On Mar 26, 12:43*pm, Neil Brooks wrote:
On Mar 26, 6:00*am, busbus wrote:

On Mar 26, 12:43*am, Upscale wrote:

On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:05:32 -0700, "Nonny" wrote:
We have 3-5 generations now living on that.

Ok, but consider the limitations of such a life. Maybe because of
apathy, sheer laziness, or even medical difficulties, someone is
living such a life. No future, never having any real discretionary
income, nothing ever to look forward to except for more of the same.
It's debilitating, depressing and a really difficult existence to
follow. Not at all attractive. I don't consider that living.

That's is exactly the point: these people who were supposed to use the
system to get back on their feet have instead decided to live off of
it for literally generations. *There is no incentive to get off.

That's an oft-made argument, but ... out of curiosity ... what % meet
that description, and ... how do you know??


I do not have those numbers but I do live in Pittsburgh and there are
quite a number of people that meet this description who have lived in
public housing for generations.

I wrote in another thread about a guy I worked with who lived in
public housing for a while way back when (in the late 50s or early
60s) and he was the first person who really described this to me. He
said way back then, the prevailing attitude of those in public housing
was that it would be temporary and did their best to get out. There
were families who didn't try all that hard to get out and those people
were shunned to a point by the others in the housing project.

He still lives in the North Side, a community within the Pittsburgh
city limits. He has lived in that area all his life and he is in his
60's now. The public housing complex he lived in is fairly close to
where he lives now and he is very familiar with the area. Since he
retired, he has been working in a non-profit agency smack dab in the
middle of public housing and he can give insight that is a far cry
from what you see on television or hear on the radio.

How many people? Sheer numbers? And the percentage of the whole? No
real clue but this guy says there are thousands and thousands of
people living this way and have been for three, four, five-plus
generations. It IS true. And the biggest problem is APATHY both from
within these communities as well as without.

This is a brief synopsis that he gave me whenever we met for lunch
this past Christmas:

His true work now is with the young people and he is trying to reach
out to the kids that are stuck in the middle of childhood and
adulthood. From what he sees, the vast, vast majority of the kids in
these areas come either from one parent families (mom only) or NO-
PARENT families (grandma or aunt) are raising these kids. He gets
really ****ed off because the males walk away from any and all
responsibility...they just don't care. When the kids are small, they
really get excited about going to school and learning and going to
church and have grand illusions of getting out of the place.

The problem is when these same kids get to be a little older. Ten,
eleven, twelve, maybe thirteen. This is when boys start to get caught
up in the glory of the streets and are used as drug runners and see
all sorts of terrible things. They think it is fabulous and say "to
hell with school--this is where it's at!" To make matters worse, you
may have a mother who is trying her hardest to do what is right, is
holding down a job of some sort, so she only gets *some* public
assistance (good for her!!!!) and she is sitting at the kitchen table
worrying about the next time she can feed the kids and have heat at
the same time when, all of a sudden, her 12-year-old tosses $200 in
front of her. What the hell is she supposed to do? It's money from
heaven. Talk about being torn!

Girls at these ages are starting to want a baby or two. It becomes a
status symbol and if one has a baby, she makes all the girls around
her jealous and they start pushing boys to have sex so they can have
one, too. Of course, these girls figure out way early that if they
have a baby that they start getting paid. They have no clue how to
manage their money nor do they understand that what they get paid is
not necessarily enough to live on and spend money that should be used
on the kids for themselves or their extended family or friends.

Marty said this money they receive both helps the family and also
keeps them in poverty. The money the boy brings home enables his
mother (or grandmother or aunt) to make ends meet but he is destined
to move up the drug ladder and either become a drug addict himself and/
or become a pusher and have his life cut short either because of drugs
or guns or the law. The money the young girl-turned-mother receives
also helps but since neither she nor her family know how to manage
money (not do they want to learn), the money is wasted and they find
themselves needing more, so she goes out and has another kid and the
cycle starts all over again.

Like I said, he works in a non-profit where they promote after-school
and weekend activities to keep the younger kids off the streets and
to, hopefully, get them educated enough to not take to the streets but
it is a long, hard row to hoe. The successes are very, very few and
this job has certainly taken its toll on him. He has aged more in the
past five or six years than I saw him age the 15 years before that.

Finally, I asked him if the welfare checks and public housing and food
stamps and what have you has a positive or negative affect on these
people. Not surprisingly, he said it was both. It was helping them
because they NEED it for without, they would starve or freeze to death
or a host of other bad things. It was bad because they knew this
money and benefits will just keep coming their way and all they need
to do is have a good, old time. He said he sees the money coming in
to feed the people but there is no incentive for these people to
better themselves.

He is looking for the big, overall plan that will get these people to
turn their lives around and the government is not implementing any
plans; they are just throwing money at it and turning their backs on
these people. Thus the apathy from the people who are receiving aid,
from the people paying for the aid, and (worse of all, maybe) the
government. Apathy all around.

I do not know what it is like outside of Pittsburgh but I do know that
there are far less people in this situation than there are in
Cleveland or Baltimore or Detroit or Miami or Chicago or New York or
Los Angeles...the list can go on and on. I heard on the radio that
the math competency for fourth-graders in Detroit was something like
8%...EIGHT PERCENT and the math competency for eighth-graders there
was FOUR PERCENT.

It isn't the amount of money you throw at a situation; it is how you
handle the situation that counts. This health care bill is another
example of an entitlement program that will be used and abused and
will not have the desired affect. It will become bloated and
extremely cost ineffective within twenty years. I mean, wasn't SSI
supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread? It is more-or-less
broke now. Then Medicare and Medicaid was going to save the people
who couldn't afford health care...and they are broke now. What kind
of faith do you have that this health care program will not be broke
within a generation?

Quit throwing money at something and start devising plans to make
things better.