Poverty in America

I am motivated to act, but I’d like to make my actions count, so how do we organize a gameplan, a feasible gameplan that would yield positive results. What’s the first step? I know…try out making an ILP user’s group where we could all meet to discuss the options.

You obviously have not or not carefully read those posts you are talking about.

A catastrophe is a solution. It’s no good solution, I know, but it is a solution. Ask geologists if you don’t believe me.

I am not saying that I prefer a catastrophe as a solution. I am only saying that a catastrophe is a solution. You have asked for solutions, I have answered with an example, Now, stop bitching, moaning, complaining, whining.

Also: Where are your promised solutions? Do you have any solution at all?

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Mr R wrote:

That really is the crux of the matter for a vast majority of people.

I think schools should have a compulsory subject teaching kids to save and budget money in order to learn how establish themselves financially.

I would not recommend the stock market for most as not everyone is a winner and the motto is you have to be able to ‘afford a loss’ to play the game.

Foster a respect for money, not a love of money and understand your income.

I don’t think everyone should actively trade, but I do think everyone should actively contribute to savings and there are plenty of good buy and hold strategies that are known to pay off over time and to minimize risk.

Are you trying to start up a hedge fund? You read like an ad in Fortune magazine.

You could always get a Starbucks franchise. There must be at least one street corner available.

Hello Faust
I think that government can enhance the opportunities the poor have to make it out of this condition by providing clinics to help with addiction, provide counseling, education, and perhaps for a few that show promise, temporary addresses. I know that’s a lot for a “clinic”, so we can call it a “Kushner-clinic”. Another thing they could do to improve is to enforce minimum standards for housing, just as they do for restaurants. Landlords can sometimes get away with anything, and like you said, where money is not the issue, then there is no excuse. Even if you, as a landlord, take in the desperate and give them a roof does not mean that you get to define what a “roof” actually is. Now this could lead to some landlords going out of business, taking away the chance of the poor to have any sort of “roof”, by whomever’s definition, but if the roof is such that it becomes a prison, or worse their grave, then this is better in the end.

Omar,

You’re right. Any sort of help clinic almost has to become a “community” in itself because those in need have all sorts of problems, not just one. The best clinics link up with as many “helpers” as possible. They need doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics, every specialty out there.

One of the problems for the “slum lords” is that the people they shelter must leave their roof in the same or better condition when they moved in. Landlords often have to completely redo an apartment that was trashed by the last occupants and that costs money. This is a problem not only in the cities but in the smallest towns and villages everywhere in the country. There needs to be accountability on the part of the landlord and tenant alike.

The tenants accountability is called a security deposit. What is the landlords accountability called?

Highbrow piety vs Insidious reality.

“Profit”.

Profit which should be held in an interest accruing account until the tenant moves out and the city inspects the condition of the place to see who gets the security deposit and who gets the profit, tenant, landlord, or city fines.

Landlord tenant act dramatically favors the tenant already. Thats why housing costs so much.

The current USA judiciary policy favors the lowest level of adjudication possible for all events. That means until necessary to do otherwise, those controlled by taxation and/or licenses are handed the responsibility of making lower level authority decisions and maintaining order.

That is how extreme liberal racism and other agendas become the norm. It is also how some $500,000,000 HUD funds disappeared under Obama’s watch.

I have rented apartments for the past 29 years in FL, VA, ME, NY, TX, and GA. In that time I have seen the best (TX) and the worst (NY) there is out there. There is a tendency, in my experience, that when people are given deteriorated stuff, suitable for the garbage bin, then they take no ownership, no pride, which then promotes even more deterioration. New stuff tends to be treated a little bit better. I think that one of the ways that govt can serve the poor is to co-op, in some way target their contributions, organizations involved in community projects.
I think that the leasing system is geared to weed out such abusers- people that trash an apartment will get a bad-recommendations, which is asked by the next landlord, and so maybe they can do it once, or twice but eventually no one will rent them shit. It is like credit and in fact nowdays leasing is also determined by your credit history. The same kind of protections are not there for the resident. You do not know what this person has done or will do to you in a time of need. If they have a problem, then YOU are asked for patience, but if if you have a problem, oh, there are fees for that. Like the House, they never lose. It is so unfair that they arbitrarily determine fees. Early termination? That will be three months rent.

But I guess that is veering off topic. I get what Faust is saying. Sometimes it seems that you can take the horse to the water but you cannot make the horse drink the water. But we really, really have to be careful and not lay blame on the poor. Society encourages segregation, based on color, based on class, sex, pick other categories if you like. Because of this opportunity sometimes falls on communities which, through systemic oppression, pass in the eyes of other as unwilling or incapable of profiting from the “charity” laid on them. Others cannot contemplate a new career- Can’t teach an old dog new tricks-- but this all depends on the valuations made by each person. Most of us value this religion of improving, and we look at another person’s life and find it wanting-- by our standards. A new career might pay the bills but it might not be what a person wants for herself for their own standards and reasons which we might not understand.

This is why I believe that community centers have to be able to listen to people and find out how the system can help individuals as much as they can do to the community. Not every government initiative will have a direct impact-- cause and effect easily defined-- but nonetheless improving healthcare, treating addiction, insisting on a GED, improving infrastructure, modernizing our penal code which is the source of sooooooooooo much poverty, all of these among others, would be the result of government action and could improve persistent poverty.

As long as we are speaking anecdotally, I will chip in my experience. In a previous career I was in a position to assess entire segments of real-estate portfolios. Part of this role was to enter residential spaces and perform various assessments that invariably included very up-close and personal introductions to people’s contents and living conditions, and also glimpse of their lifestyles. I can concur with the point regarding people taking care of things if they are new vs. old however, quite often this was not the case. In fact, in many cases, if living conditions were initially improved by a move into better accommodations, the conditions quickly deteriorated to similar to those they had left. Similarly but more concerning, was the frequency to which I entered fairly new, modern subsidized housing complexes and encountered some of the worst living conditions I have seen. In these cases, I can only surmise that they take no ownership or pride because they have even less accountability encouraged by means of subsidized rent. This is based on seeing almost every combination of income vs living conditions imaginable.

Omar & IR,

Very thoughtful posts. Thank you. What you posted simply highlights the fact that what is poverty is far more complex than what fits on a bumper sticker slogan. It is sad that those who try to help are simply overwhelmed with the complexity and so much of their efforts are submarined by “issues” that they cannot control.

I didn’t intend to derail the thread by focusing on land lord - tenant problems as some major poverty issue. It is just one problem among many. But perhaps the solution is one that Faust kinda sorta referenced. It was about the lack of buy in. If more tenants were offered ways and means to BUY their living spaces, then pride in ownership might begin to lessen the problem. Dunno, but it might be worth a shot. Back to complexity: The banks, realtors, lenders both government and others would have to get together and come up with a workable program. I won’t hold my breath waiting, but it seems like a plausible answer.

What is a workable program for folks who haven’t the income to sustain their living environment?

All his proposed “solutions” are as old as the industrial modernity itself. They don’t work in the long run. Even Keynes & Co. knew this, but thought that debt was nonetheless the best “solution”. But it is an error too. It’s something like communistic capitalism and similar to capitalistic communism: an unworkable program, at least in the long run.

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He and the other “liberals” don’t know or don’t want to admit that they can’t provide a workable program for those cases you mentioned, which means in the long run that they can’t provide a workable program for all.

And they always have excuses. This time it is “complexity”, “… those who try to help are simply overwhelmed with the complexity and so much of their efforts are submarined by ‘issues’ that they cannot control.” … and so on and so forth.

Do they know what a computer program is and what a computer modelling means?

The serving purpose of both debt and poverty is socialist confinement and control.

Hello Inconvenient

Cant say much about subsidized renters, but when I was in Miami I remember seeing a very good looking apartment tower next to I-95. When I asked about availability I found out that these were subsidized apartments. Brand new construction subsidized by govt, saving which were supposed to be extended to renters of modest income. It was not that old, but it was fairly well kept. I am sure that there are some that will trash a place no matter what, but that has probably little to do with their means and more with their character, for I have seen apartments trashed by people of means (relative to the other group). In my experience in Miami, I can tell you that leases impose quite a bit of restrictions when the administrations is spending money keeping the place up to standard. For example, the condition of your window shades, what you are allowed to keep in the balcony, is regulated by the lease agreement. Subsidized rent is not necessarily equal to less accountability, specially when such well kept buildings often carry a waiting list for approved applicants.