Hey, all I can say is that if she wants to move, great. I’d suggest somewhere cheap, like Birmingham, AL. If she doesn’t want to move far, I’d suggest at least somewhere cheaper, like Sacramento. If she wants to stay put, it’s going to be pretty difficult to get out of the income < expenses rut with such an expensive cost of living and difficulty finding jobs.
It’s not my life though, and certainly even sven will do as she wishes. I’m just thinking that living in a place with a fairly average cost of living, it took me over two years after graduation to find a steady job where income > expenses was the rule and not the exception. I can’t imagine how it could be done in Santa Cruz, that’s all.
Count me in for the depression. Pretty much my entire life.
Two useless anthropology degrees. Take that you creative types. Social sciences can suck too.
My daughter’s high school film & TV production teacher makes independent films for the hispanic market here in Chicago, and has done pretty well with them. His first one is even in Blockbusters.
I’ll shut up now.
I agree with most of this to an extent. I do think in an ideal world we would have a distribution network where those most in need get the resources first. This is probably unattainable at the moment though. I disagree about giving for the sake of giving being something people shouldn’t do. I do it all the time, for certain types of giving. My feeling is that food, clothing, baby formula, blankets, unwrapped toys, or similar goods are going to end up being eaten, worn, played with no matter who they’re dispersed to or the channels they flow through. Let someone collect my donation from a food bank and then sell it for money to buy heroin. The person who bought it will likely eat it(or give it to their children to eat, especially in the case of infant formula). It will still serve the original purpose. It will keep one of my fellow human beings from being hungry for a while. I may not approve of all the events in that chain, but they are beyond my control unless I want to become big brother and require those in need to pass a means test and report back constantly on their usage of my contribution.
I’ll throw the seed. Some of it will land on rocky areas. Some of it will be eaten by crows. But some of it will take root and grow. Those which are eaten by crows will still feed the crows and those which decompose on the rocks will add a minute amount of topsoil to the area. I don’t see any of these as negative things, just different shades of positive. Refusing to throw the seed because some of it may turn into topsoil instead of viable plants seems a bigger waste to me.
I have spent the last ten years of my life working what amounts to a second full-time job coordinating various charitable endeavors and disbursing money, food, clothing, and other goods to the needy of my area.
During this tenure, I have developed certain… er… certainties, if you will, about the process.
It’s true that food banks always operate on the honor system. We assume that people that come to take what we offer are in need.
Here’s my certainty: if it became known that the people patronizing our food bank and other charitable services had $20,000 bank accounts, I doubt I could continue to supply food. My donations would dry up. When people contribute either food or money, they do so mainly out of the ideal that they are helping those in need. If they believed that the recipients could afford to buy food, but chose not to, the vast majority of them would stop donating.
Your questions are irrelevant to any fact here. I’m not concerned about the nobility of intentions of the donors. I’m concerned about the fact that whenever a local news station runs an “expose” and finds some guy begging and then follows him out to to a new Mercedes and a $450,000 suburban home, we see a corresponding drop in donations. Since I know that the vast majority of our recipients are truly in dire need, actions like that piss me off, because “nobility” is not the issue. The issue is putting food and clothes in the hands of people that need it, and when someone scams the system like that, it has a MEASURABLE, PRACTICAL, REAL effect: it decreases resources for those that truly need it.
This is what I do week in and week out. I deal with the reality of needy people and the reality of getting them stuff. I’m utterly fascinated at the theories of nobility of giving that you have advanced here, but they really don’t play in real world effects, so far as I have been able to observe.
Then those who cease their contributions are the problem(or perhaps the news station who doesn’t clearly indicate that the individual they ran their expose about is not representative of even a significant fraction of food bank clientele). They should be educated about the realities of the food bank business. Anyone collecting food at a food bank when they have the kind of resources which allow them to have a new Mercedes and a $450,000 suburban home would be some tiny, insignificant minority. Similar “exposes” about panhandlers who make more money panhandling than they would working are also playing up small minorities of the subset of the population who panhandle. You will not be able to eliminate those who “scam” the system without increasing the overhead to the point where you spend more money overseeing those who visit your food bank and verifiying their situations/means than you spend on actual food. I understand this, and I’ve never run a food bank. Many or most of your contributors could probably be brought to this understanding as well. Scammers are rare and should not influence the decision to use some of your surplus resources to benefit your fellow human beings.
Also, from your first post, I was under the impression that you were speaking from you own personal feelings about donating food in this situation. It is now clear that you are reffering to the effect this information may have on others. This is an understandable complaint because there are many people out there who change their charitable behavior in response to small abuses of the system even though the system works in the vast majority of the cases. You seem to be saying you are not one of those people, so I apologize for addressing my original comments to you.
When suffering from depression it is impossible to stop being depressed, to buck oneself up, to just get over it. But being depressed dosen’t mean you cant do anything, you can though easily feel that you can’t do anything. As a depressed person I need support from those arround me, but the negative things I said made that support difficult to find. I noticed this and made myself a rule, that for every negative thing I said, I would say 2 positive things. I no longer came accross as a complainer r a person who made over people feel down. I believe Even Sven is strong enough to do a similar thing, and write two good things for every time she feels the need to whine. The reason I beleive she can do this, is that she has enough self motivation to go to India and that shows she is far from powerless in helping herself.
Ugh. This board is worse than a board filled with steroid taking arnold wanna-bes that I used to post on. When did this happen?
I have nothing to add just to let Sven know that not everyone here is condescending or will offer you advice then verbally slap you around when you don’t take it. Life is hard enough as it is. The fact that you mention that you are poor does not bother me, that must be something you define yourself as. I do not care when the physicians here on the board sign their name MD and I do not care if you mention that you are poor, if its who you want to be then go ahead.
Scammers might not influence my decision to use some of my surplus resources to help felow human beings, but it sure might influence how I direct those resources. If, for example, a senior citizen’s center is looking for donations of cash or money to a food bank (or other service), and is not making the most minimal effort to ascertain that the person actually does need that food or service donation, I am probably going to direct my charity dollars elsewhere. Example- my grandfather used to belong to a senior citizen’s center. They distributed government surplus and donated food regularly. They solicited donations of work and materials from locksmiths, carpenters, bricklayers electricians, etc to help those who couldn’t afford to maintain their homes. They also ran bus trips that lasted 3-4 days every couple of months and a day trip or two a month. They made no effort to determine if someone needed the charity- not even the most minimal, such as telling my grandfather that other people needed the food or services more than he did if he could afford to go on every single one of their trips. One of the list of places that I won’t donate to because I don’t trust that they will use my donation in the way I wanted- to help people who actually need the help. Another is my local Boy Scout Council- I won’t donate any money to them for camping scholarships- because when my son was a Boy Scout, I was told to lie about my income on the application because “they don’t check” ( they didn’t end up going camping, so I avoided that mess). It’s bad for the people who go to these places and really need the help, but I will not donate to a place that virtually invites scammers. Perhaps those who cease the contributions are part of the problem ( or perhaps they are simply directing the charity dollars in different ways), but so are the scammers. I wouldn’t refuse to throw the seed because some of it might fall on rocks- but I’d damn sure throw it where it had the best chance of landing on topsoil. That might be a different charity, or it might be a direct donation to someone I have personal knowledge of , or I might decide that my seeds are better used to get my own $20,000 in the bank, rather than to help even sven keep hers.
That’s fine. I do that as well. I look for charities with low overheads to make sure most of the money is going to relief efforts as opposed to TPS cover sheets. But a food bank operates at a much lower level of “effort to ascertain that the person actually does need the food or service” than places with cash dispersement or providing transportation services. If you would withdraw contributions to a food bank because they work on the honor system that’s your decision, but you can bet a food bank is not asking for a certified copy of bank statements before they hand out food to someone who says they’re hungry. It just doesn’t work that way. Want a higher level of oversight into how your money is used? Donate to an institution with those rules in place. I have never seen a food bank run on a verified, means-tested basis. Heck a lot of them are anonymous. Just show up and say “I’m hungry” and that’s all it takes. YMMV.
How does one prove a nullity? Aside from generally looking ragged and not pulling up in a car, a poor person can not prove that he or she is broke, for there might be non-disclosed assets.
It comes down to trusting the person taking the food. Unfortunately, some people breach that trust. Pretty low, if you ask me.
You know, I spent four years in NYC trying to break into television writing. Am I talented? Yeah, I think so - I had several scriptwriting teachers tell me that they thought I had the best natural ability for dialogue among their past and current students. I came in as a finalist in an ABC television writing competition. And yet, I still wasn’t able to get a job as a writer. Now I have $10,000 in credit card debt that I’m trying very hard to pay off so that my husband and I can have a comfortable life. I’m still writing, but I’ve changed my goals a little. Now I have a literary agent interested in my young adult novel, and a very real chance of being published. But I’m never going to get rich off of this book, unless it catches on like Harry Potter, which is highly doubtful. I also deal with severe depression - and I know how hard it can be to motivate myself to do something. However, I force myself to get back on my meds. That’s something only YOU can do. No one can shove them down your throat for you.
All I’m saying is that there’s a very, very small chance that talent’s going to get you anywhere. And you can have drive anywhere. Like the others say, you need to concentrate on here and now - you aren’t going to make movies if you’ve starved to death.
Nothing is going to fall in your lap - except maybe that $20,000. Use it to improve your life. And unfortunately, at some point, you may have to come to terms with the fact that your dreams will not be realized, or they’ll be realized on a much different scale than you expect. A college degree doesn’t guarantee you a damn thing. Get rid of the sense of entitlement and concentrate on improving your life. You’d be surprised at what you can make happen when the rest of your life is in order.
We’ve heard surprisingly little from Even Sven after five pages of input. Even Sven, do you understand what the majority of people are saying? Do the offered solutions make any real sense to you and your situation? Has your point of view changed at all? Do you think any of this real-life experience could prove helpful to you? What are your feelings about your career choice, your current situation, and your 1-year future?
has got the be the funniest thing I have ever read.
Yeah, right, the first settlers all followed Philosophy classes and Film and other useful studies.
The reason why your country (and mine) is sliding is because people don’t take responsibility for their actions and choices. (And their president’s but that is a different matter altogether)
Exactly. This is why food banks MUST work on the honor system. Well, not necessarially must, but it would take Big Brother type infrastructure capable of tracking recipients behavior in many areas of their lives for long periods of time to have a decent chance at eliminating scammers. Some opportunistic people will take advantage of it, but the reality is they are a very small minority and may not exist at all in a given area or a particular food bank. It is exactly this understanding that donors to food banks need to have to see through “exposes” about rich people faking being poor or panhandlers making more than full-time workers.
Still, my attitude, as a general humanist, is that it is food. It isn’t good for anything but feeding people and the food banks aren’t giving it out in quantities which allow people to set up their own grocery stores or anything. It will eventually end up feeding someone. I try to make donations in goods and services versus cash or other easily negotiable items. Cash donations go to reputable relief organizations like the Red Cross for specific purposes. I’m not a big fan of donating to organizations which run thrift stores because they’re converting the goods to cash and they have higher overheads.
My personal pattern is usually blankets/clothing/furniture to battered women’s shelters/orphanages. Formula and food to food banks or shelters. Blood to the Red Cross or local blood bank. Cash on rare occasions to the Red Cross or other relief organization in response to a natural disaster/emergency(hurricane, tornado, terrorist attack, etc.). This gives resources that can’t really be misused/skimmed to organizations which can directly use them. This is my own preference and I don’t fault anyone for choosing to disperse their resources differently. Choosing to stop donating to a food bank because they didn’t stop some scammer is a bit jarring to me because I know that’s just not how food banks work and I wonder if the people making that choice are making an informed decision.
But your post reminds me of a story. A few years back, before i moved to the US, there was a story in the Sydney newspapers about a local soup kitchen that catered to some of the city’s less fortunate. A reporter did some undercover-type work and found out that a bunch of English and German backpackers were using the facility to get their meals, in order to save up their money for drinking and other backpacker-type activities.
Some people began to call for stricter scrutiny of people who ate at the place, but the guy who ran it said that he was not willing to put people in genuine need through the hassle and the humiliation of having to prove that they were really destitute. He said he preferred to give out a few meals to scamming backpackers.
I think the publicity generated by the story shamed the backpackers into stopping the practice anyway.
As far as the foodbank donations go, on the one hand, yes, it’s food and its entire point is to feed people. From that angle, it makes not a whit of difference who the food goes to. On the other hand, it’s food that I would not have bought if I didn’t intend to donate it. It’s money out of my pocket, and from that angle it makes rather a lot of difference to me who gets it. The idea of giving that money to someone who’s got more of the stuff than I do but doesn’t want to come up off any of it…fuck that. I can totally understand people stopping their donations when such scams are revealed. I don’t agree with it, but I can understand it.
I understand that as well. What I’m saying is that the proportion of your money that is going to someone who has more of the stuff than you do is very small. If scammers account for 1% of the food given out of the local food bank then one penny of your dollar has gone to waste. Even large reputable charities work with overheads of 10-13%(and those are the lower end). In a food bank situation virtually all the donation is going directly into the bellies of people who need it. A tiny bit may be going into the bellies of people who could provide for themselves and are scamming the system, but that’s a very small minority. Odds it it is far less than 10-13%.
You know, it’s occurred to me that even sven would be the perfect choice to make a film about the Priveleged Poor. Having been down that road herself, she can debut as a chronicler of those who suffer the indignities of not having their cake and eating it too. She can offer a heartwarming portrayal of those who are miserable because the world doesn’t revolve around them.
See, they detail their wretched lives on their Blogs and Newsgroups, but we don’t see the actual suffering and angst they endure. We don’t see the pain when a Priveleged Poor is thousands of dollars in debt because his or her choice of wardrobe isn’t fashionable this week. We don’t see the anguish involved when the Priveleged Poor can’t make rent because their parents have some lame excuse about some lawsuit or government crackdown. We don’t fully understand the inhuman torture the Priveleged Poor suffer when their 36-inch HDTVs get repossessed. We don’t understand the quandary of the Priveleged Poor when they realize they have to ACTUALLY PAY for the overseas vacation. We don’t vicariously live the misery when a Privileged Poor realizes her boyfriend got the wrong brand of free-range catfood for her Persian, who IS ALLERGIC TO FISH! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, KILL HER???
Most of all, we don’t see the personal anguish and anxiety the Privileged Poor undergo when SOMEBODY DARES TO CRITICIZE THEM! Have our hearts truly hardened to their ongoing struggle? We need to be reminded of their delicate conditions and fragile psyches.
even sven can film an eye-opening documentary about the plight of these individuals, give them the attention they so deserve on a world-wide scale, and be the collective voice of not-so-silent suffering. YOUR DESTINY CALLS OUT TO YOU EVEN SVEN!
