stunning graph

[kpete]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/03/1061611/-STUNNING:-When-a-Single-Image-Cuts-to-the-Core-of-an-American-Injustice-?via=siderec

[mike_c]

1. now now-- mustn't let basic humanity interfere with bankster profits you know....

That is the crux of it. Life in America. It's a great place, if you're not poor. Or sick. Or just unlucky.

[RKP5637]

4. One would think this plus approx. 50% of Americans in or near poverty

would spark a really major national debate on what to do ... instead, there is IMO denial, and the airwaves/MSM cableways are on mute for the most part ... and many politicians live in denial and many are on the take. So we sloth along in this perpetual rut. "mustn't let basic humanity interfere with bankster profits ..."

Even when I mention the poverty rate to many people, I get a deer in the headlight look. I swear it's in the water.

[Zalatix]

6. It's called mass hypnosis.

I think we vastly underestimate this factor in American politics.

[RKP5637]

10. It really really is ... I never cease to be amazed, it's scary.

[woo me with science]

14. Washington doesn't get it.

It is all abstract to them.

I wish there were a way to enforce a "Trading Places" scenario.

[RKP5637]

15. Yep, it's literally out of sight, out of mind for Washington. I find it so

amazing and so frustrating. It's completely abstract to them, completely aloof ... And I certainly don't see anything magically in sight that's going to fix this ...

[awoke_in_2003]

19. unfortunately, the majority of americans...

don't get it either.

[Quantess]

17. People are afraid of poverty. They think it might be contagious.

I don't know...maybe that's not the reason.

[RKP5637]

18. I think actually there's a lot to that, much the same as some don't

want to be around sick or old people. It's an avoidance, down deep many possibly don't want to be reminded of/see what might actually happen to them.

[handmade34]

20. more great posters from the same site

[RKP5637]

21. Incredible graphs - they tell so much at just a glance, so easy to understand! n/t

[Hassin Bin Sober]

2. Can't create a moral hazard. Whatever the fuck that is.

[WillyT]

3. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[redqueen]

5. K&R

[Motown_Johnny]

7. the homeless rate is higher than that

http://www.thechicagoalliance.org/homelessstats.aspx


^snip^

Homelessness in the United States

On any given night, approximately 750,000 men, women, and children are homeless in the US.

* 56% are living in shelters and transitional housing, while 44% are unsheltered.
* 59% are single adults and 41% are persons living in families.
* 98,452 are homeless families
* 23% are chronically homeless according to HUD’s definition.
(Cunningham, Mary and Meghan Henry. 2007. Homelessness Counts. Washington, DC: National Alliance to End Homelessness.)

Over the course of a year, between 2.5 and 3.5 million people will live either on the streets or in an emergency shelter.


This chart seems to be using the much lower 750,000 number which (IMO) is not an accurate presentation of the problem. Not that their point isn't valid, it is just that the homeless problem is worse than 1 in 402. 1 in 150 would be closer.

[Kellerfeller]

8. Think how many cars are sitting empty

and how many people don't have cars!!

Yes, I realize that is a flippant remark but the graph is silly.

A) someone owns those houses.
B) many houses are sitting empty as someone is trying to sell them and not completely take it in the short financially.

A graph showing just the houses that are sitting empty due to foreclosure (with no prospective buyer) would be more useful.


Even the houses belonging to the bank can't just be given away. How would you feel if your credit/union bank gave away all of its assets? Remember, your assets are tied up in its assets.

[skepticscott]

23. Thank you...exactly

Still trying to figure out just what the point of this graph is. Is it saying that...wow!..we should just stick all of the homeless people in other people's empty houses, and solve two problems at once? Maybe while we're at it, we can put all of the jobless people in some of the many businesses that are sitting empty, and solve both of those problems too.

[lunatica]

9. I am one paycheck away from being homeless

I've used up all my retirement money and all my home equity. A catastrophic disease or accident or the loss of my job is all it would take for me to be homeless.

It's a sobering thought to know that I'm that close to being totally destitute.

[Odin2005]

11. The absurdity of Capitalism.

We live in a land of plenty, but the 1% is hoarding it all.

[tblue37]

22. Like dragons sitting atop a pile of treasure they cannot use but

will kill to prevent anyone else from using it.

[limpyhobbler]

12. k+r

[woo me with science]

13. K&R

[ErikJ]

16. One big problem--Need a car to get to them

How would the homeless get to them if they didnt have cars?

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. that is the sad truth of it.

We have empty houses on my block.
With big for sale signs on them.
Let's say we decide that a homeless family gets one of the empty houses up the street from me.
I have no problem with that, it is sitting there, not being used.
It is OWNED by the deceased member's family, who are trying to sell it.

How does the family afford the power/water deposit?
How do they pay the (average) 300.00 utility bill for heat in the winter and A/C in the summer here.?
They need to have a car ( you cannot walk the 5 miles to the grocery store in 110 heat index here)
They need a job to pay for the car insurance, gas, maintenance, housing expenses, repairs, etc.
We have 24% unemployment in this county.
A large number of people here are living on various retirement funds, esp. in this older established neighborhood.

A lot of empty houses are in suburbs, or places like Detroit, where whole neighborhoods have been abandoned, no services exist, so much so that the Mayor had decided some time ago to simply write them off entirely.
(THAT caused a huge uproar, remember?)

Please hear me....I KNOW we have a huge problem in this country.
but we need to think thru any proposed solutions.

[hunter]

26. We could allow certain kinds of commercial use.

A family without a car doesn't need a garage.

A garage could be turned into a grocery store and a transportation stop for other neighborhood families who don't have cars. That business would support the family living in the house.

Or else the population density of the neighborhood increases with multi-generational housing -- grandma and grandpa, kids and their spouses, grandkids, all sharing one house and grandpa's old car, which is parked in the driveway because somebody's cousins are living in the garage.

That's probably the inevitable future of the suburbs as the U.S. middle class evaporates.

Or else these suburbs will be abandoned entirely and people will move away to places where it's easier to survive with less money, as somebody's cousins, living in a converted garage in another suburb, or a tiny apartment in a city with good public transportation services and, most importantly, jobs.

The fear of "falling property values" will increase the rate of destruction in some suburbs as empty houses are left to decay because the bankers and neighbors won't allow their conversion to viable housing adapted to a world with fewer automobiles and work that pays poorly.

[dixiegrrrrl]

28. Well put.

I have figured for some time that that an intergenerational household is going to be the key to survival,
or perhaps a slightly different form of shared living, much as the shared housing some of us used in the '70's,
when we were poor college students.
the American model of up to 3, sometimes 4 generations of a family all having their own homes is no longer economically viable for many, and soon will be not viable in terms of energy costs.

[NMDemDist2]

25. i must need more coffee, that math isn't making any sense n/t

[SoCalDem]

27. Keyword = "available"

Most homeless people will never ever ever "own" a home of their own.
and...

most of the "empty" homes are not just sitting there waiting to be be "filled" with a family. They are "disputed property", on the books of whomever created the crazy loans to "buy" them in the first place.......or "left behind" by people who could no longer afford to stay in them (or who, in reality, could never afford them in the first place).

In a perfect world, municipalities all over the place would buy these properties and turn them into "move-up" homes for poorer people who had proved they could maintain the assisted housing they have been receiving, and their vacated homes could be then occupied by the many on waiting lists for assisted housing.

Just having those empty homes available for cash-buyers to sit on and later "flip", is not of much social or financial value to the commons.