Posted on 08/02/2018 7:43:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If the U.S. economy is really doing so well, then why is homelessness rising so rapidly? As the gap between the rich and the poor continues to increase, the middle class is steadily eroding. In fact, I recently gave my readers 15 signs that the middle class in America is being systematically destroyed. More Americans are falling out of the middle class and into poverty with each passing day, and this is one of the big reasons why the number of homeless is surging. For example, the number of people living on the street in L.A. has shot up 75 percent over the last 6 years. But of course L.A. is far from alone. Other major cities on the west coast are facing similar problems, and that includes Seattle. It turns out that the Emerald City has seen a 46 percent rise in the number of people sleeping in their vehicles in just the past year…
The number of people who live in their vehicles because they can’t find affordable housing is on the rise, even though the practice is illegal in many U.S. cities.
The number of people residing in campers and other vehicles surged 46 percent over the past year, a recent homeless census in Seattle’s King County, Washington found. The problem is “exploding” in cities with expensive housing markets, including Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco, according to Governing magazine.
Amazon, Microsoft and other big tech companies are in the Seattle area. It is a region that is supposedly “prospering”, and yet this is going on.
Sadly, it isn’t just major urban areas that are seeing more people sleeping in their vehicles. Over in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, many of the homeless sleep in their vehicles even in the middle of winter…
Stephanie Monroe, managing director of Children Youth & Family Services at Volunteers of America, Dakotas, tells a similar story. At least 25 percent of the non-profit’s Sioux Falls clients have lived in their vehicles at some point, even during winter’s sub-freezing temperatures.
“Many of our communities don’t have formal shelter services,” she said in an interview. “It can lead to individuals resorting to living in their cars or other vehicles.”
It is time to admit that we have a problem. The number of homeless in this country is surging, and we need to start coming up with some better solutions.
But instead, many communities are simply passing laws that make it illegal for people to sleep in their vehicles…
A recent survey by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), which tracks policies in 187 cities, found the number of prohibitions against vehicle residency has more than doubled during the last decade.
Those laws aren’t going to solve anything.
At best, they will just encourage some of the homeless to go somewhere else.
And if our homelessness crisis is escalating this dramatically while the economy is supposedly “growing”, how bad are things going to be once the next recession officially begins?
We live at a time when the cost of living is soaring but our paychecks are not. As a result, middle class families are being squeezed like never before.
A recent Marketwatch article highlighted the plight of California history teacher Matt Barry and his wife Nicole…
Barry’s wife, Nicole, teaches as well — they each earn $69,000, a combined salary that not long ago was enough to afford a comfortable family life. But due to the astronomical costs in his area, including real estate — a 1,500-square-foot “starter home” costs $680,000 — driving for Uber was a necessity.
“Teachers are killing themselves,” Barry says in Alissa Quart’s new book, “Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America” (Ecco), out Tuesday. “I shouldn’t be having to drive Uber at eight o’clock at night on a weekday. I just shut down from the mental toll: grading papers between rides, thinking of what I could be doing instead of driving — like creating a curriculum.”
Home prices are completely out of control, but that bubble should soon burst.
However, other elements of our cost of living are only going to become even more painful. Health care costs rise much faster than the rate of inflation every year, food prices are becoming incredibly ridiculous, and the cost of a college education is off the charts. According to author Alissa Quart, living a middle class life is “30% more expensive” than it was two decades ago…
“Middle-class life is now 30% more expensive than it was 20 years ago,” Quart writes, citing the costs of housing, education, health care and child care in particular. “In some cases the cost of daily life over the last 20 years has doubled.”
And thanks to the trade war, prices are going to start going up more rapidly than we have seen in a very long time.
On Tuesday, we learned that diaper and toilet paper prices are rising again…
Procter & Gamble said on Tuesday that it was in the process of raising Pampers’ prices in North America by 4%. P&G also began notifying retailers this week that it would increase the average prices of Bounty, Charmin, and Puffs by 5%.
P&G is raising prices because commodity and transportation cost pressures are intensifying. The hikes to Bounty and Charmin will go into effect in late October, and Puffs will become more expensive beginning early next year.
I wish that I had better news for you, but I don’t. We are all going to have to work harder, smarter and more efficiently. And we are definitely going to have to tighten our belts.
Many middle class families are relying on debt to get them from month to month, and consumer debt in the United States has surged to an all-time high. But eventually a day of reckoning comes, and we all understand that.
The U.S. economy is not going to be getting any better than it is right now. So it is time to be a lean, mean saving machine, because it will be important to have a financial cushion for the hard times that are ahead of us.
Meanwhile congress passes a Tariff Relief Bill, lowering tariffs on good that are no longer produced in the USA.
Undermining Trump’s trade initiatives, forfeiting government revenues that could be used to help the homeless, and waving the white flag of surrender on those industries.
That’s the new “tech economy” the ignorant have proclaimed as nothing different than the industrial revolution.
That proclamation has been a myth.
The creative destruction of the arrogant technologists has NEVER directly or indirectly created more jobs than it has dedstroyed, nor has it spawned other industries that have done that instead.
Why? The high rate of job destruction also disrupted the economic, social and educational abilities of society to recover, in terms of job creation, and tech’s response has been to double down on tech (more automation & AI) to replace workers not showing up at their door, or at the doors of the companies pushed to adopt technology as their new “employee”.
Currently, in my middle class neighborhood in Queens, an 18 or 20' wide rowhouse is going for $850-925K. A one bedroom co-op apartment is going for $250-260K. A three bedroom co-op apartment is going for $325K. A stand-alone 4 bedroom house is going for well over a mill. They don't charge extra for the bumper to bumper traffic encountered any time you step into a car, the lack of parking when you get where you're going, or the ambulatory anal orifice called a mayor here.
My wife and I watch the renov shows on DIY anf H&G networks all the time.
We are shocked at the prices they have on there!...............
Personally, we have had a son living on the streets. When we finally found him, he said it was the EASE and ability to get money from strangers, that he made $20 to $40 an hour asking for loose change. He said it was when people STOPPED giving hm things, and he needed to WORK to get things, that he realized he needed to change his ways. I LOVE asking younger people WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO END HOMELESSNESS. There are NO painless answers. I think it might work to offer a country like Guatemala, or Belice to set up large shelters and pay THEM $2.00 a day to house the homeless. They could stay warm, live in squalor, and keep them confined with a large wall, and when people are ready to leave the premise, they would either have a sponsor, or a family member that would help them reintegrate into society.
Oh Lord, here we go again.
Amazingly, the “homeless” (vagrants) come out of the woodwork every time there is a Republican president (but not necessarily when there is a Rep congress, eh).
And when a commie Dem reaches office, they magically disappear.
That’s nice, but you don’t take that income with you when you move.
Most chronically homeless are insane. And violent (go to Boston’s South Station for an update).
Yeah. Been around a long time.
They do a Find/Replace for “Bush” to “Trump”.
/MOVE!
No kidding. I switched careers, went back to school for a doctorate, and was on the job market. My mother wanted me to come back to the DC area and I said no way - too expensive, too much crime, nope, not gonna do it.
I wound up in a rural state in the Midwest, loving it, and buying a 3 bedroom house for what a 1 bed condo would cost me in the DC area. Sometimes you have to look at reality and act accordingly.
California is the major problem. They make it impossible to build new low cost housing. Builders only build high end housing because regulations make it impossible to build anything else. California’s welfare is a magnet to poor immigrants, including illegals, who crowd 2 families or more into a single rented house, helping destroy property values and neighborhoods. These rented houses are not kept up and so deteriorate and go out of service, reducing the amount of housing available. Plus California regulations destroy job-creating small businesses or drive them out of the state. California is the poster child for politically-induced economic suicide.
This smells strongly of a fund-raising letter, breathless and urgent.
I would recommend renting rather than buying. I live in West Hollywood and I'm a teacher, and single. I find that I can pay my rent just fine. Of course, I also recommend not having children if you can't afford to. That whole Market Watch article about professors and lawyers having a hard time is not evidence that the middle class is disappearing. It's evidence that we have too many people competing for Professor and Lawyer jobs. The market is glutted. We don't need any more humanities professors and God Knows we do not need any more lawyers.
Exactly.
I love Dems and their snuggling up to “homeless”, but they are the ones throwing down constant regulations that make it harder for people to get by.
The housing itself is just a part of it.
I mean, FGS, when people try to be charitable by making soup or any meals for homeless in some townhouse, what do the libs do? Shut them down because their kitchen isn’t “inspected” and it might be “contaminated”. These asshholes would rather people DUMPSTER-DIVE than eat a meal FROM SOMEONE’S HOME!
OK.
From Here:
http://www.teachingdegree.org/texas/salary/
Average Mean Wage in Texas
Middle School Teachers $50,860
So I now say that they can live very well in Texas on $100,000 per year.
In itself, it's not necessarily a sign that things are bad or getting worse, though it does mean that some areas, particularly on the West Coast, ought to reconsider their policies.
If You Live in Your Van, Don't Tell People You Live in Your Van
Kalifornia is not the rest of the country.
Heck, even Kalifornia is not most of California.
Just the world of liberal Xanadu.
Living in their cars.
So they think their CAR is an asset more then a house?
“Other major cities on the west coast are facing similar problems...”
Hmm, maybe the common denominator is that these are all liberal run ****hole cities where the cost of living far outstrips the average income, thanks to insane taxes and regulations that suppress economic growth?
There’s also the factor that homeless people tend to migrate to the West Coast for the mild winters, so they are collecting the refuse of the rest of the country over there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.