One of my son’s friends is a Senior in high school. This young man is very motivated and driven. He has accumulated enough extra credit to be on schedule to graduate halfway through his senior year, and even at that has found time to work part-time as a heavy equipment operator. This part-time high school kid makes $35/hr and has a full-time job waiting for him when he graduates.
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Mental health, addiction and the “new homeless”, the working poor.
Laws changed long ago to prevent forcing people into mental health or addiction treatment. If they say, NO, legally there is nothing to be done. Places like California, pay them welfare benefits and food benefits so it allows them to pursue their addiction or remain on the streets. In warm sunny southern Cali the problem grows.
The working poor homeless problem is more complicated, I think, and took 50 years to develop so it won’t be fixed overnight.
In the past, the land and minerals (gold, silver, copper ect…) was a finite asset controlled by the rich so the poor are kept from ownership and remain poor. The middle class craftsman changed that paradigm. Their wealth came from their knowledge and muscle, not the ownership of land or minerals.
Wealth today is infinite. It can be created from an idea not forcefully depriving anyone of their wealth. An example is the Angry Birds game. Created from a human mind and programming effort as an app Offered to people who voluntarily paid for the app making the creators who own the product multi millionaires. No one loses, everybody wins.
That’s mostly accurate.
When someone winds-up in an ER because of a medical issue, if an MD assesses that person as being in need of psychiatric confinement, the MD can send that person to a locked Psych Ward. And, upon approval by a Court, the hospital can extend that involuntary confinement for an extended periof of time.
But, for the most part, people with serious mental issues–which can endanger others–can roam the streets… until such time as the above circumstances take place.
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I don’t entirely agree with you, that wealth (or opportunity for wealth) is infinite today.
Using your Angry Birds example…in addition to luck…you would have to be an individual with enough free time on his hands to design such a game, outside of work hours…on a computer…at a house or apartment…with an internet connection and electricity. Not to mention pre-existing knowledge of coding/computer programming.
I think, among other things, Covid showed us having a nation of both “knowledge” workers and especially students working from home that not everybody has access to all of the home factors that I mentioned above. Just because I have a computer at home, internet, and a stable home life doesn’t necessarily mean my neighbor does, too.
Anyway… I know we’re well off of car topics…so rant over.
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"Mustangman, post:22,
Places like California, pay them welfare benefits and food benefits so it allows them to pursue their addiction or remain on the streets. In warm sunny southern Cali the problem grows. . What do these people use for an address to get an ID and benifits?
The social workers track them down and bring it directly to them.
Only if they are of danger to themselves or to others… that normally means they have already tried to hurt themselves or others… Just being mental doesn’t mean you will try to hurt anyone…
It is very hard to make that case even IF a medical facility were to take that up with the courts. It would likely fall to a family member to hire a lawyer to file for that. An estranged homeless person isn’t likely to have a family member willing to pay. Theoretically possible but practically impossible.
Easier than addiction, though. Cali will pay for that but it must be voluntary.
I’ll just say that the idea that our problems are created by a lack of equal outcomes is so wrong on a number of levels including human nature. When the arguments were made for our founding documents, the most important was equal opportunity not equal outcomes. Show me a political system that has thrived with one based on equal outcomes outside of some small homogenous populations.
This is the idea of pitting one group against another and creating class, race, age, etc. envy. You have a car and I don’t so I can just take it. You kept your foot on my neck so I couldn’t thrive. Didn’t have a computer or internet or address so you owe me. The current situation is the result.
I think it is Denmark who has tackled the homeless issue more effectively. A series of steps to accomplish to earn the reward and move to the next step. Eventually lives are returned to society, but is earned not just given.
Read a little history.
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From what I gathered from my son, they knew that they did not have to dig ditches and that the ditches would be dug by a separate contractor, but he believes they just do not want to work outside now that it’s starting to get cold and rainy.
I personally use a TradFone that I buy them Brand New from QVC or HSN and they come with a year’s worth of service, and I’ve written previously that I bought these phones for some friends and folks at my local senior center who have fallen on hard times. These phone cost from $49 to $70, for a really nice one with all the bells and whistles. And for a few who have and issue with the technology, they also sell Flip-Phones. The last ones came as a pack of two, each with a year’s worth of service for only $55.
The problem with America is that we have become a nation of consumers, not producers… In a consumer society, we just move money around, the worker at the grocery store spend their money on consumables, food, rent, cloths, utilities, etc… and each business that they spend their money merely moves it another one of these consumable’s businesses. For example, you own a clothing store and you pay me to mow your grass, I use that money to repair my car, the mechanic spends that money eating at a restaurant, the wait-staffs spend their money at your clothing store…
See, there is no wealth generation, only moving the money around…
However, wealth is generated when items are produced, I mow your grass, I take the clippings to a recycling center, they turn it into fertilizer. The near worthless grass clippings earn me a few dollars extra, the recycling center sold the fertilizer for a handsome profit…
America use to produce to many products that were exported around the world bring in money that was never here… Now, as consumers, we import and send our money elsewhere…
Thanks, George, for another ‘car adjacent’ topic that pretty much immediately ended up in the ditch.
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Not in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state. Cost of living is high because we have very low unemployment, and a high percentage of good wage engineering jobs. The demand for housing is still very high (homes selling in hours once they hit the market). But there’s also a large group of service workers whose wages haven’t even come close to increase in home prices. The house we currently live in - we built in mid 90’s for just under $200k. Current value (based on Zillow and other similar homes that sold recently in our area) is a little over $900,000. NY has far more rules and regulations then NH does…and homes in cities like Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo have not seen the same increase. Average home cost in NH is about $450k whereas the average home price in Syracuse is $170k. The biggest factor between NH and Central NY is unemployment and wages. There’s not a lot of difference in wages between unskilled workers in NH and central NY, but cost of living in NH is significantly higher.
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And Texas’ big cities’ housing costs are skyrocketing. Pretty sure the vote getters here.
Maybe it is different in your area, but in my county, if an MD believes that someone has serious mental problems–even if he has not yet hurt anyone–the MD can call PESS (Psychiatric Emergency Screening Services, with which the county has a contract) which will send an on-call Psychiatrist to the hospital, and if he/she agrees that the person has the potential to harm someone, they are sent to a locked Psych ward for further assessment.
Nice system if it works but sounds similar to what was done in Eastern Europe a while back.
I knew a guy whose wife went nuts one night and beat him up. Sheriff came, escorted him out of the house and confiscated all of his hunting equipment for his own good. After a year when the divorce was final, he did get his weapons back. And this was rural western Minnesota. Long expensive year. Don’t remember anymore but think the wife was either on drugs or had a lover. Some folks have just gotten to the point of not trusting the system anymore and will be a long road back. You can go bankrupt defending yourself or trying to prove you are sane.
A couple of things. One very BIG problem in California with the homeless is that gangs prey on the homeless. I met a homeless man in Ventura a few years ago who I caught sleeping in my uncles back yard under a canopy.
He was a junkie and really bad health. He said that when he would go to the shelter to pick up his benefits, stronger homeless or gang members would steal it from him before he could gat out the door. The social workers just watched this go on and did nothing about it because they were scared too. The police were no help either.
I talked with some volunteers from a church who verified his story as being very common place. My brother who lived in the area at the time said that police did not respond to calls concerning homeless people. You have to keep everything locked up.
Another issue that contributes to homelessness stems from the “not in my backyard” mentality. Current homeowners band together to do everything they can to prevent new houses from being built because too much housing could cause the value of their houses to go down (or not rise as fast). This is most prevalent in New England where whole town are declared historic districts so very tight regulations to preserve the area make building a new house, or even repairing an old one very difficult. Historic societies are allowed to have controls that should only be allowed by elected officials. They are even worse than most HOA’s.
Definitely different here then in your area…
My good friend has gone through this with his dad when he gets off his meds for a while, he has taking him to the hospital and they would not admit him, said you had to call 911 1st or some other bull crap… Even though he has stayed there before… It is all kinds of messed up here dealing with the mentally ill… About all they do is keep you on lockdown for a week and then let you back out again…
Aren’t the benefits delivered in a digital manner? Do they need to visit the county office to reload the card?
Renting an apartment would be a practical starting point for a low income worker.
DMP asks above if daughter was working? I don’t recall, got the impression she was still in college. If the choice is between daughter going to college and both living in the car, me, I’d postpone the college. When I was in college I had a part time job from 7 to 11 pm cleaning an office building. After graduation, I got a professional job at the same office … lol … Some of my coworkers, upon hearing I used to be a janitor there, asked if I would use my new position seek retribution against my janitorial boss. “Why? He was always good to me, and the paychecks all cleared” I replied.
If folks want to hear the actual podcast, its on the KQED radio Forum website.
It’s a call-in show and some listeners who have been living in the cars phoned in as well. They seemed to have more common sense, living in bigger vehicles than the econobox the mother/daughter used, one of the listeners used a Ford Explorer, and another used a Chevy Suburban.
Re the speculation above that the engine replacement may have been caused by the mother/daughter not following the manufacturer’s recommended schedule, hard to say; seems there are quite a few posts here above folks needing engine replacements these days, in some case covered by warranty. I expect the longer intervals recommended between oil changes play a role.
I agree…but many of those are out of reach for low wage earners. Average 1bd room apartment in NH is over $1,500/mo. At $20/hr, that’s 3/4 your monthly take home pay.
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