Children Going Hungry

[MountainLaurel]

If you spend a day in a malnutrition clinic, you will see a dismal parade of babies and toddlers who look much younger than they are. Underweight and developmentally delayed, they cannot perform normally for their ages. Some are so weak that when you hold them in a standing position, their knees buckle. When they lie on their stomachs, they cannot push themselves up. Long after they should be able to roll over, they can only flop around listlessly.

Doctors describe these conditions as "failure to thrive." If President Bush's budget is enacted, there will be many more children in America who fail to thrive.

The most direct reason is his proposed cut in food stamps. But there is another cause of hunger, less obvious and no less damaging: his budget's diminished housing subsidies, which will leave more families exposed to escalating rents.

It may seem odd to think of housing causing hunger, but the link becomes clear when you talk with parents who bring their children into a malnutrition clinic. They usually lack government protection against the private market's steeply rising housing costs. They can't get into public housing; they are languishing on a long waiting list for vouchers that would help pay for private apartments. Or they are immigrants ineligible for government programs. As a result, some find that rent alone soaks up 50 to 75 percent of their earnings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54744-2005Feb25.html

[scarletlib]

1. all too true

I keep wandering how much more the people can take. Minimum wage frozen, gas prices going up, rents increasing and on and on.

You will see more cases of child abandonment and abuse. Not because people are cruel but because of stress and the inability to care for their families. The abuse comes from frustration and anger and ignorance of how to handle the situation.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Had this discussion yesterday

In terms of how much people can take of the Bush "mandate" before there's a revolution. Sadly, we decided that there's little chance of enough people standing up to do something. After all, at what point did the Germans stand up en masse to the horrors of the Nazis?

Nah, Americans are just like lobsters, hanging out in the stew pot while the neocons turn up the heat. Won't realize how fucked they are until someone's dipping their ass in lemon butter.

[spikesmom]

6. Boycotting of Companies That Supported Bush and /or Outsourcing

By boycotting of companies that supported Chimpy and /or outsourcing, contacting politicians about our issues, signing petitions, and getting involved gives us a voice and collectively we have some power

[MountainLaurel]

7. True, but

If you're a poor person in a position of working three jobs to pay the rent, or trying to decide between paying your electric or filling a prescription for a sick child, you just don't have the energy at the end of the day for activism. Also, for a lot of the poor, they feel that politics is a matter for people with money, because neither party gives a shit about people at the bottom economically.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. suffer the little children to come unto Me

Didn't Jesus say that whoever hurt children hurt Him as well? Our country is measured by its true humanity....and it is coming up short.

[scarletlib]

4. way short

[ClintonTyree]

5. That is SO sad..................

I'm glad our "Grate Leader" (spelling intentional) is spreading this type of Democracy around the globe.

It comes down to "guns or butter", and "guns" always wins. There's always money for new weapon systems, but Federal programs to feed the poor always get the axe first when "budget cutting time" comes around. We have the most sophisticated weapons in the world now, nobody is even close. So say ,for two years, there would be no increase in the Pentagon budget. No new projects, no more "pork for war", and use that money to wipe out hunger in our country. It could be done. The amount of money saved would wipe out hunger in our country. Will we do it? Not on your life. We have to keep those defense contractors fat and happy. We have to waste billions upon billions so we can WIN the great pissing contest of who can annihilate whom the fastest. What a grate country (again, spelling intentional).

It sickens me to no end what we do to the least of our citizens. Because in the end, that defines us as a society. And we have failed miserably.

[oscar111]

11. 12 BILLION ENDS US HUNGER. WPA CAN PROVIDE FUNDS FOR IT AND END JOBLESNES

WPA .. would harness the labor power of today's unharnessed jobless.

That would generate new taxpayers, who would pay 18 billion in taxes, if you incl sales taxes in the total.

that is enough to wipe out hunger.

WPA pays for its own adminstrative costs too.. 4 K/yr/worker from his wages, for administrators.

Wages 2O K to begin with, less four for admin. 2O K is what the avg minimum wage worker generates, tho he gets only half of that.. rest to his boss now.

A WPA worker would end up getting pay of 16 K/yr. Not great, but
not bad. Better than jobless.
Some hunger would end with just getting a job. No need for the Food Stamps i mention below---->
==================================
And as i said, the taxes on these new jobholders.. would be enough to wipe out hunger by upping Food Stamp funds. By 12 billion.
================================

Did i mention that the leftover 6 billion would also end homelessness?
====== Just 4 billion does that.

2 billion leftover then, to set up sheltered workshops for the blind, and crips who cannot do regular jobs.

[Sugarbleus]

8. Sooooo glad you brought this up again....

KEEP POUNDING THE DRUMS on these issues. (I'd like to pound some heads but that's another thread)

It seems like an insurmountable problem but NOTHING will ever get done unless WE take action. I posted in here a call to action on this upcoming FY06 budget fiasco. It was a simple request to urge people to call in to the budget office to lodge their complaint to George the Vulgar's ridiculous budget/cuts..then notify your reps/senators to urge them to oppose it also.

I did it. I continue to work the problem. Fax, phone, email, write, petition...whatever it takes to continue to make your voices heard on the subject of human services and poverty programs...among other things that benefit the whole society.

Don't leave the activism to someone else. Be a voice for the weakest ones among us PLEASE!

Affordable Housing is at CRITICAL MASS now. Not only do the children suffer but the aged and disabled suffer; often these individuals are all in the same household/family stream. There's cuts proposed to low income medicaid-using families also. There are so many things this new budget wants to gut that are blatantly INDECENT.

In a now UNregulated business environment, Bush is giving hefty tax breaks to people who need them the least while snuffing out the poorest among us. That will leave just the rich and the rest of you. POOF, there goes the "middle class"

I see that Dean (at the DNC website) wants feedback...well, let him hear this.

FOOD NOT BOMBS, HOUSING NOT CORPORATE WELFARE!

[oscar111]

12. SUGARBLEUS.. agree, call congrss: disagree on budget offce calling

just a quibble on tactics...

seems we might save some energy by skipping the call to the
Office of the Budget.

they are just clerks, and cannot change it. The head of Budget is likely a freeper appoointed by bush and thick as a brick.

To put our energy to best use, i offer my opinion that we should first call Congress. I personally see no hope of results from calling the Budget Office.

Just a friendly disagreement on tactics, i fully agree with sugarbleu's opinion on this. Keep posting, sugarbleu!

Sugarbleu, can you help me figure this out? A friend, and epal in an eastern city, said a huge housing project there was bulldozed to make room for upscale condo's. Tv news claimed the thousands of project resicents would be housed in another project.

hmmmm. since all projects nationwide already have waiting lists, i suspect the thousands bulldozed will all become homeless. True?

[earthmama]

9. This brings tears to my eyes

Knowig that there are children that need food, shelter and love. I get so pissed that the gov is not doing anything.

The cost of living is so high. We are struggle to make ends meet and my husband makes an ok salary. ( am a stay at home mom) I can't imagine what is like for people that have to choose between bills and meds for there children.

It is sad ... these children are our future.

[oscar111]

10. HITLER: did he attack middle class? None rose against him, but here mid

class is being attacked , so it is thinkable that the middle class here will vote the GOP thugs out next time.

mt. Laurel mentioned that he was not expecting folks here to massively oppose the GOP , because in a parallel case, none arose against Hitler.

But i say, over there Hitler IIRC from history books....,

Hitler gave jobs to a jobless middle class. Here, the opposite.

IIRC, hitler in a way helped his middle class, but bush is attacking our middle class.

Accurate? Not sure of hitler history.

Since here, the m class is being dismantled, i can forsee a massive vote switch next time and a fifty state sweep crushing and forever ending the vile GOP. {dream, dream LOL}.

how accurate is my "history" of hitler and his m. class?

[theoldgeezer]

13. You're ticked the government isn't doing anything?

the quesiton is, what are YOU doing?

Man, I've BEEN THERE. I've been in that place, where the electricity, rent, etc, took just about every dime you had, and where you had to VERY carefully pick where youre dollars wnet. But subsidized housing isn't the answer. The answer was making smarter choices.

The wife and I had kids, when we could not afford them. - our fault.

I was very poor at job seeking - - my fault, lack of education.

We didn't manage money well - our fault again, poor judgement and education.

Again, the problem wasn't a lack of someone handing me more money - It was mostly about making poor choices... and living not understanding the consequences of our decisions.

I now have relatives and friends, who are just as precarious financially as we were. But guess what? They don't listen when you give them advice. They refuse to make wise priorities. I've been all through this over and over. I see the same mistakes I made when younger...and guess what? I didn't learn until I gained experience, and had a lot of hard knocks. Nor will the people I'm talking about. Often, when we give them advice to prioritize thier financial lives, they just go and look for some other entitlement to get - counting on them as "normal" life.

So, do we subsidize them? Will it matter? Will they make better or wiser choices... will the outcome be any better if they are just given entitlements? My lifetime of experience says that what people NEED MOST are friends and family - and wise advice to make good decisions, or they'll never really be a success - and achchieve the goal everyone should want for them... Self-sufficiency, where the person provides all his own needs.

I don't have perfect answers - but in my life's experience, which included a few years of exploiting every entitlement I could get my hands on... Entitlements or subsidies will NOT accomplish what we want. Which is why I don't turn people to welfare... I take a personal interest and try to help them get to where it is they really need to go and do what they need to do, instead. And those who don't or won't do what they should do... We're doing no favors with making life easier, it really DOES enable or make poverty or bad decisions or priorities more tolerable. But hey, it's just my life's experience...what would I know?

[Biased Liberal Media]

14. Help me out here

I really do not understand what the point of your post is, besides teaching people self-sufficiency. What do you say to the single mother who has to decide between paying rent or putting food on the table for her children?? Is that a "poor choice"??

I'm really curious here, because I've seen the "personal responsibilities" angle used before, and in essence I agree with you. however, when there are no resources for someone in dire poverty, what do we do? Tell them "Well you didn't go to college, so tough luck"??

I don't know what the answer is and I don't claim to know, but I know many people are suffering living in poverty today and while some may have "personal responsiblity" issues, there are people out there who are trying to get out of the rut of poverty that need that little bit of help- so why deny it to people who really need it??

Just curious...

[theoldgeezer]

15. Hmmm, ok... Let's see if I can improve my answer...

Here, I'll quote ya, to make it easier.
"I really do not understand what the point of your post is, besides teaching people self-sufficiency. What do you say to the single mother who has to decide between paying rent or putting food on the table for her children?? Is that a "poor choice"??

>>>> Well, becoming a single mother may have been a "bad choice" on her part. Did she get pregnant without being married, having a committed father? It takes two to commit the act, remember. Your hypothetical situation is too wide open to really have an answer for, but again, we have to say, that bad choices lead to bad consequences. I'm not trying to say we put upon people in a bad situation - what I"m trying to say is that if people do not recognize and admit bad decisions get them into bad situations, they don't stop the pattern of bad decisions and NEVER make much progress in thier lives. It's person to person intervention, in a cycle of bad decisionmaking, that I consider to be invaluable.

I'm really curious here, because I've seen the "personal responsibilities" angle used before, and in essence I agree with you. however, when there are no resources for someone in dire poverty, what do we do? Tell them "Well you didn't go to college, so tough luck"??

>>> Not at all. But entire concept of "entitlement" means "free for the taking"- or even more accurately - "taking what you have a right to have". Again, put an immature person in a situation where this person can live by thier own efforts... or put out little effort and live by someone else's efforts... and you see the OBVIOUS problem. Taking "the easy way out" is a dead end, of course, but does that stop people? Not those who aren't concerned about the quality of thier decisionmaking.

The specific reason why personal - individual to individual, or neighbor-to-neighbor charity works, is that everyone involved understands this "need" is a result of events, and that nobody has any claim to what someone else has. My neighbor can come to me and say "I am in a terrible bind, I was between jobs, and I paid the house and car and insurance and electricity... but we desperately need some food and gas till next payday in 3 weeks." You know what? Even if he owns a nice car and home and has non-liquid wealth, I would help him preserve his world intact - it's a good thing to do. Will an entitlement? Nope. They'll strip him of his home or car or whatever, before they'll help. But then again, if my neighbor comes asking for money for food, and I know he's a junkie... I won't give him cash. I'll go buy him food. It's that understanding of a unique situation - combined with GOOD JUDGEMENT about what's best for a person, that makes charity work... and the lack of those things that causes entitlements to be far less.

I don't know what the answer is and I don't claim to know, but I know many people are suffering living in poverty today and while some may have "personal responsiblity" issues, there are people out there who are trying to get out of the rut of poverty that need that little bit of help- so why deny it to people who really need it??"

>>>> I'm not for denying help to those who need it. We really need to ask ourselves some questions... For instance, if an able bodied person won't work - or addicts themselves to some drug and can't work - will we give them food, shelter, and medical care? Will we enable thier ability to survive as a junkie? If we do, is it compassion?

More importantly, does help we give people cause them to improve thier lives, or does it make them just able to live without doing so?

We're planning this summer, for instance, to take a niece into our home. She has learning disabilities, emotional issues. She's 9 years old and still first-grade level - or worse. Why? Because her parents simply will not make her progress a priority. They refuse to change thier priorities, change thier decisionmaking process in ways that will enable them to do for her what needs to be done. For a decade, they have lived at the ragged edge of survival - just barely keeping a home, food, transportation, the necessities - and yet will NOT change the things they need to in order to rectify this. And, when thier kids have a need, they expect to get grants, public education, or someone else, to pay for what is needed. Neither are incapable in any way, they just have set really BAD priorities in thier life and wasted thier time away chasing dead-end dreams.

I am so mixed about this. She isn't our responsibility. If we take her in, we'll foot the bills. But if we do, it will affect our ability to provide for our own kids (college ain't cheap). But if we don't, her parents won't do what should be done. No amount of advice, suggestions, or even directly explaining seems to have any effect on them.

And, if we do, the parents will just spend thier money in other ways.. .not save it, not make use of thier time better... or anything else. In other words, we'll just ease thier burdens - burdens they rightfully should carry on thier own. That decision, however, should be up to my wife and I to make. It should not be for the state to decide, for instance, and just enable them at our expense... without our choice in the matter. At least we have the emotional leverage, to try to encourage the parents, that they do "owe" us. If it were an entitlement, they would just take it, like they have every other one they could find and claim.

I find the argument about those who see entitlements as not good being "uncaring" to be rather specious. Sure, there's those who just want to keep thier own money and don't give a rip about anyhone else. But there are those, like us, who will give more than taxes would take, but do so in ways that accomplish something. I really DO care about the in-law family - and in this case, denying them EVERY entitlement would force them to re-assess how they live and make that leap, where they figure out that self-sufficiency really IS both worth achieving, and the right thing to do. I could go on for pages about personal experience in this regard. Let's just suffice it to say, that I have more than ample evidence to suggest that "entitlement" does more harm than good. If we could just get past that emotional reaction, and then start the thought processes on "well, if we're not going to "entitle" people to somethign, how do we help them?" I predict actual progress could be made in MILLIONS of lives.

[theoldgeezer]

16. Well, it's too bad people aren't

talking about this more.

It's a given fact, in a free world, that when more money chases the same amount of 'goods', the price goes up.

Subsidizing housing will, for the most part, just cause the price of housing to rise more. There is that brief respite, but because of increased demand, rents will rise, actually worsening the condition for anyone not on a permanent subsidy.

I've noticed a distinct correllation between the amount of housing available, and the cost of that housing. Let's explore this...

Let's take a good sized town... Since I live in the state (but nowhere near) Portland Oregon will serve. Portland, like all towns, has a "metro" core - a business district, with little to no homes. Then, there are the surrounding areas - each with its own name, town, and business district, etc. A few decades back, when I was still in school, my mom and dad were interested in moving there. Dad needed some better job opportunities. Just a few miles from city center, the price of homes fell to close to average. Even if you were a common laborer or just a skilled laborer, you could afford a modest home of your own.

Today, the average price in the Portland Metro area is a quarter million dollars -

http://www.movingtoportland.net/house_price.htm

The average household income in Oregon is a bit over 42,000.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/h08a.html

As you can see, not even households with AVERAGE income can afford the average home in the Portland Metro area. This trend is not new, and of course, as you can imagine, the middle class has been fleeing the Portland Metro area - or should I say, they have not been replacing those leaving - many have capitalized on thier "appreciated" real estate values and left, for ever more distant areas.

Now, you're going to come to the obvious conclusion that if you're new to the world of living on your own - such as a young married without college degrees - buying a home is not in the cards for you. In fact, since the rent market is really a function of ownership + a little profit, rent is going to be outside the ability of people to pay.

So, what to do? One could relocate - go to where the competition for housing is low enough that rent is moderate. These outlying areas often had the service jobs or employers, the light manufacturing, etc, that employed those on the lower income scale. Today, there's nowhere to run to in Oregon. Land use laws have been in place for quite some time now - designed to prevent "sprawl". In order to build ANY kind of housing, you must now be a land developer, and have good financial resources to wrangle a development through the adversarial process - buy the inflated and limited availability land, build something on it and sell it for a profit. NOt even the cheapest of apartment buildings can be built for low enough cost to make renting them affordable to low-income people. If we subsidize it, then we're just adding to the demand, making those prices spiral some more.

Some suggestions:

1. Fundamentally alter land-use laws or zoning, so as to ensure that there always remains some low-demand residential area available.

2. Encourage the preservation of older homes - these are often where lower-income people get thier "start" in life.

3. Allow tax write-offs so that neighborhoods where trends lower the cost of formerly epxensive homes will encourage the owners to leave - but yet make those same areas attractive to individuals who also wish to own.

4. Prevent the massing of "subsidized" or otherwise non-owner-occupied in any one place - Urban blight follows. Ownership encourages responsibility.

5. Encourage more risk-taking by lenders when it comes to owner-occupied residences - even if it's condominiums or duplexes, etc.

6. Not tax the gains of those who move from home to home - lower the bar to move, or, in other terms, make home ownershipo more "liquid". Make it easier to move up - or down.

Now, you're going to, if you haven't already, start to realize that these target middle to lower income, stable demographics. The idea is for these people to enter the ownership category, reducing the competition for rental or low-income non-owned housing. Of course, this will have some effect at conversion of some presently avaailable rent or leasable property to owned, but raising home ownership isn't bad.

The goal here, is to reduce the percentage of people who find themselves severely constrained financially, by the cost of even the most basic housing. Often rents for small apartments exceed $1000 / mo in larger cities. You can't do that if you're on a single income, earning hourly wages in a non-professional environment. It will be well more than half of what you take home each month.

While there are some people who simply have no means of affording housing, and must be supported (the reasons are so many and varied as to not bother listing ), these people are the exception, not the rule. The rules we should structure our policies to are the "norm". Home ownership should be the "norm". We should do our best to push people toward that "norm". If we do that, then direct rental assistance to those who have to have it will have little or no negative impact on the housing market for the "norm".

But building subsidy for housing into the "norm" for 5 or 10 or 15% of the population will have a huge negative impact - as subsidy is rarely or never for ownership, but just for renting from someone else.

There has been some success locally, where community efforts to build new homes for those who would not otherwise afford them has gone on. This where people of the community donate time, labor, even a few dollars, replacing the costs of the contractors and paid labor in construction of a home, bringing the cost of that home into the "affordable" range for those who would never otherwise have that chance. These are a great idea. I'd like to see more support for this in regulation, tax code, etc. Perhaps even some underwriting by home lending agencies like Fannie Mae... Or HUD. Or better, by state or local.

[oscar111]

17. GEEZER-? Pls summarize in five lines

i might agree, but your post was hard to figure out.

"into ownership" .. fine. But, do you have a plan to up wages? or down price? The Job Shortage is 14 million. How are they to own? End LL's by a new law?

Like ownership, but cant figure how you plan to do it. Pls clarify in a brief way. thank you kindly.

PS for 14 million, no wise personal choice will find a job for them.

even if americns were all PhD's, 14 million would not find a job today. Personal Choices dont remove that vast structural situation.

[oscar111]

18. Subsidies WERE EFFECTIVE before RR cut drastically

US had almost NO homeless {"too few to count"}, till RR made savage cuts to section 8 vouchers in the early eighties.
Then, explosion of homeless.
Due to the GOP.
{"we were pulling frozen bodies in off the Detroit waterfront"}

So the argument abut "more money chasing.." and so on, is not valid.

Subsidies have worked brilliantly in the past, and will again.

Will, if we put humans into office, instead of "drifting wrecks of subhuman mentalities."