Editor’s note: Another season passed without a permanent homeless shelter in our town, as neighbors rejected a proposed site in a light industrial area. Now the homeless are back on the street, and we’re looking again. We can’t seem to stop arguing about the topic. The government wants to help us too, with a $1 million grant. Meanwhile, the Seattle Times and freelance journalists produced a series titled “Invisible families: the Homeless we don’t see,” thanks to funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation said it sponsored the fellowship to focus attention on homeless families. Here’s a video titled “A child’s perspective on homelessness”:
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If I heard of a citizen’s action to help families with children, the weak or the infirm I would want to help, if the plan was thought out.
In Sacramento 3 bd homes can be purchased for $45,000. Investors could get 5% return on a $400 rent. This is about $5 a day per room. Many could afford this. The rent would be about twice that for local.
The material in two microhouses would build one 8×8 cabin if the land could be found.
Seniors are paying $3000 a month to live in care homes. Why not combine them with a homeless family(s) that would care for them for a fraction of the cost? I am working on this one.
It is a new world out there but it hasn’t quite dawned on us yet. We are going to have form into a community that tries new ideas and does not accept the word impossible.
Greg,
That is a good idea. Actually I think John Stoos mentioned here before that his church does work with Loaves and Fishes in Sacramento. Maybe you two should talk and brainstorm.
I agree with your last couple sentences though, am not sure if it has dawned on people yet that we aren’t pulling out of this recession/ depression for awhile and things are going to get worse before they get better.
Free marketeers/ free traders have a hard time admitting that the deregulation of the 20′s led us into the Great Depression. They like to blame it on Smoot-Hawley, which accounted for less than 1% of GDP at the time.
Once in office FDR continued his cousins work of taking on big business and the wealthy. They both were considered traders to their class. The regulations and policies of the new deal were to secure us from experiencing another great depression. The Reagan/ US chamber of commerce counter revolution has been dismantling the new deal for 30 plus years and we find ourselves in almost the identical situation.
I want to thank all those who see the challenges of the unemployed, homeless, elderly, and those who are in need as their issues as well. We are supposed to be the United States of America and any moment in our lives we could be a member of one of or all of the groups mentioned above.