Brainstorming a grass roots solution to homelessness.

[bijou]

Not a new thread, I've been keeping an eye on it for a while.

Cleita  (1000+ posts)       Fri Oct-05-07 05:05 PM
Original message
Brainstorming a grass roots solution to homelessness.
 Stand and Fight made a suggestion to me that interested DUers should get together and help out those who need help with housing and other problems. Some of these people living marginally are fellow Duers and it could be any of us in the future as well. The administrators would rather we did our fund raising elsewhere and rightfully so. DU is for political discussion not charity.

What I thought we could do is set up a non-profit foundation for this purpose with it's own website. Of course there are many details to work out about this and we would need volunteer talent to accomplish this not to mention some seed money to get it started. We would need people who are lawyers, web designer, writers, researchers and anything else I could think of.

My idea is that although there are services out there like Social Security, HUD and Medicaid for needy people, they are inadequate to meet the needs of the homeless if that person doesn't have a place to live. So the purpose of the foundation would be to get them into adequate housing that is safe and rent free. Then their disability checks, Social Security or whatever they collect could be used by them for their personal needs.

So this post is for brainstorming only and coming up with a plan. Mods I'm not looking for money but ideas.

 

TimBean (103 posts)      Fri Oct-12-07 03:55 AM
Response to Original message
12. kill two birds with one stone
 so many people now can't sell their homes. So many homeless need homes to live in. Let's think. Gee, How about the government steps in, does their job and buys the homes off those who don't want them for the homeless to live in? 

Cleita  (1000+ posts)       Sat Oct-13-07 06:05 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. I would like to see all the vacation and second homes of the rich
 that go empty most of the year to be taxed a lot more than 1% (like in California) with the proceeds going to provide housing for the poor.

TimBean (103 posts)      Sat Oct-13-07 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. there is plenty of homes for everyone
 if we share. Put poor people in those vacation homes, they're not getting used. Got a spare bedroom? Guess what, not anymore. No while there are still people sleeping on the streets

Cleita  (1000+ posts)       Sat Oct-13-07 07:19 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. I agree 100% and I have been trying to do exactly that to try
 to get a homeless person into that situation, but so far have come up with excuses. A friend of mine who has a small cabin in the woods that she hardly uses, said no because she wouldn't want anyone around when she does go there occassionally. Not another thought about it or drop of compassion.

Lydia Leftcoast  (1000+ posts)      Thu Dec-20-07 01:55 AM
Response to Original message
19. What about housing cooperatives?
 Not the fancy Manhattan-style cooperatives or co-housing, where you need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the types of places that students often live in...older houses with a bedroom for each person, a common living room, a couple of bathrooms, a washer-dryer, and a kitchen where people share meals (the cheapest way to handle food).

Most people don't do that once they're in the "real world," but why not?

A person making minimum wage may not be able to rent an apartment on their own, but a room in a big old house for $150 a month plus their share of the grocery money? Probably doable.

Some charitable foundation would have to own the houses, but they would be governed by the residents.
 
 

RuleOfNah (118 posts)       Thu Jan-03-08 11:29 PM
Response to Original message
20. How about some transport neutral domain specific commune mashups?
 I have been wondering when communes would make a comeback. Given a large lump of aging population in the USA, current and future Shock Doctrine economic disasters, and retrograde fashion it seems inevitable that communes will go mainstream, rapidly if government checks bounce. Hopefully medicine won't be so buggy this time.
 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=230x1904#1905

[franksolich]

You know, I'm still waiting for the lilliputian tom thumb primitive, greatly indignant about the homeless situation, to announce he's taken in some of the homeless himself.

To me, that's the finest form of protest, conservative or primitive--if one thinks the government isn't doing anything, or enough, one does some of it himself, on his own.

[jtyangel]

What an absolute communist trainwreck they are. You want to put the homeless in someone's vacation home, you can pony up the rent to the owner to pay for it and any loss of property when you insert drunks and lowlifes(in many cases) into their homes. They can also explain to those that live there fulltime why they are depreciating their home values by putting in homeless individuals into these homes. Next you can explain to the hard working, but modest living American who only gets to live in 1100 sq feet while the homeless person lives it up for free in 3000 sq feet....the inevitable crappy situations from this are just endless, but I doubt they really think things through to the inevitable conclusion.

A side note to laugh at how they always think the homeless person is some saint who fell on hard times and the owner of the vacation home is some rich bastard who swindled people like the homeless guy. What a bunch of loons.

[franksolich]

What was funny was when the lilliputian tom thumb primitive suggested that the homeless be put into foreclosed houses, as if that was a simple thing to do.

[jtyangel]

What was funny was when the lilliputian tom thumb primitive suggested that the homeless be put into foreclosed houses, as if that was a simple thing to do.

Well, frank, don't you know that the mortgage companies are just supposed to cough one up for altruism. Not only must someone muster up a freebie, the neighbors who have been diligently paying for their mortgages and had hoped for relatively quiet existence now get to face the sounds of brawls, the smell of urine on the sidewalk, and the potential of stepping in vomit in the grass. They are to just willingly accept their home values depreciating and the fact that while they earn a living paying for their American dream, a homeless individual for whatever reason can live it free of charge. As I said, they just don't think things through over there.

[Uhhuh35]

I worked contract security at the Justice Dept in DC for about a year and a half. During that time I encountered my fare share of the bums (homeless). One day I was working a foot post on Constitution ave when these two bums walked by.
"We used to live there" one of them said pointing at the building.
I asked, "You mean inside the building itself?".
"No, under that tree there."
"You lived under that tree?" I didn't believe them.
"Yeah, when Clinton was prez, Janet Reno let us live under the trees here". Later, I asked some of my coworkers, and found the story to be true.
"When Bush came in, Ashcroft kicked us out", the other said.
I asked "Well where do you live now?"
"In an apartment".
I was confused, "Well that's better isn't it?".
One bum looked at me like I had three heads. "No, not really". Then walked off.

That incident made me realize that the majority of the bums (homeless) problems are probably of their own making.
Other Justice Department people told me that it was really bad in the summer because the bums would piss and shit right there under the trees. Those of you that have been to DC have probably seen the bums pissing into public garbage cans in broad daylight. They don't care.

[Chris_]

The dimwit who suggested "housing cooperatives" like what students live in, with a common living room, etc.  has clearly never heard of boarding houses.  They still exist.

[FlaGator]

It's amusing how they go from a fairly good and charitable concept of finding some means in which the members of DU can help the homeless to calling for the rich people the U.S. to offer up their vacation homes and extra rooms in their houses for the homeless to live in. I didn't see anyone state that they had an extra room to offer to a homeless person.

[bijou]

It's amusing how they go from a fairly good and charitable concept of finding some means in which the members of DU can help the homeless to calling for the rich people the U.S. to offer up their vacation homes and extra rooms in their houses for the homeless to live in. I didn't see anyone state that they had an extra room to offer to a homeless person.

They couldn't possibly have a homeless person living with them, they'd worry that have to share their stash.  Besides I suspect they have a sneaking feeling they might be homeless one day and prefer the option of a stay in a vacation home in California.

[Lord Undies]

I worked contract security at the Justice Dept in DC for about a year and a half. During that time I encountered my fare share of the bums (homeless). One day I was working a foot post on Constitution ave when these two bums walked by.
"We used to live there" one of them said pointing at the building.
I asked, "You mean inside the building itself?".
"No, under that tree there."
"You lived under that tree?" I didn't believe them.
"Yeah, when Clinton was prez, Janet Reno let us live under the trees here". Later, I asked some of my coworkers, and found the story to be true.
"When Bush came in, Ashcroft kicked us out", the other said.
I asked "Well where do you live now?"
"In an apartment".
I was confused, "Well that's better isn't it?".
One bum looked at me like I had three heads. "No, not really". Then walked off.

That incident made me realize that the majority of the bums (homeless) problems are probably of their own making.
Other Justice Department people told me that it was really bad in the summer because the bums would piss and shit right there under the trees. Those of you that have been to DC have probably seen the bums pissing into public garbage cans in broad daylight. They don't care.

I was going to suggest putting the "homeless" back wherever they were during the Clinton Administration.  We, the public, hardly ever heard the word "homeless" during those eight years. 

Now I know all we need are trees.  The "homeless" aren't "homeless" if they have a tree.