this. I’m just not willing to be Pollyanna when considering the scale and scope of the challenges. We have state reps from rural areas who represent fractions of state populations essentially trying to starve (of resources and authority) urban centers/economic powerhouses because they don’t like how those people think/vote. It’s cray and I’m not sure how we begin to reverse it.

I'm not suggesting a Pollyanna approach.

There's a lot of room between Polyyanna and despair. We have no cause for despair. Cause for concern, absolutely. 

There've been efforts to address gerrymandering in my state over the past decade; so far it's been two steps forward, 1.75 steps back. There's a lot more work to be done, but we're still ahead of where we were ten years ago. 

https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/reforms/UT

Edited April 28, 2023 by maize

[Heartstrings]

Just now, Hannah said:

.  Access to resources such as credit, basic infrastructure such as water and sanitation or opportunities to grow their business is very limited for street vendors who mostly eke out a very meager living.

Our homeless population lack access to those same resources while also being restricted by law from that way of making a living. I’m not sure our method is better. 

[Hannah]

Just now, Heartstrings said:

Our homeless population lack access to those same resources while also being restricted by law from that way of making a living. I’m not sure our method is better. 

Criminalising poverty can never be a better solution.

[Sneezyone]

17 minutes ago, Hannah said:

Thanks for clarifying.  I guess its very difficult to ignore poverty when it is so prevalent!   I'm not sure though that the pragmatic approach of the government to allow informal trade is an opportunity for economic mobility as such.  Access to resources such as credit, basic infrastructure such as water and sanitation or opportunities to grow their business is very limited for street vendors who mostly eke out a very meager living.

It is plenty prevalent here too, we just hide it better.

[SKL]

A lot of the things I've seen progress on (that I'm involved in, and that help everyday people) are bipartisan.  There is so much common ground.  If people would focus their energy on that instead of accentuating differences, we'd accomplish more AND feel less despair.

The idea that the country needs to be perfect and best in the world is simply irrational.

[Spy Car]

3 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

I agree with all of this. I’m just not willing to be Pollyanna when considering the scale and scope of the challenges. We have state reps from rural areas who represent fractions of state populations essentially trying to starve (of resources and authority) urban centers/economic powerhouses because they don’t like how those people think/vote. It’s cray and I’m not sure how we begin to reverse it.

The irony, of course, is that wealth redistribution via taxation from urban economic powerhouses is what subsidizes the less developed and less prosperous rural areas in this country.

Bill

 

[Pam in CT]

I just read this thread back-to-back with the how have you reset your outlook thread, and I'm intrigued with how the insights align, in a small lens/ micro vs big lens/macro way.

 

re where is the changemaking work, and who has the capacity actually to effect change

20 hours ago, SKL said:

Expecting the government to fix everything might be part of the problem

 

20 hours ago, TechWife said:

I think we've always had problems. I think a significant challenge is the changed attitude toward public service, from Washington DC all the way down to local school volunteers. The goal has changed from one of actually working in service to the people through the government run structures to one of preservation of power by both individuals and groups. There isn't a particular goal of what to do with that power (like fix the water supply) other than to take actions to make sure that the power is preserved.

I concur with both these insights, and also see them as intrinsically related. 

Some problems really are local (trash pickup, pedestrian crosswalks, fixing potholes in existing streets, snow removal etc).  The more miles away from the problem the locus of decisionmaking is, the less good the decisions will be.

Other problems really are systemic (existing federal debt service, national security, interstate commerce etc), and our Founding Fathers recognized by the Constitutional Convention could only be addressed through national collective decisionmaking.  (And new systemic ones have arisen since; if the Bill of Rights did not foresee the automobile, there surely are other divination gaps as well.)

And the vast majority of problems are somewhere in between. 

 

Over Long Time, particular economic sectors boom and contract, human beings move to pursue better jobs and livelihoods, young people leave home to build their own lives, some geographic areas expand and thrive while others stagnate and decline. OTOH these cycles are evergreen and normal and healthy and OTO the disruption and despair they leave behind are ruinous.  The problems, themselves, cross county and state lines -- a significant segment of kids who are ejected/ flee from their families of origin for one reason or another become part of the homeless/ mental health/ food insecurity/ un- and underemployment problems elsewhere.  The problems, themselves, perpetuate and morph across time -- kids who grow up with inadequate health care, nutrition, education, domestic violence etc struggle to thrive as self-sustaining adults fifteen years later.

It's NOT self-evident, just by noodling in the abstract, which problems really do require a Big Picture systemic approach and which ones are best addressed locally.  Or which can be meaningfully ameliorated by charitable and non-profit work (robber barrons really did build out a public library system throughout the major municipalities of the Northeast before public funding came in.... though (tellingly) not the rural areas; more recently Johns Hopkins really did build the global database for COVID tracking where no government managed to get it together); versus which require a level of resources that can only be corralled through federal action (the Western expansion was only enabled by federal programs that forcibly cleared the land of its natives, then gave it away to selected homesteaders, then subsidized the railroad builders that stitched the pieces together; once those lands were settled the carrots of federal rural electrication programs and the sticks of AT&T's heavy federal regulation were required to bring electricity and phone service to those otherwise still-too-sparsely-populated-ever-to-be-profitable towns).

It is NOT self-evident which problems can be meaningfully addressed at what level and through what kind of funding.  It requires a messy push-and-pull political decisionmaking process of compromise and tradeoffs which will pretty much always leave more people frustrated and Monday morning quarterbacking than happy.

 

And this is a serious question.

11 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Who is willing to do/serious about doing this work? That seems like a critical question right now.

If ~~ somewhere near half~~ of the country has careened into Nothing Matters Blow It All Up nihilism, then... the work has to be done by the rest of us.  And that necessarily affects that political decisionmaking process.

 

But we have to try. There is no option but to try.

19 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

I know this may sound trite and probably is corny at best, but the other day I was driving home and witnessed a truly horrible car accident with multiple fatalities and several critically injured people.  I was the first medical person on scene(and it was a county I work part time as a paramedic in) and began triage, which was honestly the first time I really have ever had to make those kind of decisions. This was a rare type of accident.

I was one person, and then joined by a nurse and someone who had been a medical corpsman in Iraq a long time ago. The nurse asked what do we do? And the veteran replied, we do the best we can with what we have in front of us, and let the rest go.

That is my view of life in general. I can vote, and I can lobby, and sometimes it makes a difference—like for years I have lobbied at the state level to put increased mandatory training in all levels of medical education in the state on autism and pediatric mental health emergencies, and it’s happening this year. But in reality, all I can really do is what I can with what I have. Last night that was helping a homeless person connect with a charity who could get her a pregnancy test and a motel voucher for a couple of days.  I’ll never fix homelessness, but at least she had a warm place for the night. That means voting out corruption in my own very small town politics and showing up at board meetings. I know I live in an area with a lot of food insecurity, so we donate cash whenever I have some extra and when I worked on an urban ambulance I had a backpack of shelf stable food with me that I could give if I met someone in need. ...

This is HUGE.  If even 20% of us took these kinds of measures we would not be staring down the real possibility of sliding into failed statehood.

[Heartstrings]

I see a lot of people talking about federal vs. local government but not a lot about the states.   In a lot of places I see states as partially where the problem lies.  How much money has been wasted at the state level pursuing messaging bills that get knocked down in court?  A lot of municipalities have tried to set up broad band in their town to benefit its residents but the big corporations lobby the state and get laws passed saying municipalities can’t do that.  
Many of the obstructionist not serious politicians are at the state level.  They are vulnerable to corruption because local media is almost dead as national media doesn’t care much.  They are vulnerable to special interests and corporations.  

[Carol in Cal.]

3 hours ago, Hannah said:

Criminalising poverty can never be a better solution.

I agree that criminalizing poverty is not good, but decriminalizing dangerous actions and practices is not good either.  

I can’t safely visit any park in my city because of the violent and drug addicted populations that have taken them over.  I’m in danger if I go onto a bike trail by the river, which is the only one that isn’t right next to fast moving traffic.  Those areas don’t enhance my quality of life.  They only enhance the quality of life of fit guys who are less likely to be accosted or attacked.  We have normalized that situation far too much.

[freesia]

1 hour ago, Pam in CT said:

I just read this thread back-to-back with the how have you reset your outlook thread, and I'm intrigued with how the insights align, in a small lens/ micro vs big lens/macro way.

 

re where is the changemaking work, and who has the capacity actually to effect change

 

I concur with both these insights, and also see them as intrinsically related. 

Some problems really are local (trash pickup, pedestrian crosswalks, fixing potholes in existing streets, snow removal etc).  The more miles away from the problem the locus of decisionmaking is, the less good the decisions will be.

Other problems really are systemic (existing federal debt service, national security, interstate commerce etc), and our Founding Fathers recognized by the Constitutional Convention could only be addressed through national collective decisionmaking.  (And new systemic ones have arisen since; if the Bill of Rights did not foresee the automobile, there surely are other divination gaps as well.)

And the vast majority of problems are somewhere in between. 

 

Over Long Time, particular economic sectors boom and contract, human beings move to pursue better jobs and livelihoods, young people leave home to build their own lives, some geographic areas expand and thrive while others stagnate and decline. OTOH these cycles are evergreen and normal and healthy and OTO the disruption and despair they leave behind are ruinous.  The problems, themselves, cross county and state lines -- a significant segment of kids who are ejected/ flee from their families of origin for one reason or another become part of the homeless/ mental health/ food insecurity/ un- and underemployment problems elsewhere.  The problems, themselves, perpetuate and morph across time -- kids who grow up with inadequate health care, nutrition, education, domestic violence etc struggle to thrive as self-sustaining adults fifteen years later.

It's NOT self-evident, just by noodling in the abstract, which problems really do require a Big Picture systemic approach and which ones are best addressed locally.  Or which can be meaningfully ameliorated by charitable and non-profit work (robber barrons really did build out a public library system throughout the major municipalities of the Northeast before public funding came in.... though (tellingly) not the rural areas; more recently Johns Hopkins really did build the global database for COVID tracking where no government managed to get it together); versus which require a level of resources that can only be corralled through federal action (the Western expansion was only enabled by federal programs that forcibly cleared the land of its natives, then gave it away to selected homesteaders, then subsidized the railroad builders that stitched the pieces together; once those lands were settled the carrots of federal rural electrication programs and the sticks of AT&T's heavy federal regulation were required to bring electricity and phone service to those otherwise still-too-sparsely-populated-ever-to-be-profitable towns).

It is NOT self-evident which problems can be meaningfully addressed at what level and through what kind of funding.  It requires a messy push-and-pull political decisionmaking process of compromise and tradeoffs which will pretty much always leave more people frustrated and Monday morning quarterbacking than happy.

 

And this is a serious question.

If ~~ somewhere near half~~ of the country has careened into Nothing Matters Blow It All Up nihilism, then... the work has to be done by the rest of us.  And that necessarily affects that political decisionmaking process.

 

But we have to try. There is no option but to try.

This is HUGE.  If even 20% of us took these kinds of measures we would not be staring down the real possibility of sliding into failed statehood.

Pam, I think you live in my head. I agree with all of this so much. 

[Nart]

15 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Lemme challenge you on this, not because I know what right and wrong is but because I saw a different approach and it shifted my thinking.

In South Africa, the constitution guarantees people the right to make a living by hawking their wares streetside. RADICAL TO AMERICANS, normal to locals.

In South Africa, there were TONS of shantytowns. And? Residence doesn't equal value, values or worth.

In South Africa, I wasn't afraid for my safety in admittedly touristy, historically 'black', areas even tho me/my kids were considered 'colored/mixed'. We were offered *with a wink and a nod* local discounts!

In South Africa, the biggest fear I felt was in the resort areas/majority white areas where our AirBnB was located, not because of panhandlers but because of people who might assume we were locals and not tourists or guests.

Have you ever been assaulted by a panhandler?

Has trash ever caused you physical pain?

Has homelessness ever resulted in harm to you other than an extra step to walk around and pretend not to see?

Have you ever been forced to give money?

Do you not see how your 'concerns' about becoming jaded are small/petty/gross?

BEING POSITIVE DOESN'T MEAN BEING BLIND/ESCHEWING INTROSPECTION.

I posted my comment and then within 5 to 10  minutes deleted it because I am trying not to dwell on the negative. You must have quoted me as I was deleting my post. I am just reading what you wrote. 

We must live in vastly different parts of the US because it is nothing radical to have street hawkers where I live and no one takes a second glance. There are now really big food pop up places that operate setting up tents blocking sidewalks, using several burners, etc. to cook food after 5 pm and the weekends when the public health department is closed.

Unfortunately, yes my family and community are affected by panhandlers. My son's soccer team had a local permit to practice in a local park. I dropped off my son and the coach was setting up. When she went to her car a panhandler approached the coach's son (he is 16 and over 6 feet tall) and aggressively asked for money. When the coach saw the fear in her son's face she ran over and the panhandler lifted a stick over her head and began menacing them. She called the police and when they arrived they found the panhandler a block away. He was found with a large screwdriver. He was cited and released. So practices had to be moved.

A coworker who is an absolute lovely woman retired last year. She was walking on the pier with a friend minding her own business and a homeless man came up and hit her in the face with an iron bar resulting in teeth being knocked out and her face cut up and a fracture.  The same pier has a restaurant by it. A man was holding his little daughter in his lap and a homeless man walked into the restaurant and completely unprovoked stabbed the man to death. His family watched him die in front of their eyes. 

Last week in my county a homeless 25 year old pepper sprayed and stabbed employees at a Target then drove to a high school where he is alleged to have intentionally ran his car into a group of teenagers waiting at a bus stop. A 15 year old died. 

I was walking with my mother who is blind in one eye and has dementia to her audiologist last week and was yelled at by a homeless man as we tried to walk around his shopping cart, which was blocking the handicapped entrance ramp. 

So I have no idea what you meant about how my concerns about becoming jaded or these issues are small/petty/ gross to ,me. 

[Innisfree]

15 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

I just don’t understand how we got to a point in this country where people have a right to camp out anywhere including blocking sidewalks, aggressive panhandling, sleeping in parks where kids are trying to play sports, being completely drunk/wasted on the streets, etc. 

(Quoting @Nart’s post, from inside @Sneezyone’s post; Nart, if you prefer, I’ll delete this, but since you responded I figured you might be open to discussion in spite of deleting initially.)

 I think putting the emphasis on the homelessness is a mistake. Yes, there are lots of consequences to having people unhoused and living on the streets. You’re clearly in an area where you face more of those challenges than I do. But aren’t mental illness and addiction likely to be the underlying problems? I think when we don’t address those problems, we condemn ourselves to dealing with their consequences. It’s not that people have an affirmative right to live on the streets (though in some places they may), it’s that they don’t have another place to live. 

I guess we could simply arrest everyone who is homeless: do a general sweep every night. That  costs money. They need to be put somewhere. Someone has to be paid to gather them up. Are they incarcerated indefinitely? If not, what should be done with them?

 I’m not trying to attack your point of view. I haven’t faced what you do. I also don’t have any particular knowledge or experience of how to solve these problems. I just don’t think the homelessness is the issue. 

As to how we got here, it probably has a lot to do with deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, without alternative supports ever being provided, as was supposed to happen.

My limited understanding of the issue suggests that a housing-first approach can help, but I’ll be interested to hear from people who know more than I do. Somehow we need to provide housing, mental health treatment, and addiction treatment. It all costs money, so if we want to change things, we need to be willing to pay. To get back to the more general themes from this thread, we need to be willing to identify and address root causes of our problems, finding ways to work together to deal with reality. 

[prairiewindmomma]

We have the same safety concerns as Nart. Ds was punched recently on public transit and now most days sees people openly smoking fentanyl on foil on the trains. They simply take a train off service until it airs out and switch trains for a bit when the transit service/police are made aware. We are about at the point of him buying a car for his commute because the incidents are happening more frequently and are increasing in severity.
 

I have lived abroad and I have nothing against street vendors, shanty towns or poverty in a benign state, iykwim. We have all of those things here, including open defecation….when there are free public toilets including port a potties in camps made widely available.
 

I do know right now that I do a needle check before Youngest plays in the park (trash that hurts), I have been assaulted by a panhandler, and I can’t take my curvy tween and teen places downtown on busy trains without a higher likelihood of them being pinned in by people and molested (Though, to be fair, the same happened to me traveling abroad in Mexico.) I haven’t been pickpocketed here, but people are. I am pretty aware, though, and my RBF is pretty fierce. 😉

The problems here are largely a combination of mental illness and drug addiction. If you need new drugs every 3-4 hours, at $20-40/pop and you have no job = opportunistic crime happens. My state stupidly decriminalized small amount of substances (good, I think) without mandating treatment (bad). The prosecutorial office is so overburdened a lot of assaults and smaller crimes simply aren’t prosecuted. The legal system is so dysfunctional right now because they aren’t staffing appropriately. The mental illness aspect is the bigger elephant in the room. People need access to mental healthcare, including residential care, as well as medication. Universal healthcare, including mental health treatment, is the biggest thing we could do to improve life here. It would ease so many burdens (especially financial ones) at once. 

I do largely feel safer living abroad. I do also feel it’s harder to make apple to apple comparisons between living situations. Many of the concerns I have living here are starting to be replicated abroad (queer safety, access to affordable healthcare, access to safe and affordable housing, safety in schools, etc.) I see a greater rise in fascist thinking because people want security in a world that feels unsafe. It’s worrisome.

 

[freesia]

I am shaking my head a bit that people think it’s only now getting bad abroad. I loved living in Vancouver and a suburb of Vancouver.  I loved so many things about Canada ( health care definitely being one!) However the month my ds was born there was a six week or so garbage strike so even though I mainly used cloth—the stinky trash piled up. We always lived in nice neighborhoods. At one house, there was a bust of a marijuana grow-op across the street. At another house there was a bust of a meth lab in an apartment across the street. Lots of drug use. Lots. 
 

When I lived in Ireland, there was a lot of panhandling. I lived on the edge of a dicey neighborhood as well. Even the police don’t have guns in Ireland, but folks sure did have knives. Maybe bc I am a woman  I’ve never felt particularly safe anywhere?  And I’ve already referenced the other country where after a walk in the neighborhood alone and being aggressively propositioned, I never walked alone again. ( And I’m a city girl used to cat-calls. This was another level. )

[Heartstrings]

29 minutes ago, Innisfree said:

limited understanding of the issue suggests that a housing-first approach can help

Utah had some success with that approach several years ago, reducing chronic homeless by 91%.  It even saved money.    They rolled back the program though.   The state didn’t want to keep funding it.   91% isn’t 100% but geez, it’s better than nothing.  
 

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how

Edited April 28, 2023 by Heartstrings

[prairiewindmomma]

I think COVID brought a lot of countries into crisis with re: to their healthcare systems. I think aging populations within much of the northern hemisphere are straining economies with re: filling jobs, funding retirements, etc. I think the rise in fascism couched as conservative thinking (Orban, Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, the rise of the AfD party in Germany, some of the Tories, and even Canada) has happened more rapidly in the last 5 years. Obviously most of the places I mention above are Eurocentric…but Argentina is going through a rough round of destabilizing inflation right now, drought has destabilized a lot of Chile and Peru and those economic challenges have turned into political ones. Colombia is struggling more than usual (trying to stabilize the peso, President just asked cabinet to resign) and Venezuela is Venezuela. The Mexican cartels are making Ecuador kinda rough right now…I mean, I can go on…

If we look at now compared to 5-10 years ago, can you definitively point to places being better now?  

[SKL]

15 hours ago, Innisfree said:

(Quoting @Nart’s post, from inside @Sneezyone’s post; Nart, if you prefer, I’ll delete this, but since you responded I figured you might be open to discussion in spite of deleting initially.)

 I think putting the emphasis on the homelessness is a mistake. Yes, there are lots of consequences to having people unhoused and living on the streets. You’re clearly in an area where you face more of those challenges than I do. But aren’t mental illness and addiction likely to be the underlying problems? I think when we don’t address those problems, we condemn ourselves to dealing with their consequences. It’s not that people have an affirmative right to live on the streets (though in some places they may), it’s that they don’t have another place to live. 

I guess we could simply arrest everyone who is homeless: do a general sweep every night. That  costs money. They need to be put somewhere. Someone has to be paid to gather them up. Are they incarcerated indefinitely? If not, what should be done with them?

 I’m not trying to attack your point of view. I haven’t faced what you do. I also don’t have any particular knowledge or experience of how to solve these problems. I just don’t think the homelessness is the issue. 

As to how we got here, it probably has a lot to do with deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, without alternative supports ever being provided, as was supposed to happen.

My limited understanding of the issue suggests that a housing-first approach can help, but I’ll be interested to hear from people who know more than I do. Somehow we need to provide housing, mental health treatment, and addiction treatment. It all costs money, so if we want to change things, we need to be willing to pay. To get back to the more general themes from this thread, we need to be willing to identify and address root causes of our problems, finding ways to work together to deal with reality. 

I don't think she was saying that homelessness is a crime.

Homelessness is clearly an issue, but that is not to say that every homeless person is a criminal.  Some of them just need better community solutions.

But yes, some of them are criminals, so can we please not gaslight people who have been victimized by them, only to have the community say "oh well, sucks to be you"?

We do low-income community development.  We bought an old, abandoned warehouse and fixed it up into a very nice place, rented out space to community businesses, and hired some people.  Shortly after we opened, a homeless shelter also opened less than a block away.  Super, you probably say.  However, it was no longer safe for women to walk down the street, because some of the people in the shelter were rapists, and they would hang out on the sidewalk looking for opportunities.  At least one rape was reported (that I know of).  Our tenants, who serve the low-income community in important ways, had a hard time hiring and keeping female employees because of that.  (And difficulties employing local people also feed into the homeless problem.)

There's nothing wrong with shelters, and homelessness is not a crime.  But there is a statistically higher chance of crimes happening in this kind of setup, and guess who the victims are?

So locally, businesses lobbied for the shelter to be moved to a place that would be safer for the community, or to have better police monitoring, or something to make the situation safer.  I guess some will say that's bad corporate America controlling the world and pushing the little guy down.

Why not focus on what we surely all agree on: 

• Being homeless is not a crime.
• Communities need safe, effective solutions to homelessness.
• Women, children, the elderly, etc. deserve safe passage in their neighborhoods.
• Safe neighborhoods become places where employment can increase and homelessness can decrease.

Edited April 29, 2023 by SKL

[SKL]

I disagree that it's safer living abroad - at least for the regular local people.

Sure, it's probably safer in places built to cater to tourists and expats.  Most of them, anyway.  But it's not safe overall ... especially not for women and girls.  Like it or not, women and girls are much safer in the US than most other countries.  (Women also have more economic opportunity in the US than almost every other country.)

I've traveled a lot.  I saw more homeless people in certain Nordic countries (often used here as examples of perfection) than I see in my nearby urban area (which has more than its fair share of poverty and crime).

Edited April 29, 2023 by SKL

[Innisfree]

58 minutes ago, SKL said:

Why not focus on what we surely all agree on: 

• Being homeless is not a crime.
• Communities need safe, effective solutions to homelessness.
• Women, children, the elderly, etc. deserve safe passage in their neighborhoods.
• Safe neighborhoods become places where employment can increase and homelessness can decrease.

I can agree with all of that, and I certainly didn’t mean to gaslight anyone who has been victimized by homeless individuals. As you say, some homeless people are criminals. 

My point was just that the homelessness isn’t the beginning of the problem. The conditions which lead to homelessness are, especially mental illness and addiction. If we want to solve the problems caused by people living on the streets, we need to start with root causes. 

Sure, shelters are necessary. But not every homeless person is a good candidate for every shelter, and shelters don’t actually solve the problems of homelessness. We need better solutions. My personal suspicion is that, in spite of the very good reasons people are reluctant to institutionalize those with mental illnesses, we may need to shift the balance further towards institutionalization. There’s not going to be a perfect answer, but people with illnesses deserve treatment, safety, and housing, and others who live around them also deserve safety and security. 

I came back to post an article which discusses another effort to provide treatment. The tensions between all the competing needs are clear; this program attempts to mandate treatment for a minority of the homeless who are most seriously mentally ill, but obviously can’t meet all the needs of even that small percentage. It’s an interesting look at one effort, though. There shouldn’t be a paywall. My takeaway is that solving these problems is going to take one heck of a lot of money. It comes down to what people want to do.

https://wapo.st/3oRrddx

[Clarita]

On 4/27/2023 at 9:41 PM, Sneezyone said:

You didn't address my point, which to me is significant, because white women often center themselves as THE NORM and leave out other women/beauty norms/standards. One country doesn't define Asia and white women don't define the female experience in America or overseas. In Bahrain, white women often hated it. They also, often but not always, flouted cultural standards of dress and behavior. I had zero issues. In America, I've had senior retired military personnel hit on me via Facebook despite having a private profile and saying publicly (AND IN MY PROFILE) I'm married to a service member and asking them not to--IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS. I don't feel like that's normal. That's not about attractiveness. It's about boundaries. I am not treated as a person universally worthy of respect in the US. I am overseas.

It took me a few days to respond to this because when I first read this I was deeply offended. I am still a bit angry as I respond. 

I don't think this should have any significance to the issue but although I live in the US I am Asian. Yes me one person does not define the female experience. I haven't lived in dozens of countries for long stretches of time. I've visited as a tourist in a handful of countries and lived in 2. So, yes my own personal experience is limited.

My normal is that when I'm making a technical presentations, I expect the people in the room not to constantly tell me how nice I am to look at. Apparently during lunch with upper management, they had said some things that prompted upper management to decide that I needed a chaperone for the rest of my interactions with this group. As to what I was wearing I was wearing a business suit typical buttoned up shirt and a knee-length skirt. 

Although I have been hit-on, and otherwise sexually harassed outside of work, there are always people behaving badly. I expect a bit more decorum in these situations because (I expect), if sexual harassment (or that type of sexual harassment) isn't tolerated and you behave in that manner there would be consequences. So I expect that these men felt like what they were doing was acceptable behavior in their work place.

Where I live in the US (at least in CA), the main stream thought is we don't blame the victim for getting sexually harassed. I'm not sure in your statement whether you think that American women "ask" to be sexually harassed due to the way they dress and carry themselves or whether American women should be OK with behaviors they deem as sexual harassment because those behaviors are cultural.  

[Terabith]

Okay, I am going to jump in even though nobody ever likes it when I do on this topic, because the experiences I have had don’t mesh with what anyone, myself included, intuitively feels about the homeless.  

2 hours ago, Innisfree said:

I can agree with all of that, and I certainly didn’t mean to gaslight anyone who has been victimized by homeless individuals. As you say, some homeless people are criminals. 

My point was just that the homelessness isn’t the beginning of the problem. The conditions which lead to homelessness are, especially mental illness and addiction. If we want to solve the problems caused by people living on the streets, we need to start with root causes. 

Sure, shelters are necessary. But not every homeless person is a good candidate for every shelter, and shelters don’t actually solve the problems of homelessness. We need better solutions. My personal suspicion is that, in spite of the very good reasons people are reluctant to institutionalize those with mental illnesses, we may need to shift the balance further towards institutionalization. There’s not going to be a perfect answer, but people with illnesses deserve treatment, safety, and housing, and others who live around them also deserve safety and security. 

I came back to post an article which discusses another effort to provide treatment. The tensions between all the competing needs are clear; this program attempts to mandate treatment for a minority of the homeless who are most seriously mentally ill, but obviously can’t meet all the needs of even that small percentage. It’s an interesting look at one effort, though. There shouldn’t be a paywall. My takeaway is that solving these problems is going to take one heck of a lot of money. It comes down to what people want to do.

https://wapo.st/3oRrddx

Ten years ago, I would have agreed with you.  But then I kinda fell into a situation where I started, mostly by accident, doing a ton of work with both homeless people and refugees.  And while there really are about five distinct groups of people represented in the homeless population, and mental illness and drug abuse are bigger issues with this group than the general population, in most cases it goes in the other direction.  Most of the homeless people are suffering from mental illness and drug abuse BECAUSE they are homeless and not the other way around.  There is a group where the illness or addiction came first, but it is a relatively small group and even among the worst of those folks, compliance with medication and rehab goes WAY up if you supply housing with no strings attached first.  Most people are homeless because of bad luck.  A whole lot more of us are a lot closer to being homeless because of a couple of missed paychecks or accidents or unexpected bills or breaking up a real than anyone, myself included, are comfortable thinking about.  I live in a low cost of living area, and there’s almost no cheap housing, and if you can get into it, and your household has only 2-3 people in it, you still need more than $2000 cash to get a cheap apartment.  Most homeless people have jobs, or did have jobs until a crisis happened, sometimes the crisis being becoming homeless or their car breaking down.  (Public transportation is incredibly limited in our area.). Sometimes the crisis is losing childcare.  
 

The thing is, study after study shows that what works at reducing homelessness and crime is providing no strings attached free apartments to people and THEN offering services that people can choose to accept or reject.  Preferably apartments in mixed housing areas as opposed to all the homeless people being in the same building.  But we don’t like that.  We don’t like giving people something for nothing.  We want to feel virtuous, and we want to make people jump through hoops.  And let me tell you, I am smart, educated, have excellent executive functioning, no addictions, and I am not at all sure I could succeed at jumping through the hoops you have to jump through to get services in our area.  You have to give up your pets.  You have to have a job but there’s no public transportation and almost no affordable childcare, and you have to show up at random churches on the second Tuesday of each month at nine am exactly, where they will help three people, but if you miss work to make this appointment, to which you can’t bring your children, you lose your job.  These people are stressed beyond belief, and the people who are helping them get super pissy if they do anything like cuss or fail to be sufficiently grateful for being given things that they often don’t like or that don’t fit their needs.  And our area is seen as a model for services for the homeless and homeless or at risk folks are bussed from five hours away.  
 

Husbands and wives can’t stay together in our model shelter.  If you don’t speak English or Spanish, it’s super hard to manage, especially since with a lot of families we’re helping, Dad speaks English but mom and kids don’t.  Also, you have to put up with a lot of Christian services and requirements, even to get a meal, which can be a real problem for devout Muslims. Some people won’t come to the shelter because their dog is the only connection they have and he would be sent to the pound and euthanized.  Some people won’t accept services because they can’t imagine not having a beer, though when we get them an apartment, their need to drink goes away without any treatment.  
 

I am just increasingly convinced that we know what will work but we won’t do it, despite it being cheaper and more effective than what we do otherwise, because we find it offensive to our sense of fairness.  
 

 

[Innisfree]

8 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Okay, I am going to jump in even though nobody ever likes it when I do on this topic, because the experiences I have had don’t mesh with what anyone, myself included, intuitively feels about the homeless.  

Ten years ago, I would have agreed with you.  But then I kinda fell into a situation where I started, mostly by accident, doing a ton of work with both homeless people and refugees.  And while there really are about five distinct groups of people represented in the homeless population, and mental illness and drug abuse are bigger issues with this group than the general population, in most cases it goes in the other direction.  Most of the homeless people are suffering from mental illness and drug abuse BECAUSE they are homeless and not the other way around.  There is a group where the illness or addiction came first, but it is a relatively small group and even among the worst of those folks, compliance with medication and rehab goes WAY up if you supply housing with no strings attached first.  Most people are homeless because of bad luck.  A whole lot more of us are a lot closer to being homeless because of a couple of missed paychecks or accidents or unexpected bills or breaking up a real than anyone, myself included, are comfortable thinking about.  I live in a low cost of living area, and there’s almost no cheap housing, and if you can get into it, and your household has only 2-3 people in it, you still need more than $2000 cash to get a cheap apartment.  Most homeless people have jobs, or did have jobs until a crisis happened, sometimes the crisis being becoming homeless or their car breaking down.  (Public transportation is incredibly limited in our area.). Sometimes the crisis is losing childcare.  
 

The thing is, study after study shows that what works at reducing homelessness and crime is providing no strings attached free apartments to people and THEN offering services that people can choose to accept or reject.  Preferably apartments in mixed housing areas as opposed to all the homeless people being in the same building.  But we don’t like that.  We don’t like giving people something for nothing.  We want to feel virtuous, and we want to make people jump through hoops.  And let me tell you, I am smart, educated, have excellent executive functioning, no addictions, and I am not at all sure I could succeed at jumping through the hoops you have to jump through to get services in our area.  You have to give up your pets.  You have to have a job but there’s no public transportation and almost no affordable childcare, and you have to show up at random churches on the second Tuesday of each month at nine am exactly, where they will help three people, but if you miss work to make this appointment, to which you can’t bring your children, you lose your job.  These people are stressed beyond belief, and the people who are helping them get super pissy if they do anything like cuss or fail to be sufficiently grateful for being given things that they often don’t like or that don’t fit their needs.  And our area is seen as a model for services for the homeless and homeless or at risk folks are bussed from five hours away.  
 

Husbands and wives can’t stay together in our model shelter.  If you don’t speak English or Spanish, it’s super hard to manage, especially since with a lot of families we’re helping, Dad speaks English but mom and kids don’t.  Also, you have to put up with a lot of Christian services and requirements, even to get a meal, which can be a real problem for devout Muslims. Some people won’t come to the shelter because their dog is the only connection they have and he would be sent to the pound and euthanized.  Some people won’t accept services because they can’t imagine not having a beer, though when we get them an apartment, their need to drink goes away without any treatment.  
 

I am just increasingly convinced that we know what will work but we won’t do it, despite it being cheaper and more effective than what we do otherwise, because we find it offensive to our sense of fairness.  
 

 

This is interesting and helpful. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[Heartstrings]

17 minutes ago, Terabith said:

am just increasingly convinced that we know what will work but we won’t do it, despite it being cheaper and more effective than what we do otherwise, because we find it offensive to our sense of fairness.  

QFT.    Thank you.  I’ve been having the same thoughts but not able to put them all together coherently.  

[prairiewindmomma]

I live in a Housing First area fwiw, with a full Street Response force and a number of other services. We have a mix of tiny homes, designated campsites where running water and sometimes nursing/social work is available, converted motels, shelters, and vouchers for housing. 

I do agree that homelessness does push some into mental illness and drug use.

I will also say that a number of people here are homeless by choice, as in a lifestyle choice.

It’s way more complicated than just housing. 

[Terabith]

12 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I live in a Housing First area fwiw, with a full Street Response force and a number of other services. We have a mix of tiny homes, designated campsites where running water and sometimes nursing/social work is available, converted motels, shelters, and vouchers for housing. 

I do agree that homelessness does push some into mental illness and drug use.

I will also say that a number of people here are homeless by choice, as in a lifestyle choice.

It’s way more complicated than just housing. 

Yeah, and I think this is one of those subjects where regional variations are significant.  I think homelessness in southwestern Virginia is very different than in Seattle or San Francisco.  I think the people we have who are experiencing homelessness have different problems, and I think probably the density of homeless people makes a big difference too. And overall culture is different.  There are about five different kinds of people experiencing homelessness, and the ones we have the most experience with are refugees, people who just have money issues, and people who are experiencing domestic violence.  There are some with severe mental illness or addiction, but it’s a pretty small percentage.  I freely admit it’s a different problem in more densely urban areas.  I do think that the first step for most is no strings attached housing.  

[Carol in Cal.]

On 4/27/2023 at 9:18 PM, Clarita said:

Well, I've never been to Europe. So I don't want to say things I have not actually experienced.

I do feel safer in the US as a woman than I do in Japan, especially in a business setting. Maybe it was my fault (I may have smiled too much - I know now some countries view the normal amount of American smiling to be quite flirtatious), I've never felt that undressed and oggled by an American man than I did giving a technical presentation to that group of Japanese men.

I don't know if you count China as a functional, developed country. I appreciate that I can complain about the US. I appreciate that I wasn't "tracked" into either a humanities field or a math field entering into high school. That I could pretty easily go either way into college and in reality change career course into adulthood depending on how much work I want to put in.

As a very young, European/American engineer, I attended business meetings in Japan quite a few times.  I was apprehensive about how I would be regarded there, as a woman.  I wore heavy ‘dress for success’ outfits, and was extremely careful to be professional, as it sounds like you were.  In general I was treated with respect and, once I proved myself technically capable to them, as a valued colleague, both in a vendor role and in a supplier role.

However, one evening when a group from a vendor and I were out celebrating a major accomplishment, the guys (they were ALL guys) encouraged me to ask them anything I was wondering about.  I said, “Please be honest, how do you feel about working with a woman engineer?”  They assured me, “Since you’re American, we know that American women do this.  So we are comfortable with you.  But if you were Japanese, it would be very difficult.”

Based on your experience, a nuance might be that while they said ‘American’ they were picturing ‘European American’ rather than ‘US American in general’.   I just want you to know that I believe you, and that stinks.

I will say, however, that aside from the question of business seriousness, in my visits to Japan there were no visible concerns about street crime.  I would take the trains and subways with no concern whatsoever, and also walk on the streets the same way.  That is SUCH a different experience than here in the US, and in that regard, superior.

[Frances]

16 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

As a very young, European/American engineer, I attended business meetings in Japan quite a few times.  I was apprehensive about how I would be regarded there, as a woman.  I wore heavy ‘dress for success’ outfits, and was extremely careful to be professional, as it sounds like you were.  In general I was treated with respect and, once I proved myself technically capable to them, as a valued colleague, both in a vendor role and in a supplier role.

However, one evening when a group from a vendor and I were out celebrating a major accomplishment, the guys (they were ALL guys) encouraged me to ask them anything I was wondering about.  I said, “Please be honest, how do you feel about working with a woman engineer?”  They assured me, “Since you’re American, we know that American women do this.  So we are comfortable with you.  But if you were Japanese, it would be very difficult.”

Based on your experience, a nuance might be that while they said ‘American’ they were picturing ‘European American’ rather than ‘US American in general’.   I just want you to know that I believe you, and that stinks.

I will say, however, that aside from the question of business seriousness, in my visits to Japan there were no visible concerns about street crime.  I would take the trains and subways with no concern whatsoever, and also walk on the streets the same way.  That is SUCH a different experience than here in the US, and in that regard, superior.

This matches my sister’s experience living and working in Japan for ten years. She felt safe walking and taking public transportation any time of day or night while living in Tokyo. But she also definitely experienced traditional gender expectations after she married a Japanese man and had a baby. Most older adults, including his relatives, were appalled that he did things like change diapers.

[Sneezyone]

3 hours ago, Clarita said:

It took me a few days to respond to this because when I first read this I was deeply offended. I am still a bit angry as I respond. 

I don't think this should have any significance to the issue but although I live in the US I am Asian. Yes me one person does not define the female experience. I haven't lived in dozens of countries for long stretches of time. I've visited as a tourist in a handful of countries and lived in 2. So, yes my own personal experience is limited.

My normal is that when I'm making a technical presentations, I expect the people in the room not to constantly tell me how nice I am to look at. Apparently during lunch with upper management, they had said some things that prompted upper management to decide that I needed a chaperone for the rest of my interactions with this group. As to what I was wearing I was wearing a business suit typical buttoned up shirt and a knee-length skirt. 

Although I have been hit-on, and otherwise sexually harassed outside of work, there are always people behaving badly. I expect a bit more decorum in these situations because (I expect), if sexual harassment (or that type of sexual harassment) isn't tolerated and you behave in that manner there would be consequences. So I expect that these men felt like what they were doing was acceptable behavior in their work place.

Where I live in the US (at least in CA), the main stream thought is we don't blame the victim for getting sexually harassed. I'm not sure in your statement whether you think that American women "ask" to be sexually harassed due to the way they dress and carry themselves or whether American women should be OK with behaviors they deem as sexual harassment because those behaviors are cultural.  

You're making my point, intentionally or not. White women experience a different level of deference and protection in the U.S. (and overseas too to a much lesser degree) than other women do. Carolyn Bryant Dunham died this week...the woman whose lies condemned a black boy to death and never expressed remorse. That level of 'belief' and 'sheltering' has never been universally applied.

My point wasn't that misogyny was more/less prevalent overseas but that my experience with it is markedly different because other people groups look at different markers of value/worth/untouchability - to include dress, income, accent, nationality and role (things I have; things I have that are ignored in the U.S.). I know misogyny is a worldwide issue. It's more that the degree to which I'm subject to it isn't reduced by virtue of being in the U.S. and being in Europe or SA or China hasn't been, in my experience, *more* burdensome but less or the same. When the experiences of those who are universally seen as worthy of the most extreme protective measures are centered, to include death on sight/word, it skews the view of risk.

We don't have street hawkers where I live/work currently but they were prevalent in Seattle when I was growing up. My parents had me take the bus from Tacoma to the UW every month for my ortho appointments (and meet my mom for lunch downtown) at 11/12 and, despite sometimes aggressive panhandling tactics, and maybe because my own neighborhood was significantly more riddled with needles and crime, it didn't phase me. They never touched me. Neither did the catcallers.

Nothing in what I said suggested the bolded. I *AM* an American woman and my experience is simply different. People in my own country are FAR, FAR bolder than people I've met overseas.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Sneezyone

[prairiewindmomma]

I agree, Sneezy, that I wear the privilege of pasty white skin and that makes life easier for me here, especially compared to my family and friends of color….and that living elsewhere things can be much, much easier for POC. There is even an added layer of oppression that happens to Black American people compared to Black African people living in America. It’s wrong. 
 

——-

Washington Post has a good article right now on the startup of California’s Care Courts. I have mixed feelings about the coercive aspect of tying medical treatment to diversions, but I think this may be very helpful for a segment of the population here. 

[Ting Tang]

On 4/28/2023 at 11:49 AM, Spy Car said:

The irony, of course, is that wealth redistribution via taxation from urban economic powerhouses is what subsidizes the less developed and less prosperous rural areas in this country.

Bill

 

I have lived in a very wealthy suburb of Chicago, and now I live in a rural community outside of Chicagoland.  One of the issues in my area is there is a heavy focus on preparing kids for jobs vs. college.  Public education is subpar, even compared to what I received in public school more than two decades ago.  The wealthier areas are not doing us any favors there.  Many think that money could be redistributed even more so to the rural areas to improve the schools.  However, we also have people here who are against school consolidation.  They would rather hold onto a community school, even if it means the students have less opportunities.  2-3 kids per classroom really isn't efficient.  I know consolidation isn't ideal for a lot of people, but I really do feel in this instance, it needs to be considered.   I know you are not referencing school funding, but I assume we are not as prosperous because of the quality of education. It's not to say there are not intelligent people here, of course.    Stubbornness, defensiveness, head in the sand...  Wow, people were angry with me when I started to bring up problems with the school system and how far behind it is.  Things could be improved somewhat without asking others for more, but nope, we need to keep praising our little, tiny dysfunctional school. 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Ting Tang

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, Ting Tang said:

I have lived in a very wealthy suburb of Chicago, and now I live in a rural community outside of Chicagoland.  One of the issues in my area is there is a heavy focus on preparing kids for jobs vs. college.  Public education is subpar, even compared to what I received in public school more than two decades ago.  The wealthier areas are not doing us any favors there.  Many think that money could be redistributed even more so to the rural areas to improve the schools.  However, we also have people here who are against school consolidation.  They would rather hold onto a community school, even if it means the students have less opportunities.  2-3 kids per classroom really isn't efficient.  I know consolidation isn't ideal for a lot of people, but I really do feel in this instance, it needs to be considered.   I know you are not referencing school funding, but I assume we are not as prosperous because of the quality of education. It's not to say there are not intelligent people here, of course.    Stubbornness, defensiveness, head in the sand...  Wow, people were angry with me when I started to bring up problems with the school system and how far behind it is. 

Welcome to my experience in northwest Arkansas circa 1995. It sucks. Good luck. 

[Heartstrings]

35 minutes ago, Ting Tang said:

I have lived in a very wealthy suburb of Chicago, and now I live in a rural community outside of Chicagoland.  One of the issues in my area is there is a heavy focus on preparing kids for jobs vs. college.  Public education is subpar, even compared to what I received in public school more than two decades ago.  The wealthier areas are not doing us any favors there.  Many think that money could be redistributed even more so to the rural areas to improve the schools.  However, we also have people here who are against school consolidation.  They would rather hold onto a community school, even if it means the students have less opportunities.  2-3 kids per classroom really isn't efficient.  I know consolidation isn't ideal for a lot of people, but I really do feel in this instance, it needs to be considered.   I know you are not referencing school funding, but I assume we are not as prosperous because of the quality of education. It's not to say there are not intelligent people here, of course.    Stubbornness, defensiveness, head in the sand...  Wow, people were angry with me when I started to bring up problems with the school system and how far behind it is.  Things could be improved somewhat without asking others for more, but nope, we need to keep praising our little, tiny dysfunctional school. 

Unequitable funding of schools is a problem this country has overall.  It's one of the things that needs to be fixed.  We should not have kids with falling down school building a few blocks away from schools with Olympic swimming pools and Silicon Valley style tech labs.  It's just not right. 

[Ting Tang]

This is why I am homeschooling indefinitely.  😞  

 

 

[SKL]

3 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

People in my own country are FAR, FAR bolder than people I've met overseas.

My friends of color who have lived in other countries have had the opposite experience.  They would say it was a huge breath of fresh air coming here and not having every man on the street think he had the right to ogle, touch, even rape a woman who dared to walk around without a male chaperone.  10x worse if she also dared to work, 100x worse if she dared to taste alcohol.

And the economic opportunity for people of every color ... there's a reason why immigration to the US is so popular among all classes and races of people in so many countries.  Still, despite all our problems and all their home countries' progress.

I do agree that there is a difference in how people decide whom to respect, and skin color is given more importance than it should be in the US.  I know it's different in different countries - not always better, not always worse.

In India, I never saw a black person, but I observed a lot of blatant racist attitudes toward black people.  (Same with at least parts of Latin America.)  In Fiji, black people have much higher status than Indian people.  So there is really no universal reality.

But yes, we can and should do better when it comes to respect regardless of biological heritage.

Edited April 29, 2023 by SKL

[Sneezyone]

38 minutes ago, SKL said:

My friends of color who have lived in other countries have had the opposite experience.  They would say it was a huge breath of fresh air coming here and not having every man on the street think he had the right to ogle, touch, even rape a woman who dared to walk around without a male chaperone.  10x worse if she also dared to work, 100x worse if she dared to taste alcohol.

And the economic opportunity for people of every color ... there's a reason why immigration to the US is so popular among all classes and races of people in so many countries.  Still, despite all our problems and all their home countries' progress.

I do agree that there is a difference in how people decide whom to respect, and skin color is given more importance than it should be in the US.  I know it's different in different countries - not always better, not always worse.

In India, I never saw a black person, but I observed a lot of racist attitudes toward black people.  (Same with at least parts of Latin America.)  In Fiji, black people have much higher status than Indian people.  So there is really no universal reality.

But yes, we can and should do better when it comes to respect regardless of biological heritage.

Maybe that depends on how black you appear or the social/class determinants I mentioned (conspicuous consumption, chaperones, drivers, etc). There are a lot of POC overseas who receive better treatment than I do at home. I’ve never been to India or Southeast Asia but if that’s what you’re referring to, can you compare the experience of those who appear local to those who do not?

Edited April 30, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Clarita]

6 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I will say, however, that aside from the question of business seriousness, in my visits to Japan there were no visible concerns about street crime.  I would take the trains and subways with no concern whatsoever, and also walk on the streets the same way.  That is SUCH a different experience than here in the US, and in that regard, superior.

Definitely superior in that sense (I did wander into the wrong district once on vacation but that was user error). Also I loved the cleanliness. 

I don't think the US is perfect or superior in general, just that these were the things that keeps me here.

[Meriwether]

9 hours ago, Terabith said:

  I do think that the first step for most is no strings attached housing.  

I grew up in a very small, rural town. We had exactly one homeless person in our town. Several of the local churches got together and bought him a house. It wasn't a fancy house (there were very few fancy houses in my hometown), but it was not a dump either. There were no hoops to jump through. He wouldn't stay in it. As a teen, I assumed he was mental ill because who would rather live under a railroad overpass than in a home? I have no idea what the reason actually was, but my first picture of homelessness showed me that the issue is complex.

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, Meriwether said:

I grew up in a very small, rural town. We had exactly one homeless person in our town. Several of the local churches got together and bought him a house. It wasn't a fancy house (there were very few fancy houses in my hometown), but it was not a dump either. There were no hoops to jump through. He wouldn't stay in it. As a teen, I assumed he was mental ill because who would rather live under a railroad overpass than in a home? I have no idea what the reason actually was, but my first picture of homelessness showed me that the issue is complex.

When I lived in a small town, we also had one "homeless guy."  He was a property owner too.  But he told us that he didn't want to get a job because he didn't want to pay child support to his wife.  He must have had other issues, but he clearly chose not to live like other people.  Some nice people would leave their car doors unlocked at night so he could sleep in there if it was cold.  And he had sources of food and clothes, and the occasional shower somewhere.