Drugs, the Amway or Herbalife of the poor.
I guess it’s because I’m just so sick of seeing crappy neighborhoods (and I’m not talking about low-income neighborhoods. I’m talking about places that look like war-torn 3rd World countries). When people drive down a street, they don’t judge it based on the cars parked in the driveways and in the parking lots. They judge it based on how the domiciles look. I know not all low-income neighborhoods are crappy and I know there’s only so far that a renter can do to a property to make it look nice. I also know that crappy neighborhoods aren’t always crappy just because of the residents’ behavior–that municipalities also share some of the blame. But investing in fancy cars when you’re living in a slum simply does NOT warm the cockles of my heart. Someone who has a fancy car but lives in the projects is basically telling me: “Hey, I love living on the bottom rungs of society. I love living in government subsidized housing, I love living on dirty, trash-filled streets, I love hearing the gunshots at night, and I love looking wealthier than I am.” A person like this may be real smart and nice, but nonetheless they are reflecting values that I find disagreeable.
The truth is that we communicate messages based on our possessions. People are free to buy whatever they want, and other people are free to judge them.
Maybe it’s just my middle-class values shining through here.
Fair enough. But don’t expect society’s view of your general weakness to change when you have to snitch to their daddy to defend yourself.
Why is any defense required at all? “Ignore” is an excellent response.
It’s not your job to educate the masses, and if you use HR to do the educating, all you will do is reinforce the perception that you do not have the wherewithall to educate them yourself. It’s a very counterproductive approach. It may get rid of the narrow problem but it extends the very stereotypes you are anxious to dispel.
I have no idea where to begin to look for a cite. I’m quoting my Mother’s caseworker; the remark wasn’t specific to Section 8 housing (and neither is the thread title), it had to do with maintaining eligibility for Medicaid and food stamps.
Why don’t you just tell this guy to go away and stay away until he grows up??!? 
That’s how my family finally put an end to my younger brother’s parasitism.
I would if I were the decision maker. However, he’s only my nephew by marriage. Mr. SCL’s brother in law died when the kid was 8, and his sister died when nephew was 16. Nephew managed to blow over $250,000 in much less than 10 years, and the only thing he has to show for it is the crappy car.
Mr. SCL has finally stopped loaning him money, after he realized that Nephew was saying “loan me some money” - but what he meant was “give me some money”. The other two sisters still give in now and then.
I won’t let Nephew go hungry. He can show up here any time and I will feed him. However, I am not giving him money and he is not moving in here.
I am finding your posts quite interesting. I am not being the least bit sarcastic here. I genuinely think you may have some points that I should consider.
The ignore option is exactly what I did this time. I let it go. But it still bothers me, because it is spreading ugly lies. The people in this place actually forward around glurge. They could certainly fall prey to these ridiculous rumors concerning hard working, law abiding citizens.
The HR office is not my daddy. They are there to serve me. They are a service. On the one hand, I feel like it is their job to handle these issues in the work place, so that personal feelings and emotions don’t invade the workplace.
On the other hand, something deep inside tells me that you may have a point. Could it be a form of just tattling? I’m not sure. I’m going to think that over.
The part you mention about general weakness…I don’t think I agree with you here. I think the poor working stiffs that push their Ford Taurus’ to work and work in a call center all day like to pretend that any young black man they see driving a nice SUV must have gotten it in some way other than hard work. I don’t think they really believe there is a ‘general weakness’ at all. I strongly suspect they may feel frustrated and angry…which would be a general weakness on their part. So I won’t be fighting any battles just to prove my people don’t have some sort of ‘general weakness’.
Your other points are making me think though.
Monstro, thank you for your posts, eloquent as usual. If it is your middle class values shining through, then I guess my ghetto values are shining over here.
Lots of people in the ghetto have no hope of getting out. Lots of people can get out but choose not to. My brother bought his home in an area that he knew was going ‘down’ not ‘up’. He did it purposefully.
We don’t want to hear gun shots in our neighborhoods, but we don’t want to ‘move on up’ to ‘something better’ and leave the hopeless in our wake.
Why not? Not intended to be ugly or snarky, but why in the world wouldn’t you want to move to a better life if you could? If the ones you leave behind are truely hopeless, your staying will not improve their lot.
I have a feeling that you might not live where you think you do, Nzinga.
How far is the closest government housing project from you? How does a person working hard for a Hummer qualify for welfare? Are they all just visiting friends in the projects, or what?
Please expound. I am a bit lost.
I assure you that I do know where I live. I live in what we call the ‘cresent’ in Rochester, New York. The cresent represents a moon shaped portion of the city riddled with poverty and high crime. There are also many hard working, decent people in ‘the cresent’.
There are new homes built in poor neighborhoods and purchased by people have worked 20 years as nurse’s aides to be able to afford them.
There are blue collar workers and pink collar workers and all sorts of people in my neighborhood. Some have chosen to purchase Hummers. Some have chosen to purchase homes. Some have chosen to take their kids to Disney World once a year. Some have chosen to save hard and work hard and invest wisely, and eventually, “move on up” out of there.
I don’t know how to answer your question Snakescatlady. The people in the ghetto are my family. They are my mom’s friends who helped raise me when I was younger. They are a beautiful, struggling people, and I love them.
If those of us that do make it off of welfare and government housing up and leave instead of re-investing in our neighborhoods, the neighborhoods will be many times worst off. Thank goodness there are those that stay and take care of the innercity.
Many (probably most) people who learn how to “amass wealth” in their lives do so by purchasing wisely. Some people don’t consider the worth of a purchase they make beyond what pleasure or immeadiate need it fulfills. Just like some people go to college and get a degree and some people don’t think beyond high school. Some people don’t want make sacrifices and do difficult things now for a life they might live down the road.
Yes, the lovely Horatio Alger myth. “If only they’d work HARDER and had better VALUES, the poor wouldn’t be poor.”
There’s a lot I’d love to say about your assumptions, but I don’t have time. Here is a document I think you should consider, on the links between poverty and disability.
Huh? Is blackness now a disability? Would possible relevance does your cite have to the OP? And do you deny that hard work and healthy values will benefit someonein life?
Thanks. I’ll try to let it load. That definitely is a good point, and is something to think about before investing in the housing market. I was coming at it from the perspective of: you have to live somewhere, so as someone else said, why not attempt to build wealth for yourself, and your family rather than a landlord.
If you come up with any more to say on the subject, I’d like to hear it, because I’ve often wondered the same thing as SnakesCatLady. As someone from the area, you probably remember recent news stories about the lady who was beaten to death by a street mob after trying to find out why people were bothering her daughter, or the man who was killed walking home from an anti-violence meeting. AFAIK, no one has come forward in either case, even though people watched the lady being beaten from their windows.
Aren’t people concerned* about raising their families in that kind of environment, with the violence and poor school system? Don’t people worry that their kids will end up being the next victim, or drug dealer if they stay? At what point is enough, enough? Why not just go back and visit? Just thinking out loud here, as I know that every person will have a different answer, and that there’s a big difference betwen watching something on the news, and living it every day.
*of course, I know at least some people are concerned.
People are making a LOT of assumptions about poverty. That’s the point.
No kidding. One of my mom’s cousins, nearing retirement age, came into a little money. She had a choice of finishing paying off the note on her house, or buying a brand new Dodge Charger. Guess which one she picked.
AAAhhhhh! I understand car lust (and appreciating/depreciating assets-darn).
Now that I can afford the Corvette, and afford to insure it (yes), I’m too old and slow to “properly” drive the machine. My back hurts, it’s too low to the seat, I might have to roll out on the ground first to be able to stand up. Irrational lust. Bought a used Acura TSX (nice, luxe, some soul but I could have had a corvette!).
Trailer parks, kids with no shoes, but a new 4x4 dualie plus metalflake bassboat plus 200hp+ outboard in the yard and $200 bill for beer, bait and gas.
Makes me want to scream sometimes people are so dumb financially. So dumb with their health, waste their education, pick the wrong person/friends, etc…
We need a smart pill, implant, alien intervention? I just don’t have the answer.
Well, the problem there is that buying the expensive car doesn’t help “erase” the money.
To review, you said:
For food stamps, there are indeed two tests: income and resources. In order to be eligible for food stamps, a household may not have more than $2,000 in “countable” resources, such as money in a bank account. So at first blush, the idea of spending Aunt Gertie’s $10,000 on a nice car seems like a good fit. However, “countable” resources include the fair market value of a car over $4,650. In other words, a car with a fair market value of $10,000 is counted as a resource of $5,350 – which would itself eliminate food stamp eligibility.
Now, there are some exceptions, too numerous to completely list here. For example, a car that’s being used as a residence is not counted – that is, if you’re living in your car, its value is not counted. If the car is used for income-producing purposes – say you’re a courier or a pizza delivery person – then its value is not counted as long as the income the car produces is consistent with its fair market value. In other words, a Mercedes E-class being used for pizza delivery would probably fail this test.
Finally, note that your home itself and the lot on which it stands are not counted at all. So making a downpayment on a house with a windfall shields your resources completely from counting.
So we learn that as a general proposition, your idea of buying a nice car with a windfall to maintain eligibility resource counting for the purpose of the food stamp program is also completely wrong.
And one of them is you. And it would appear that your assumptions discussed above are completely without basis in actual fact.
Well good for her. Really. People scritch and save and do everything perfectly, and make it to the end of their lives with every book perfectly balanced and they think, I wish I would have bought that Dodge Charger. Let her freakin’ enjoy her Charger.
Omega, the incident with the mob stabbing the woman…breaks my heart. My community was up in arms about that. Did the media report the outpouring of support after that incident? The huge crowds that took to the street in protest? The way we bonded together to demand that the police force toughen up in these areas? The Mayor Duffy has put in place some changes in the police force hoping to help combat the problem. Of course it is the people, not the police that will bring about true change.
There are many that leave and ‘come back to visit.’ I am not one of those people. I am with my people through the struggle. I am along side them, I am one of them. I struggle too. I don’t fear my own brothers and sisters. I am the product of a product of a product of hard times and little education. I am working hard to make sure my daughter gets a good education, good training in character and morality, all types of culture, music, dancing, museums. I am doing all of this for my daughter *in * the inner city. If she chooses to stay in the city when she grows up, good for her. If she chooses to be a suburbanite, good for her. If she decides to move to Paris, good. Her choice. My choice is to stay in the city.
I want to be careful with what I say next but…
The story that the woman who got stabbed was merely trying to protect her daughter…I don’t know the whole story so let me put it this way.
Most of the time, people in the inner city are safe if they stay out of trouble. The idea that you are going to get stabbed or robbed or raped for just walking down the street is incorrect, (usually). Most of the drug dealers shoot other dealers, or buyers. Grandma going to the store is pretty safe.
The occasional crack head will break in and take the t.v., but there are those kinds of robberies everywhere. More often, those people that are robbed are drug dealers being robbed by others in the game that know they have plenty of money in the ‘gate’ (apartment that they sell out of).
I am not blaming the victim at all. I am merely stating that I have never been shot, mugged, stabbed, jumped, or anything like that in 33 years of living in the ghetto. And this is coming from a woman that takes long night walks and enjoys partying till 2:00 am at night clubs.
That woman probably was just trying to protect her daughter, but that is not usually the case when there is violence in the city.
Missed the edit window, but I don’t want to paint too rosey of a picture. Bad things have happened to me in the ghetto. I have had things stolen, I have had violence attempted in my direction. But I love my neighborhood, and I don’t fear my people.