From: Larry Colen
Here is a counterpoint that some of you may find interesting.
About 15 years ago I was married, for just over a year. The short
version of the story is that neither of us understood that she was an
alcoholic, nor the ramifications thereof. Things didn't work out, she
decided that she no longer wanted to be married to me.
For various reasons that made sense at the time, I moved in with my
best friend, whose wife had left him a week before, and let my wife
stay in the house in the hopes that we could work things out.
The next day, she moved in her new boyfriend, and several other
friends. All homeless kids. Some months later,
<snip>
I understand that there are a lot of homeless people who are good
people, and who deserve pity and support. But, due to the actions of
half a dozen homeless kids, when I see someone that is homeless I'm
far more inclined that the reason is self inflicted than due to purely
hard luck.
These new homeless aren't the old homeless. Not yet anyway.
A lot of the chronic homeless are dealing with mental illness aggravated
by substance abuse. Alcohol and drugs are mainly dissociative -
separating the abuser from pain - emotional, mental or physical.
I understand why people in emotional pain turn to drugs/alcohol.
I don't have anything to do with drug abusers. I don't mean someone who
occasionally smokes pot, but people who are dependent on drugs every day
aren't safe to be around.
When a druggie gets the need, he don't care about anything but filling
that need, and he will steal from family, friends and Good Samaritans as
readily as he'll steal from strangers. I know that by bitter experience
from my own divorce.
But most of these new homeless aren't out there because they won't or
can't work. They're hard working people who got caught by a combination
of massive layoffs, predatory lending practices and an economic crash
caused by Wall Street's financial shenanigans.
"American" corporations (UN-AMERICAN corporations) have been sending
jobs overseas to reduce payrolls and increase profits. Those profits
have been paid out to an elite few corporate insiders, while the rest of
us have been literally thrown out on the streets.
While I was overseas in 2004, the company I worked for before being
mobilized was sold to China. My job, along with thousands of others,
moved to India, China, or Indonesia ...
In real terms the so called "rising tide" didn't lift everybody's boat.
Mainly because most couldn't manage to find a place in the boat. For the
most part, people earn less today in adjusted income than they did 15
years ago, if not in actual dollars.
My Annual Gross Income for 2008 is 2/5 my Annual Gross Income for 2000.
Never mind any adjustments for inflation.
But many people believed it when the corporate loan sharks told them
they could make up the difference in their eroding incomes with easy
credit and by endlessly refinancing their homes to take equity out.
Everybody *KNEW* home prices would keep going up and up and UP!
Until they didn't.
If I'd had a mortgage when I was mobilized, I'd have lost the house and
my home. I'd be living in that tent city or under a bridge somewhere.
--
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