Homeless people coming to your favorite campground!

ScottG wrote:

MrWizard wrote:
Median income....BS
The avg working wage earner, does not earn $31 per hour
Don't know how they calculate those numbers
Maybe take CEO salaries and Government salaries and avg that out ???

It's BS to quote "median" rather than average.
The avg last year was $48,000 (or $23/hr). That's a heck of a lot less than $63K.

That would be the average wage for an indivdual, not a household. So a household with both spouses working and making that average US wage would make $96,000 a year, far over the US median household income.

bikendan wrote:

As a firefighter/EMT, I frequently went to homeless camps and shelters.
From what I saw, the overwhelming majority of homeless are the mentally ill and substance abusers.

The best perspective I've ever seen is a documentary called "Seattle is Dying". It's a hard look at the problem of those who prefer to be homeless; and I think they quote something in the 90% range of all homeless have mental health issues and addictions. It's an hour-long video; and often painful to watch; but does offer solutions towards the end

Seattle Is Dying

July 6, 2018; Washington Post

Last month, writing for Business Insider, Leanna Garfield noted that, “Hundreds of malls and thousands of mall-based stores have shuttered in the past two decades, and many more may close within the next 10 years.”

Meanwhile, homelessness, which had been declining as the Great Recession faded, has started to rise again. The federal government in 2017 reported that there were 554,000 homeless nationwide, including nearly 58,000 families with children.

In Arlington, Virginia, a nonprofit asked if a recently shuttered mall might provide shelter for those who needed it.

As Terrence McCoy writes in the Washington Post, the transformation of Alexandria’s Landmark Mall into a homeless shelter is representative of “a new way of thinking that is bringing together three economic phenomena: the collapse of the brick-and-mortar retail industry, the disappearance of affordable housing in America’s boom towns, and the struggle to reduce homelessness.”

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Cities need to re-purpose our shuttered Malls into affordable housing, on bus lines, and create jobs.

Many of these eye sores are all across America.

Large parking lots that could be sectioned off for RV's to get homeless off the streets and a place to park for those down on their luck.

To live there they must participate in programs to search for work or job training and perhaps mandatory 4 hours a week to clean up the grounds. One parent can work days and one parent can work nights, get to work!

Strip malls have smaller stores that can be used for laundry, daycare, internet access, a food bank pantry, etc.

The City can start a GoFundMe. People will donate.

FEMA trailers are set up during disasters with pipes for water and sewage. It can be done.

Social services and job services offices must be on the property. Get the Church involved.

Politicians are really good and throwing billions of dollars at problems with zero results.

Do a pilot program in one City to measure the success.

MrWizard wrote:
Median income....BS
The avg working wage earner, does not earn $31 per hour
Don't know how they calculate those numbers
Maybe take CEO salaries and Government salaries and avg that out ???

It's BS to quote "median" rather than average.
The avg last year was $48,000 (or $23/hr). That's a heck of a lot less than $63K.

Lynnmor wrote:

2112 wrote:
Today we expect both young parents to hold down two full time jobs to achieve the same. What has changed that prevents many young couples from achieving the same lifestyle without working a combined 160hrs/week? It's too easy for us to blame them, but is their lifestyle and unrealistic expectations the root cause? What changed?

Taxes.
HOAs.
Imports.

HUH??? Taxes have been around for all but a few days of human existence. As much as I fear the IRS, I don't fear them as much as medieval tax collectors who beheaded those who didn't pay.
HOAs? I guess you can say they make buying homes unaffordable for some because they prevent neighborhoods from decaying into low priced slums. Properties do go up in value over time when neighborhoods are stable, safe and well maintained. And HOAs often step in when some people don't maintain community standards. So yes, I guess HOAs do impact high prices. But there is many more neighborhoods and other places to live without HOAs so I don't really think they are all that is standing between home ownership and homelessness.
Imports? How many people do you know that want to quit their current job and take one making plastic Flamingos for the Chinese Factory worker's wage of around $350.00 a month? Who doesn't like plastic flamingos? And the fact I can buy them for a dollar is reason enough to like imports.

I've known some people that have gotten addicted to drugs. To say that they should just quit is over simplifying it. Most of them want to quit but, it's not that easy. That's why they call it addiction.

Even the ones I know that have quit for awhile will sometimes relapse and then have to start the whole process of cleaning up all over again.

I understand that there are some people that don't want to quit but, please don't think that it is in anyway easy for those that do.

I wish I could explain it better and some of you are not going to get it but, I do wish you would have a little sympathy . (Again, not everyone wants help but, some do)

Personally, it would do me some good to drink less. I quit once for 45 days and then found myself back to having a few beers at night again so I have kinda a idea of what they are going through.

Isn't there some saying like "But for the grace of god go I" or something like that?

Blazing Zippers wrote:
Well, hold on there---maybe there are things that need to be said here.
As an old firefighter, I've held hands of folks that have had a terrible event just happen to them and they are going to need a hand up.
It's the people that are too lazy to even clean up their "homeless" dump, drop feces in the street, use drugs, and then claim they are being abused by society that fry my berries. When we, as a society, have to hire a "poop patrol" to wash the streets of cities, homeless has over stepped its bounds. Oh, where does the street washing contents go??? Why into the drain which flows into the water. But OMG!!don't wash yer car! That pollutes the water.
A 3% unemployment rate means that folks can usually get work of some sort. It's just that a number of our citizens are to lazy to do it.
Don't get me started on the green, blue, & purple haired folks!!

As a retired California firefighter and former state mental institution worker, I have some perspectives on the homeless dilemma.
States closed down their mental institutions when the rights of the mentally ill swung way to far in the opposite direction. This caused a decrease in the ability to help those with severe mental illness, who very often sought drugs and alcohol. As an employee of these institutions, I saw too many released into world with no support systems.
As a firefighter/EMT, I frequently went to homeless camps and shelters.
From what I saw, the overwhelming majority of homeless are the mentally ill and substance abusers. Those that are good people who had bad luck, are a very small percentage. The vast majority of homeless that I met, didn't want to work, didn't want treatment, didn't want to live in a shelter and didn't want to stop using drugs/alcohol.
California has 50% of the nation's homeless population, even though it's the most expensive to live in. And it's still growing, so expensive housing is not the issue.

An interesting article about laziness. It coincides with the statistics of the collapse of the U.S.S.R. which after, approx. 40% of Russians found it hard to integrate into the labor force because they had always had a job whether they really did anything in that position or not.

Are Some People Just Lazy?

2112 wrote:
Today we expect both young parents to hold down two full time jobs to achieve the same. What has changed that prevents many young couples from achieving the same lifestyle without working a combined 160hrs/week? It's too easy for us to blame them, but is their lifestyle and unrealistic expectations the root cause? What changed?

Taxes.
HOAs.
Imports.

It's complicated, BUT it's happening right before our truthful eyes. The fact is that this is a RVing forum. We want to discuss it, but not here. We simply don't want to muddy our waters. IMO we have to be careful not to become too divided.