Take Care of our Own...First

Don M.

Don M.

SF VIP
Location
central Missouri
With all this news about Syrian Refugees, the plight of huge numbers of our own people is being largely ignored.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...ess-idUSKCN0T908720151120#wCVMLUlWkLIlyXPo.97

If half a million of our own people are living on the streets, how is taking in thousands of people, who will require huge amounts of subsidies to survive, going to help anything?
 

In business over promising leads to failure from disgruntled customers. What does one think disgruntled refugees could do to the economic status of the country alone. And if one wants to play lifeguard they need to keep their butts safe or there will be two to rescue instead of one.
 
Don M. said:
With all this news about Syrian Refugees, the plight of huge numbers of our own people is being largely ignored.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...ess-idUSKCN0T908720151120#wCVMLUlWkLIlyXPo.97

If half a million of our own people are living on the streets, how is taking in thousands of people, who will require huge amounts of subsidies to survive, going to help anything?
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Oh PULEEZE....... Whenever helping "OUR OWN" comes up and legislation is brought forward to increase aid or food stamps or for added help for the Vets.. it is immediately shot down by "one politial party" as being too costly... or increasing the debt... or increasing taxes... not to mention the 60+ votes to take healthcare away from people who have never had it before.. I really don't want to hear anyone from "that particular party" to even talk about "Helping our own first" It's nothing but hypocrisy.
 

QuickSilver said:
Oh PULEEZE....... Whenever helping "OUR OWN" comes up and legislation is brought forward to increase aid or food stamps or for added help for the Vets.. it is immediately shot down by "one politial party" as being too costly... or increasing the debt... or increasing taxes... not to mention the 60+ votes to take healthcare away from people who have never had it before.. I really don't want to hear anyone from "that particular party" to even talk about "Helping our own first" It's nothing but hypocrisy.
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Your opinion for sure. But there are as many opinions as there are people. Not all of one political party agree either and not all should be lumped in that way for anything. When speaking of the US economy there are many things that need fixed and that must be done in the active government, regardless of some political party beliefs.
 
Who "Lives on the Streets"?

Don M. said:
With all this news about Syrian Refugees, the plight of huge numbers of our own people is being largely ignored.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...ess-idUSKCN0T908720151120#wCVMLUlWkLIlyXPo.97

If half a million of our own people are living on the streets, how is taking in thousands of people, who will require huge amounts of subsidies to survive, going to help anything?
Click to expand...

Until we can answer the question of why are these folks homeless, and also, what proportion of them prefer it that way, we cannot adequately formulate response to the rest of the question. imp
 
I once worked with a guy that lived in the cab of a small pickup truck. He had two jobs and was working to pay off his loan on a small ranch he had bought in Wyoming. His goal was to someday have his loans under control and then go back to his ranch to live. When I worked with him he was operating a machine on second shift in computer industry company. I was then a tester in the same building. His other job was as a janitor at the university. When not working he would drive to a lighted parking lot and shut down. He was wrapped in heavy coats and did without heat in the winter.

I did drive up to his ranch in Wyoming with my daughter to see an old Studebaker car laying on his property. He had a home on that property but no industries to work for. So he was about 100 miles south working. He was really satisfying his wants and living on the streets to make it happen.

Many others have divorces, alcoholism or drugs, unwilling to live in what we call normal society, bums, fugitives, whatever. Lots do go to the shelters for food and a place to sleep at night. They then have to leave during the day so the shelter can clean up and prepare for the next evening. For many, non of the welfare will do the job as many just don't want the restrictions and confinement. That includes both men and women. Giving them pocket money just opens up the ability for many to buy alcohol or drugs. Sort of a part of our society that we will have to put up with. Give them a job and pay them. It might work, but if they can not afford or desire to maintain a place to live, what will we do? We can not just jail them or put them into a lock up shelter.

This is 2009 data. the best I could find.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html

On an average night in the 23 cities surveyed, 94 percent of people living on the streets were single adults, 4 percent were part of families and 2 percent were unaccompanied minors. Seventy percent of those in emergency shelters were single adults, 29 percent were part of families and 1 percent were unaccompanied minors. Of those in transitional housing, 43 percent were single adults, 56 percent were part of families, and 1 percent were unaccompanied minors. Those who occupied permanent supportive housing were 60 percent single adults, 39.5 percent were part of families, and .5 percent were unaccompanied minors (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2008).
.............................

And this is just definitions of who they might be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_people
 
Ok, OK! I may have inferred by my wording, these folks preferred to live in the street. Asking a different way, whose fault is it that these half-million people are living in the street? imp
 
Well, many families live daily just one or two paychecks away from being on the street. Many people in America don't have much, if any, of a financial cushion, and all it takes is a lost job or an illness to push them to their breaking point. The family next door to me is right on the edge right now because of a lost job and a death in the family.

I don't think a lot of us realize just how close the edge is for a lot of people. What do you do if you have no job and no money for rent? The landlord evicts you and if you don't have family or friends in better shape to lean on you wind up on the street. Once you're on the street it is extremely difficult to pursue a meaningful job search (where do you clean up, get clean clothes, etc., and what do you use for contact information).

There IS a safety net, but it is woefully inadequate and it takes forever for things like welfare and food stamps to actually kick in. And you need a car to go here, there and everywhere to apply for benefits. Here in NM, the amount you can get from welfare, even with two minor children is not enough to rent an apartment and have anything at all left over. Food stamps help, but that program doesn't allow enough to feed a family. And it takes at least 30 days to even begin to get those benefits -- and that's if you know how to wend your way through the system.

I learned first hand how difficult it is when my single-mom niece was taken gravely ill (she died in January), lost her job and health benefits and was going to love the roof over her head. If the family couldn't have worked out a way that her son could get a big enough apartment to take them in, they would have ended up on the street. We all pitched in to help, and because of the kind of work I used to do, I was able to help her get the benefits to which she was entitled. I knew what I was doing and had the help of a hospital social worker, and it still took forever. Most people who wind up on the street don't have any idea where to even begin.

There's an idea in this country that benefits are easy to get and you just pop in and get them. Not anywhere near the truth.

That's how you end up on the street, and it's awful.
 
Women and families can be homeless without living on the street. Some couch surf and others live in precarious rental situations where they have to move frequently from one address to another, often because the landlord puts the rent up and they can no longer afford to live there. The kids move from school to school and their education is very disrupted.

These people are the invisible homeless.
 
Ralphy1 said:
The effort of governments to meet the needs of all of their citizens can be overwhelming...
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Exactly....and if our nation is failing to meet the needs of vast numbers of our own people, how can we expect that bringing in thousands of refugees....who have little or no marketable jobs skills, or grasp of our language and society, is going to do Anything but make the situation worse. These people, being granted "refugee" status, will go to the front of the line in terms of receiving government benefits, and our own people will be pushed further down the line.
 
Don M. said:
With all this news about Syrian Refugees, the plight of huge numbers of our own people is being largely ignored.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...ess-idUSKCN0T908720151120#wCVMLUlWkLIlyXPo.97

If half a million of our own people are living on the streets, how is taking in thousands of people, who will require huge amounts of subsidies to survive, going to help anything?
Click to expand...



I was reading an article about a town in Manitoba, Canada where a small town that was dying made the decision to make resettling as easy as possible for immigrants and it turned their town around. They did have lots of costs initially (language ed, housing, etc.) but in a very short time, the new citizens began finding work and today their housing starts have gone from 3-4 per year to 100 per year. And you know what impact increased housing starts have on any community? The spin off trade gains ground exponentially.

I'm not saying this to be mean, but homeless people don't have the same effect on a community generally, often no matter how many services are available. There are too often mental health and drug and alcohol issues involved whereas these Syrian refugees are working class families just like yours who've been forced away from homes and jobs by war not by the aforementioned issues. They have families that are their focus, children to raise and a vested interest in getting restarted again.

Give them a chance and I'm betting that whatever funds get spent will be returned to the economy a hundred fold eventually.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-flood-of-immigrants/article4105032/?page=all
 
Hmmm. Even mentally healthy, sober, employed people can often be as little as two paychecks away from the street. Given a chance, these individuals could be contributing members of society. Please note that I am not in any way advocating using this post as fodder for ignoring the plight of Syrian refugees.
 
I think it commendable the we should want to take care of our own first... BUT... as I posted up thread... we DON'T.. and every attempt at legislation to do so is voted down.. So I don't think we should use that as an excuse to not take refugees... we should just call it like it is.. WE DON'T WANT TO... WE ARE SCARED.
 
Shalimar said:
I think very few people prefer living on the streets. Hazardous, to say the least.
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Do you remember that guy a many years back who rescued a woman who was drowning in the Fraser River in the Richmond area? If memory serves, the community was so grateful to that homeless guy that someone with a business stepped up and gave him a job and somebody else who had a small house trailer in the area 'gave' it to him on property and said he could live there as long as he needed while he got on his feet. He didn't live there very long at all before he chucked the whole thing and when asked, said that he didn't want that 9-5 lifestyle and all the ties that accompany it.

And like someone here said, there are also the invisible homeless. When I was a teen I knew a few of them. I knew a guy who lived in a garage, and one of my 'friends' couched surfed for years and had no inclination to get a job and do serious, stable work. He crashed where he found himself at night, he was a free agent all day and he spent his entire life scamming and scheming. But live like the 'normal' world, not a chance.

Most people don't want to be homeless, but to some, the idea of having a home is different from yours or mine.
 
QuickSilver said:
I think it commendable the we should want to take care of our own first... BUT... as I posted up thread... we DON'T.. and every attempt at legislation to do so is voted down.. So I don't think we should use that as an excuse to not take refugees... we should just call it like it is.. WE DON'T WANT TO... WE ARE SCARED.
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What happened to Clinton's effort to improve the welfare situation. He had rules that insisted they could not just sit around and collect. He offered opportunity to go to educations for this or that. He also urged them to get a job in order to keep welfare coming. Times are tougher now and more time, or other exceptions can be made, as long as the 'adoption of welfare is OK' is not OK. Welfare numbers after Clinton's efforts were coming down each year.
 
QuickSilver said:
I think it commendable the we should want to take care of our own first... BUT... as I posted up thread... we DON'T.. and every attempt at legislation to do so is voted down.. So I don't think we should use that as an excuse to not take refugees... we should just call it like it is.. WE DON'T WANT TO... WE ARE SCARED.
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Regardless of the potential additional or increased domestic aid that is voted up or down right now there is a limited pool of resources to work with to solve existing issues/problems. How much of that pool should go to any refugee or immigrant group? Yes many are scared but this issue on top of the other immigrant and economic issues goes beyond security. The issues of aid and priorities don't mix well at this time
 
WhatInThe said:
Regardless of the potential additional or increased domestic aid that is voted up or down right now there is a limited pool of resources to work with to solve existing issues/problems. How much of that pool should go to any refugee or immigrant group? Yes many are scared but this issue on top of the other immigrant and economic issues goes beyond security. The issues of aid and priorities don't mix well at this time
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We may never know because the "limited pool" has been earmarked for more tax cuts for the wealthy, increased defense spending... offset with MORE cuts to programs the poor and middle class depend on.
 
Well, this may not be a popular position, but I am strongly in favor of very complete vetting for any refugees we take into our country and I am still waiting for someone in the powers-that-be to explain how that can be accomplished.
 
Dianne Feinstein is not at all happy with the rush to bring in these wannabe immigrants so quickly at all. She wants them all screened first, then selected and brought in. When looked into by the appropriate authorities. That is also being asked by many other Democrats and Republicans as well. It is called looking out for our safety and security first for those that live here today and any new in all the tomorrows.

http://news.yahoo.com/republican-la...4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--

Feinstein says Islamic State stronger, criticizes U.S. approach

By Doina Chiacu 23 hours ago

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Sunday the United States is not doing enough to fight Islamic State, and the group is gaining strength outside Iraq and Syria.

Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said Secretary of State John Kerry gave the panel a more comprehensive picture last week of the U.S. strategy to combat Islamic State, including talks in Vienna to find a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis.

However, she said on CBS, "I don't think the approach is sufficient to the job."

And more:
 

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