All posts tagged: Poverty

What should we do about the homeless?

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We have a dangerous cult in our society, or possibly two working together. Have you met any homeless people lately? Mentally ill, drug addicts, and criminals; that is how most of us see homeless people. I live near a city center, and homeless people are being chased out of their usual neighborhoods by new construction. I think that is why so many are moving into our community. They come with shopping carts and tents, and they settle in public parks. One couple put their tent, and large amounts of personal property, in a corporate parking lot. Imagine coming to work in the morning, and your parking spot is occupied, by a family in a tent. The ‘personal property’ was probably salvaged from garbage bins. I think the problem is growing this summer because the weather is warm. Another driver of this issue is that people, who are not good personal managers, are being chased out of their homes by high costs. When rents go up and people are evicted, they look for a new place …

Sea of Loneliness

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I used to have this sad dream. I was hungry and poor and walking around aimlessly ending up in a nice area of town by a restaurant. Inside people were eating and laughing. The food looked so good and the people in there were sitting with their friends. I had no money, no food, and no friends. I stared into that window for a long time. No one noticed me. No one saw me. I was alone in a sea of loneliness. That dream stuck with me all these years partly because it was my reality at one time. I was poor and lonely for a few years in my life. There were also years in which I was one of those people in the restaurant.  I know both sides and life is more fun and more rewarding when you have friends and money. During those times of feeling like an outcast, like I didn’t belong, I lived as an outsider. I spent much time in my one room at the back of an older …

Our Most Extreme Choice

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What a weird world. The economists are talking about a K recovery from the never-ending Covid economy READ: Worries grow over a K-shaped economic recovery that favors the wealthy. This means that those who are already well off or at least doing okay will do more okay. This is the upper arm of the K. Those who have lost jobs already, no matter how well paying the job was, are represented in the lower arm of the K. In North America this means that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider. Because we are an economically driven culture, this means the gap gets wider in areas of understanding and connections as well. The rich already don’t understand the plight of the poor and the poor distrust and at times resent the rich. This is not going to help. Politically, we are moving more and more to the extremes. Left wing anger is destroying conservative lives and values. Right wing thinkers have dug their heels pointing at the violence and immorality of …

Credit: Harold/Flickr/Creative Commons

But We Can’t Afford That

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A few days ago, a young woman who lives near me overdosed on Fentanyl. Her family drove her to a hospital and I think someone did CPR during the ride. She almost died, but the hospital staff were able to save her. Something bothered me about that story, and then I noticed that they drove her in the family car; they didn’t call an ambulance. I don’t know the family but I guess they can’t afford a five-hundred-dollar ambulance ride every time their addict overdoses. Transporting critically ill patients in a private vehicle is something we should never do; the ambulance crew might save a life before arriving at the hospital. But that ride has a cost, the whole system costs millions, with dispatchers, EMTs, vehicles and equipment, and sometimes helicopters. And life-threatening problems like drug addiction are becoming epidemics. And another story; I keep the tickets from McDonald’s coffee cups. Where I live, each cup has a peel-and-stick ticket and a detachable card. Seven tickets will buy one cup of coffee. I don’t need …