dagblog - Comments for "The Homeless Aren't Homeless When They Are Sheltered?"

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Verified Atheist — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 21:09:42 +0000

In reply to That said, I am not eager to

I haven't read all the

Peter Schwartz — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 15:53:30 +0000

In reply to There is no panacea. Not that

I haven't read all the sections yet, but the reporter really should swim upstream and investigate the higher reaches of policymaking and implementation in the city.

And give us a second long-form exposé...

She indicates that certain decisions were made, e.g., Advantage, but doesn't give us much insight (thus far) into the why and how.

For example, the higher ups clearly are aware of abuses by inspectors and social workers at Auburn. There have been reprimands, but no firings. Some malefactors have even gotten raises after the reprimand, if I read correctly.

Why? What is being done to correct this behavior, if anything? What is the city doing to make sure the policies are correct? Are they working or not? What are the finances really like? Who is calling the shots?

No doubt Dasani has become something of a celebrity since this article, but it would be a shame if all the attention were on her and the many other Dasanis in Auburn or in other shelters were passed over.

I'm sure a wonkier investigation wouldn't garner the readership this story has, but it might be even more important to people like Dasani and her parents.

I would say we're more or

Peter Schwartz — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 14:34:57 +0000

In reply to These are the people whose

I would say we're more or less talking about the same people.

My take is slightly different (at the risk of incurring the wrath of Quinn or PP). I think the RDs, or the people who became RDs, got turned off by the left's apparent disregard for, and even denigration of, traditional values, e.g., family, respect for the law, etc., that were the warp and woof of their lives. The working class who had always been solidly Democratic couldn't see themselves next to the likes of Abby Hoffman. This, I believe, is EJ Dionne's thesis.

The fringe right was worried about socialism, but not the people who had actually benefited from socialistic policies. The folks who would become RDs LIKED SS and Medicare, and actually still do. They didn't like being forced onto the front lines of social change policies, e.g., bussing, while (in their view) the policymakers were safe in their elite enclaves. They saw the very top on the left side conspiring with the bottom against them in the middle which, actually, is a theme that goes all the way back to Revolutionary War times.

The working class was much more tolerant, even supportive, of redistribution --which wasn't called that back then other than by the fringe--as long as the economy was good and they weren't being squeezed financially. But as soon as their income started stagnating, they were easy prey for the right wing demagogues who directed the working class's anxieties toward the lower classes--"the folks who expected a handout and didn't want to work"--as well as the "liberal elites" with whom they had formerly been bonded, e.g., FDR, Kennedy, Truman.

If they were getting squeezed, then everyone had to get squeezed, and it was easy to characterize people on welfare as not wanting to work and always having their hands out for free stuff. Unnoticed by the RDs were the wealthy folks doing the squeezing, who were pushing this meme.

I would argue that the term "redistribution" is tendentious and not descriptive. It assumes that what you're doing is stealing from Peter what is rightfully Peter's and just giving it away to Paul. But if you believe that Peter only has what he has in part because of Paul's contribution to the whole economy, then you don't use that term except as a short-cut descriptor.

At one time, this notion of everyone being in it together was widespread, even, or maybe particularly, among the working class. Movement conservatism has turned it into a kind of crypto socialist notion. Yes, this fear of "socialism" has always been a part of our culture, but the people who became RDs didn't always think that way.

Whether we'll ever become Sweden...well, Sweden isn't Sweden any longer from what I hear...though it's still far more Sweden-like than we are...is a question IF you put it that way. Once a lot of the tendentious spin is stripped away, people LIKE the protections. Including immigrants. No one ever accused Asians of not being hard-working, and they were solidly in the Socialist In Chief's corner, even the second time around. We should be a land of opportunity and protections. I think that's what most ordinary people think.

You have to examine the whole idea of "getting something for nothing." It puts a negative and, IMO, inaccurate spin on our protections. We get SS, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment benefits not because we're layabouts looking for a handout, but because of what we've worked for and paid in. MM described it well somewhere on this thread. Dasani and her folks may not have paid in much (though Supreme was a barber for some period of time), but in our saner moments, we know that it is bad for everyone if we have one group of people rotting in the bottom of the barrel. You don't even have to invoke morality to make this case, just self interest.

All of our welfare programs have been characterized as a means of evening out the playing field. Giving everyone an even chance. But evening out requires a certain amount of "redistribution" and everyone knows that. Where does scholarship money come from? Where does SNAP money and food come from? Where does early education funds come from? Where do public shelters like Dasani's come from? They come from the people who have the money to pay for them, either through charity or through taxes.

There is no panacea. Not that

Peter Schwartz — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 14:21:37 +0000

In reply to I'm all for it. Our

There is no panacea. Not that you're suggesting it, I can't see measuring a program against the standard of "panacea" as productive.

It's enough to make improvements, and the only requirement, IMO, is that you continue to make improvements. Or keep trying when you hit brick walls.

But now that I think about it, you bring out an important point. It's very common to hear people say: "Look at all those programs and all that money we've spent, and we still have poverty." They think that's a valid argument against those programs.

But if we moved the needle ten points, then we moved it ten points. We haven't "eliminated poverty," but then, neither has charity, the Church, and the beneficence of the great foundations left by the robber barons. And they've been at it a lot longer.

Then there are some real oddities when ideology trumps empirical evidence even at the expense of one or more of the ideology's key principles. For example...

In the article, she talks about Bloomberg's move to Advantage, temporary housing assistance, as a replacement for ongoing assistance. As a conservative, he notes that ongoing assistance encourages dependency. We need to help people, but people also need to get off their duff and become independent.

(He also seems to think that ongoing assistance for housing incentives people to move into shelters. Not sure how that works, but never mind.)

Anyway, Advantage seems to have ballooned the shelter population. When the assistance stops, people can't afford their apartments and move into shelters. But note: housing assistance amounts to about $1,500 per month for a family, while sheltering that same family costs about $3,400. Where's the economic sense in that?

Unless we're going to allow people to live on the streets and fend for themselves when the bottom falls out, we need to commit to a baseline of making sure everyone has clean, safe shelter first...and then work to get people onto their own two feet. And we have to admit that some people will never make it.

I don't think most people want to live in even a clean, safe shelter. They would prefer to work and rent or buy their own apartments. (Drugs twist that equation in their own unique way, which is an issue that needs to be addressed.) As much as conservatives sing the praises of "liberty" and "hard work," they don't seem to believe that these values are inherently attractive. They seem to believe that people need to be prodded into working hard under the threat of homelessness. Otherwise, they'll become layabouts. They seem to believe that promise of having "your own place" where you can do what you want and a tidy bank account isn't enough for most people.

So beyond what I recommend above, and maybe this is even more important, you need top flight people at the top setting direction, overseeing the hiring, and following up--including surprise visits to the shelters to check up on the social services people, not the residents.

There's a lot of talk on the right about holding teachers accountable, getting rid of the dead wood, etc. Since my wife's become a teacher, I've gotten to see through her eyes that there are a bunch of bad teachers. There are also a bunch of good teachers. But the real key to a top-performing school is the administration. They set the tone and the standards and are also the only ones in a position to provide the support and resources teachers need to do a good job.

But there are no panaceas...I agree.

I'm all for it. Our

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 19:22:55 +0000

In reply to They are both true. Here's

I'm all for it. Our market-based economy screws up our priorities, encouraging the best and brightest to apply their minds to skimming profits from debt vehicles rather than investing in humanity.

But keep in mind that even highly paid inner-city teachers and social workers are no panacea.

PS That TPM piece got a lot of attention, but I have to say that it bugged me. Sure, buying expensive clothes can be a rational investment when you're looking for a job, but the article seemed to suggest that most decadant purchases are actually covert methods of social advancement. I don't blame the writer so much as TPM's exaggerated headline.

The tragedy of the

Flavius — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 22:27:23 +0000

In reply to What is "The Tragedy of the

The tragedy of the commons

The belief that when a resource is held in common it will inevitably deteriorate as did Middle Ages pastures held that way.

These are the people whose

artappraiser — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 22:24:19 +0000

In reply to Michael, ultimately, the

These are the people whose voices AA informs me "we need to deal with"

No, that's not who I was referring to. I basically meant the Reagan Democrat phenomenon. It was highly motivated by LBJ era welfare programs as we used to know them. You can throw people like Senator Pat Moynihan into the mix, too. And wiithout the Regan Democrat phenomenon, there was no chance the GOP was going anywhere majority wise.

And it is about socialist leaning or redistributive programs often being resented by something deep in this country's culture. I believe that it is still there, not changed, same as it always was. Look at why immigrants come to this country for some proof. They almost all say they come to work and for the opportunity to "get rich," not for socialist protections. And often look down on people who expect something without "working hard" or something for nothing. A lot of Obama's speeches have strongly stressed that pro-capitalist meme (even to the point of opining that it is one of the main things that is special about the U.S.) and I believe that it was a significant factor in his getting elected as the first black president. Without that factor, I really don't see how he could have garnered a majority.

Suffice it to say I don't see this country turning whole hog Sweden for the foreseeable future. The popularity of the "we are the 99%" meme was about fairness of opportunity, not redistribution; using 99%, and not something like 75%, was key to its popularity. And doing the opposite, trying to divide out the upper middle class into an "us vs. them" thing, hurt Romney.

Maybe we need to educate

Michael Maiello — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 20:16:33 +0000

In reply to Michael, ultimately, the

Maybe we need to educate everybody better, then. The way social insurance like food stamps, unemployment and the like works is that you not only pay for them, with your taxes before you get into trouble but, since getting back to work is the only way out, you also pay after. The chances of getting more than you'll put in on a reasonably discounted basis seems slim. But some people can't fathom that.

Or we could expect competence

Peter Schwartz — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 17:15:32 +0000

In reply to Or we could expect competence

Or we could expect competence and reward excellence in government employment, and fire the incompetent, how about trying that?

Not to disagree with this, because I don't, but it's not as if there is a throng of competent, motivated, and highly skilled people lining up to do these jobs.

At least not in my experience.

When I was a CASA worker in DC, all the social workers were way underpaid and way overworked and the conditions were pretty bad. It was grueling work. I read today that a social worker in "family service" gets about 41,000 a year. But even if they make 71,000, there are MANY easier ways to make that money in D.C.

Mostly the SWs had "plug and play" solutions to various problems, i.e., programs they could tap into or try to tap into to get their clients what the social worker and the client felt the client needed. But it wasn't counseling in any real sense.

Each CASA volunteer had only one client because they found that when a social worker had 25-50 families in her caseload, kids slipped through the cracks. So I was assigned one kid, and he was my sole concern. I visited with him, took him places, got to know him, tried to open up opportunities for him based on his desires, wrote extensive reports for the judge and, of course, dealt with his mother whose drug addiction, promiscuity, petty criminality lay at the root of many of his problems but whom he loved with every fiber of his being and would not leave.

That was one kid and one adult volunteer.

Eventually, after six years, Mom seemed to make a real turnaround and seemed to take responsibility for her situation, agreed to go into counseling, and so on. But maybe she was just shining us on, learned that that was the way to get the judge off her back and get her kid back to clean the house for her. I had to leave the program, so I don't know. It felt very genuine, but I don't know.

Michael, ultimately, the

Peter Schwartz — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 16:55:59 +0000

In reply to We could... or we could find

Michael, ultimately, the difficulty with what you're saying is that there's a difference (at least an optical one) in the public's mind between someone who pays for these benefits for years and years and then has to use them versus someone who has barely paid in anything (by appearances at least) and is using far more than he's paid in.

Personally, I don't have a problem with this for reasons that go beyond the notion of "insurance" (though it's a good notion) and more to do with being one's brother's keeper. Momoe's suggestion about education IS respectful and useful and empowering and goes pretty far beyond the money people have paid in.

However, a good portion of the public does. These are the people whose voices AA informs me "we need to deal with" and were formerly drowned out by all the Johnson-ites. They came close-ish to winning the presidential election a year ago. They have sewn up many of the state houses and governorships. They've brought the federal government, at least Congress, to a grinding halt. They've removed democratically elected officials throughout Michigan. Many come from safe, gerrymandered districts, and are ready to throw themselves, or at the least the country, on their swords to cut back on this particular kind of spending.