Political Calculations — California's "Staggering" Homeless Count

Putting some numbers on it.

Political Calculations
California's "Staggering" Homeless Count

Bill Mitchell — Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI

In advanced nations, poverty used to be a thing of old age, once income had stopped due to retirement and savings depleted. Old-aged pension systems were intended as Welfare States emerged to prevent that fall into poverty. The pension systems reduced the incidence of extreme poverty and the full employment era that followed the Second World War, where governments committed to using their fiscal capacities (spending and taxation) to ensure there were sufficient jobs for all, allowed workers to improve incomes and saving. Research in the early 1970s (particularly from the US, where the pension systems were less generous and working conditions less regulated) started to disclose the incidence of the ‘working poor’. In more recent times, the concept of the working poor has spread from the US to most advanced nations. In this modern era of renewed real wage repression, rising energy costs and housing costs, workers are not only facing increased risk of poverty but also of homelessness. Welcome to Australia – the nation with the second highest median wealth per adult in the world. Yesterday (February 21, 2018), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the December-quarter 2017. Private sector wages growth was 1.9 per cent in the December-quarter continuing the seven consecutive quarters of record low growth. However, with the annual inflation rate running at 1.9 per cent, real wages growth was static. And with real wages growth lagging badly behind productivity growth, the wage share in national income is now around record low levels. This represents a major rip-off for workers. The flat wages trend is also intensifying the pre-crisis dynamics, which saw private sector credit rather than real wages drive growth in consumption spending. And now, the latest data shows that workers are experiencing increased homeless. It is not just a problem of the ‘working poor’ now. Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Jack Peat — Rough Sleepers Could Face Fines of up to £1,000 in Affluent Borough

I have talked to some homeless people, and one of the biggest problems they report is not lack of a home or money, but lack of space. They are not allowed to occupy space and must keep moving, even at night.

And I was just reading in the local paper that proposals to build affordable housing are running to the problem of NIMBY (not in my backyard). 

The mark of an immature society is the wish that problems just go away.

The London Economic

Rough Sleepers Could Face Fines of up to £1,000 in Affluent Borough
Jack Peat

Lane Kentworthy — Social-democratic vs market-friendly progressivism

Iber and Konczal aim to highlight a tension within the American left between a “social democratic” vision of how to address social problems and a “progressive but market-friendly” vision. They say Bernie Sanders, a social democrat, believes access to education and healthcare should be a right, available to all persons regardless of income or wealth, whereas Hillary Clinton, a market-friendly progressive, thinks education and healthcare should remain market commodities, with access hinging at least partly on a person’s ability to pay.

 Hillary Clinton is a progressive? What? Clintonism is Third Way New Democrat!

But the observation on Sanders is illuminating, too. There is a difference between social democracy and democratic socialism. Sanders is a social democrat that is offering some tweaks to neoliberalism.

Though Sanders favors free college for everyone, that isn’t what he would provide. He proposes zero tuition (for in-state students at four-year public universities). But that wouldn’t cover room and board, which costs $10,000 a year or more for a typical student. Offering “free” college that doesn’t include room and board is a bit like offering “free” healthcare that covers the cost of surgery but requires patients to pay out of pocket for the hospital room. In the Sanders plan, low-income students, but not middle-income ones, “would be able to use federal, state, and college financial aid to cover room and board, books, and living expenses.” So for Sanders, like for Clinton, college education wouldn’t be genuinely decommodified.

That’s the case in Sweden too, which is why a large portion of young Swedes leave college with fairly large student loan debt despite paying zero tuition.

Lane Kentworthy

Social-democratic vs market-friendly progressivism

When the College Cost Reduction and Access Act took effect in 2009, neither lawmakers nor school administrators had any idea how many college students would check the box on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) -- the document that determines eligibility for Pell grants, subsidized loans and work-study awards that help students pay for college or vocational training -- to indicate that they were homeless.

At last tabulation, the number was 58,000, a small percentage of the 20.2 million students presently enrolled in both undergraduate and graduate study. Nonetheless, school counselors and advocates believe the number is starkly inaccurate and represents a mere fraction of university students who actually lack a permanent home.…

Truthout
Students With Nowhere to Stay: Homelessness on College Campuses

Ellen J. Bader

Susie Cagie — Best way to solve homelessness? Give people homes.

Homelessness has always been more a crisis of empathy and imagination than one of sheer economics. Governments spend millions each year on shelters, health care and other forms of triage for the homeless, but simply giving people homes turns out to be far cheaper, according to research from the University of Washington in 2009. Preventing a fire always requires less water than extinguishing it once it’s burning.

By all accounts, Housing First is an unusually good policy. It is economical and achievable. The only real innovation lies in how to inspire the necessary compassion and foresight to spur governments into building those needed homes.

But Housing First is not very popular. It runs directly counter to the US meritocratic mythology, where one is presumed to fail or succeed by one’s own hand. The homeless are presumed to have earned their place on the street.

Complement to the Job Guarantee. Food, shelter, health care and a job guarantee are vital needs that should be recognized as human rights in developed societies. The opportunity cost is low when compared with the alternative — a dysfunctional society that perpetuates itself. 

The argument against it seems to be that this would destroy incentive and undermine a capitalistic economy, where capital is prioritized over people and the environment. Societies with socialistic economies get this, however, since they prioritize people and the environment over capital.

Moreover, the argument might have made sense when people had access to resources for obtaining food and shelter by their own initiative, but since primitive accumulation and the proliferation of private property that no longer applies, especially in modern urban life.

It is societal institutions that produced this change and therefore it is up to society to address the consequences adequately so that the social fabric is maintained and no one suffers needlessly where there are adequate resources.

Aeon Magazine

Best way to solve homelessness? Give people homes

Susie Cagie

Susie Madrak — NJ Bill To Build Tiny Houses For Homeless Is Delayed -- But In A Good Way

State Sen. Raymond Lesniak plans to seek federal and non-profit funding instead of state funds.

Crooks and Liars
NJ Bill To Build Tiny Houses For Homeless Is Delayed -- But In A Good Way
Susie Madrak

Xander Landen — Homelessness now a crime in cities throughout the U.S.

The advocacy group’s report found that laws placing restrictions on loitering, begging, sitting and lying down in public have increased nationwide since 2009. Eighteen percent of cities now ban sleeping in public and 42% of cities ban sleeping in vehicles.
And that’s a problem, NLCHP Executive Director Mary Foscarinis told NPR, because it makes it difficult for individuals to get back on their feet.

“It’s really hard to get a job when you’re homeless anyway, or to get housing,” Foscarinis said. ”You have no place to bathe, no place to dress, no money for transportation. But then if you also have an arrest record, it’s even more challenging,” she said.

PBS News Hour
Homelessness now a crime in cities throughout the U.S.

Xander Landen

Arturo Garcia — North Carolina cops threaten to arrest charity groups for feeding the homeless

North Carolina cops threaten to arrest charity groups for feeding the homeless (via Raw Story )

Charity groups in Raleigh, North Carolina are criticizing local police over what they call a sudden enforcement of a local ordinance prohibiting them from feeding the homeless. “The police are caught up in a system,” Rev. Hugh Hollowell told WRAL…

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Former NJ gov. poses as mentally ill man at homeless shelter

I know what you are thinking. No, it was not Jon Corzine.

Earlier this week, a former governor of New Jersey went undercover to expose the struggle homeless people go through if they are mentally ill.

Democratic state Sen. Richard Codey, who briefly took over as governor after Jim McGreevey (D) resigned in 2004, began calling homeless shelters last November only to find out that they were hesitant to take “crazy people,” required ID or that the person be on welfare.

“To find some place to take you if you were homeless was impossible, essentially, unless you were on some government entitlement program,” he explained to NBC New York.

After spending an hour with a makeup artist to make him unrecognizable, Codey took on the fictional identity of Jimmy Peters, a mentally ill man who had been recently released from a local hospital’s psychiatric ward.

Case worker Ross Croesmann was able to get the former governor into Goodwill Rescue Mission in downtown Newark for one night. Other shelters refused to take him at all.

Read the rest at Raw Story
Former NJ gov. poses as mentally ill man at homeless shelter

by David Edwards

Bizarro World — Busted for feeding homeless

Members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested Wednesday when police said they violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park.

Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan "Keith" McHenry, 54, were arrested at 6:10 p.m. on a charge of violating the ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks. McHenry is a co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs movement, which began in the early 1980s.

The group lost a court battle in April, clearing the way for the city to enforce the ordinance. It requires groups to obtain a permit and limits each group to two permits per year for each park within a 2-mile radius of City Hall.

Arrest papers state that Cross, Markeson and McHenry helped feed 40 people Wednesday night. The ordinance applies to feedings of more than 25 people.

They intentionally violated the statute," said Lt. Barbara Jones, an Orlando police spokeswoman.
Police waited until everyone was served to make the arrests, said Douglas Coleman, speaking for Orlando Food Not Bombs.
"They basically carted them off to jail for feeding hungry people," said Coleman, who was not present. "For them to regulate a time and place for free speech and to share food, that is unacceptable."

Read the rest at Orlando Sentinel

Three arrested, accused of illegally feeding homeless

By Susan Jacobson

Illegitimizing homelessness has been going on for years. See Anti-homelessness legislation at Wikipedia for a summary.

The goal is to deprive homeless people of space and sustenance so they will keep moving on. It is a national disgrace.