True; but if you want to find out what the poor people actually need, that’s who you have to talk to. Or better yet, talk with.
The people giving the assistance are likely to be looking at financial issues. It’s true it might be easier to get them to give, say, dental care than cooking facilities, or vice versa. But if what the people are giving is saying amounts at least in part to ‘we’re not going to spend more than x’, and ‘x’ won’t cover both, then asking the people who need the help which would be more helpful to them is a really good idea. And this is especially true if what’s being discussed is things like ‘safe housing, which we think can be made safer by locking people up for a specific ten hours every night’ when that’s the shift local workplaces are hiring for.
Could you clarify this $10 a day figure? I just bought a bag of those little oranges and they were $3.99. Nutritious food is fresh and made at home, ideally. You need to be able to buy in bulk and then be able to freeze leftovers or uncooked surplus. Good storage containers cost money—https://smile.amazon.com/Rubbermaid-Brilliance-Storage-Container-BPA-free/dp/B079M8FPTW/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=rubbermaid+brilliance&qid=1576430682&sprefix=rubbermaid+b&sr=8-4-----and should be easy to just pop stuff in and throw in the freezer. (I tried one of those vacuum bag thingies and those rubbermaid containers are much easier and just as good.) If you can save leftovers and have a nice supply of basics for when you have bad days, you are saving money.
There’s also cooking basics and utensils. A mixer at least is essential, for example, for so many things. (This of course is for people who can do that.)
I think ‘everyone’ deserves health care, education, protection from crime as well as quality infrastructure irrelevant of income or ability to pay. Pretty much every developed nation offers that (even the US offers most of it, except our health care and education is not as subsidized as it is in other nations).
Beyond that, if a person cannot work they should have access to food, shelter, utilities and transportation. So food stamps, rent assistance, utility assistance, bus passes and a stipend of maybe 500-1000 a month. I don’t know if I agree that everyone deserves their own house or apartment, but I’d say they deserve their own bedroom with a lock.
I would suggest that to some extent, trying to micromanage each expense is a fool’s errand, for several reasons, not the least of which is that each person has difference preferences. One person might be totally okay with living in a dormitory type deal, but may want nice shoes; another may not give a crap about shoes but insists on their own room.
makes a neat point about pets - if someone on social assistance wants to keep a cat, I don’t feel that’s wrong. On the other, I disagree that a person necessarily has to have a mixer; I eat nutritiously enough, and I cannot remember the last time I used a mixer. But if you’d rather have a mixer than a microwave, have at it.
Some things like health care aren’t really subject to a great deal of personal choice and are best served up collectively, but otherwise, let’s give people a reasonable amount of money and let them do as they will. If I have to pay a few dollars in tax for poor people to have the money, I think that’s money well spent.
A big problem for many of us who entered the program was that many of us had not had to actively look for a job for 10-20 years (or more) during which time the methods by which one secured a job had changed dramatically.
A couple of examples:
last time I had looked for a job applying on-line was unknown
resume were submitted on paper
you looked for openings in the local paper
I had been told all my life to put ALL my prior jobs on a resume
Now, in the 21st century:
virtually ALL job application are on line
resumes are electronic
what local paper?
ageism is a problem
So, a lot of the class was how to apply on line - not basic computer literacy (we all had that already) but how to deal with keywords and tailor your response. How do develop an e-resume that wouldn’t get mangled by being uploaded (in orders - do NOT use a lot of formatting). Where to look for jobs in the present day. How to do all of this without making it obvious one was over 40 (or 30).
Also some interviewing skills, mainly brush-ups, brainstorming alternatives for careers that no longer existed due to changing technology and business needs, but a BIG part of it was “how to apply for a job on the internet” or the like, as opposed to how we had all been taught to apply for jobs in our youth. For many of us, that was the big stumbling block and once past it we got jobs quickly. We just hadn’t been aware of what, exactly, we were doing wrong.
I think you’re making some unwarranted assumptions here, which lead me to think you’ve never been on-foodstamps-level-of-poor. (And I took the liberty of fixing that link in the quote).
First, you don’t buy rubbermaid storage containers. You either buy something like Glad storage containers or, even cheaper, a store housebrand of them. When you aren’t re-using containers from things like cottage cheese or deli containers.
Second - oranges, while ubiquitous, aren’t really cheap. Know what fruit is really cheap? Bananas. Bananas are stupid cheap. I ate so many frickin’ bananas when I was poor it aint’ funny. Grapes, when they’re on sale are cheap. In-season apples. But no, oranges aren’t really cheap. When you’re really really poor you don’t get many oranges, but you do get a LOT of bananas.
Unquestionably you CAN eat cheaply when poor, but fresh fruits and vegetables are surprisingly costly. Aside from, say, in-season squash or beans, the cheap stuff is potatoes, onions, carrots, and bananas. It’s actually cheaper (and better for storage) to buy bags of frozen vegetables, which except for the brief in-season period, are usually cheaper per pound than fresh, especially if you’re buying in bulk the house-brand stuff rather than name brand.
Also used to buy a lot of stuff on clearance - I got melons and citrus when the gas station fruit cups were about to expire, not the stuff fresh in off the truck.
That is part of the problem - the people who make the decisions, who vote on these things, makes assumptions that don’t hold up when you’re actually on the bottom. That’s sort of the point of those food-stamps challenges you hear about from time to time: to teach people about what eating on such a restricted budget is like.
Absolutely you can eat on $10/person a day in a healthy and nutritious manner - but likely the menu isn’t going to be what you expect, and it’s probably not going to be optimal nutrition.
No, a mixer is not essential. I’m in my mid-50’s and haven’t ever owned a mixer in my life. Nor do I feel a need for one. And I make my own muffins, cookies, and bread from scratch. I do it the really old fashioned way, stirring by hand (and then kneading by hand for yeast dough). Please don’t get me a mixer, there are things I want/need much more.
On the other had, someone with wrist problems might very much want/need a mixer. Or even something as simple as a battery-operated jar opener.
Really, if you insist on micromanaging these things rather than going with RickJay’s suggestion of just giving folks a budget, have them sit down with a social worker (who would be working with a budget) with some expertise in these areas to go over what a person actually needs and can help them get these things. Don’t buy me a mixer - but I do need good shoes and my feet are hard to fit. Rather than spend $200 on kitchen equipment for me spend that money on footgear. Someone else might be able to get their shoes ultra-cheap at the local big box store because they have a common shoe size, but maybe they have carpal tunnel system and would benefit more from all that kitchen equipment.
Social workers can also be tuned into less costly sources of items than brand new. When I downsized from my old place after my spouse died I contacted some social workers and let them know I had stuff I didn’t need anymore. I helped outfit not one but two apartments for people getting out of homelessness, from bed to furniture to kitchen gear to one of them getting of my old TVs I didn’t want/need anymore but that still worked fine. For free. Even helped transport stuff for them in my pickup. When you’re really poor you get acquainted with every second-hand resale shop in town.
Rich people chuck stuff they don’t want into a dumpster. Poor people go dumpster-diving for what they need.
I think pets are great - I’ve had them most of my life and currently have three parrots - but they also have a cost. I’d love to live in a society that helped the poor keep their pets, but I’m going to put people first.
When times were really tight my birds lived on Cheerios, rice, stale bread, and bits and pieces of whatever fruits and vegetables I was eating because foodstamps will pay for that, but not for bird food formulated for parrots. Fortunately, we didn’t have to resort to that often, but that’s the reality.
A lot of poor peoples’ pets suffer from obesity and other ills their owners do, for much the same reasons - because they’re often eating what their owners eat, rather than stuff that’s actually healthy for their species.
Yes, and I’m more interested in hearing what’s actually ‘adequate’ not ‘Too bad, so sad, sucks to be poor don’t it?’ ‘adequate’.
I’d suggest that these types of discussions need to take place behind Rawls’ ‘Veil of Ignorance’. It’s too easy to decide that the ‘poor’ should be thankful to live in a barracks, wear grey jumpsuits, and eat NutraLoaf twice a day . . . especially if you don’t think you will ever be ‘poor’.
Yes, and when the non-poor decide that ‘free’ dental care should consist of a, somewhat clean, pair of pliers and a small ration of ‘Victory Gin’? I don’t know of a better way to convince them other than asking if that would be acceptable, minimal, level of ‘dental care’ for them.
I’ve been ‘before-the-shutoff-laws-went-into-effect-poor’, which meant the heat got shut off in the winter and Mom always rented houses with fireplaces and we played a game where we’d drag a mattress or two in front of the fireplace and roast hot dogs on sticks. Those laws started getting passed in maybe the early 80s because so many people died.
We lived on hot dogs and that bakery stuff that didn’t sell the first or second day—and Mom saved the bags and cans of tuna and every scrap of every vegetable or fruit she could get her hands on. Mom was adamant about stretching those leftovers till they screamed, but it was either ziploc bags----which she rinsed and re-used----or those whipped cream tubs. Mom patched and darned and let out clothes for years, which was fun because there’s nothing as humiliating as wearing the same clothes in junior high that your sister wore to high school----and having the teacher recognize them. My mom was obsessed with oranges and making sure we had vitamin C, for some reason. She was also a very good cook. I will never forgive myself for turning up my nose at some of her cooking, only to catch her weeping with worry over a sink full of dishes later that night. I was a stupid kid. I didn’t realize we were poor because I just didn’t see a lot of this stuff till later. My sibs had it worse.
My point was that we’re giving people the basics of a decent life, correct? Miracle Whip containers might be okay to make your sandwiches survive till lunch, but that’s it. If you want food to keep, you need decent storage.
See above.
We used to go berrypicking and relatives had farms----but they were much older, so that source dried up.
[QUOTEAlso used to buy a lot of stuff on clearance - I got melons and citrus when the gas station fruit cups were about to expire, not the stuff fresh in off the truck.
That is part of the problem - the people who make the decisions, who vote on these things, makes assumptions that don’t hold up when you’re actually on the bottom. That’s sort of the point of those food-stamps challenges you hear about from time to time: to teach people about what eating on such a restricted budget is like. [/QUOTE]
It seems that there’s only one kind of poor, one experience.
My hands are just about useless these days, unless I develop a lust for that type of feeling you get when you bang your funnybone in your elbow. Except it’s not my elbow, it’s any movement of my hands at all. Without a mixer, there’s a lot of things I wouldn’t be able to, well, mix at all. It’s a lot cheaper to have some flour and eggs around than buy, say, a package of cookies that goes for the price of the flour, or a cake that would pay for milk and a box of cereal. Of course, there’s dollar stores now, which helps.
In a society as rich as ours I might be more generous than you! The only difficult thing would be robust health care.
But clothing, food, access to basic communications and shelter? We have tremendous industrial capability in this country even with so much going overseas. Cut MW to 0, increase the social safety net, perhaps implement a universal basic income and I think we could afford to ensure that everyone in this nation has the basics for life and maybe even money for a luxury good or two.
I went through a period of three weeks with no utilities - no light, no electric anything, no water (because the well pump wouldn’t run without power), no cooking gas, and no heat… which the power company didn’t give a flip about because it wasn’t yet winter. But, as they say, winter is coming… But I can’t count that as poverty, it wasn’t due to my lack of funds or failure to pay the bill. As soon as I secured new housing I had the money I needed to solve the problem quickly. If I had not had those funds, though, it could have been extremely bad. Even so, there were some miserable nights.
Oranges used to be cheap fruit. What has made them expensive is disease like citrus greening and the hurricanes Irma and Maria that didn’t just knock fruit off the trees and kill off a crop, they knocked down entire trees and orchards which will take years to replace. The demand is largely unchanged, but the supply had dropped.
And if you were largely living on hot dogs and stale bakery goods she was probably right to be “obsessed” because of the vitamins and fiber in them you weren’t getting from the other stuff.
Just sayin’ these days you might have been living on hot dogs, stale bread, and bananas.
I found the containers I linked to work well enough - they’re washable, seal properly, and can go in the microwave.
On the other hand, I have some nice ceramic dishes with lids inherited from my mom - very old school food preservation! But not so portable and definitely not so cheap. You can get those at second hand stores for cheap (usually).
Anyhow - this is just an illustration of how “decent” can vary from person to person.
For several years I had a large garden - but that’s not always practical for people in small apartments, and not everyone has the physical strength/stamina for it.
There’s a case where a person has a problem that makes a mixer a necessity. Which is why I advocate for tailoring aid to the person’s actual needs and abilities.
Pretty hard for me to figure out how to set up a true “veil of ignorance” because I will always have my own personal preferences.
That said, I can propose what I, personally think is a minimal decent provision for existence. Keep in mind, this is minimal, and presumes a single person. What would be minimal for a family is a different question.
For living space: a 10x10 studio apartment including kitchenette with small oven, sink, some counter space, a few cabinets/shelves and refrigerator; full bath with sink, toilet, shower; closet for storage. Yes, I’m taking the closet and bath out of the total 10x10 space (although I’d prefer more room, of course) but we’re talking minimal, right? Solid door and lock, window(s) allowing natural light during the day. Needless to say, water, heating/cooling as appropriate for climate, electric light and a few outlets.
For communications/entertainment: phone service with a basic smartphone, internet access with some minimal amount of data use (haven’t figured out exact amount) that would allow for not just e-mail/texting/web browsing but a bit of streaming - maybe enough for a movie a week? Stream a TV show from Netflix? and sufficient security on it to allow the poor to use their base smartphone for e-commerce without getting ripped off or their identity stolen. Access to old fashioned libraries. Access to safe parks and open spaces.
Transportation: public transit, or access to cabs/Uber/Lyft/local social services transport such as we already have for the elderly.
Food: a monthly budget for purchasing groceries - basically the current SNAP/WIC programs, but with minimal dictates as to what can be purchased (the current SNAP). A little more generous than the current SNAP, but pretty close. For those who need it, prepared meals (disabled and elderly)
Hygiene: soap/shampoo, cleaning supplies, paper goods like toilet paper and facial tissue, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, menstrual supplies for women, incontinence supplies for those that need them, etc. Set it up like SNAP, with a monthly budget.
Clothing: Annual allowance, perhaps dispensed quarterly. Again, sort of like SNAP, but for clothing. Probably need to flesh this one out a bit more, but honestly, people need decent underwear, footwear, coats, shirts, etc.
A little bit left over, maybe another monthly stipend, because people should be able to do more than just survive. Maybe buy a jigsaw puzzle, or pay for admission to the zoo, or go out to a coffee house once a week with friends to socialize, or the very occasional movie, or buy yarn to knit a scarf.
Not a prison existence, but one where a person’s basic needs are fulfilled with an occasional “want” granted. One should be able to purchase a gift for a loved one or friend, or do something a little different, or otherwise engage in society rather than being warehoused and set aside as undeserving of a place in society.
That’s a pretty good list, Broomstick. I might favor shared baths and cafeteria setting, but I don’t know.
How about, instead of an added stipend, the opportunity to earn extra money, maybe through maintenance of the facility or something? I’m no expert, but I can imagine the FEELING of having one’s efforts recognized and compensated might be of value.
Shows how much availability of information is key. I justlast night saw a news program about the issues besetting orange farmers.
Yeah, from the time I was five till the time I was ten, I stayed the same size. Don’t know why, but I was born three months early, and it might have been connected somehow. All I knew was, I had chores to do like my brother and sisters. Somebody called CPS, though, and that was how I found out about the medical bills for us kids that my folks paid on for years, till the last of us kids (me) was in junior high. (My mom whipped out a photo of me being held in my dad’s one hand through the hole in the isolette, and that was that. That was an incident that, again, took a toll on my mom. Can we spare the poor from humiliation?)
The other thing is that I’m pretty sure this poverty was medically related. My nearest suster came down with tuberculosis at the age of three. She spent three years in a sanitarium, part of that in an iron lung. My older brother spent 11 months, my mother 8,
and my other sister nine months. Mom yelled at the doctor who misdiagnosed my sister and he had her involuntarily committed.
In addition to that, she had twelve pregnancies. Six were born alive----two of those very premature----and two died before reaching school age. My older brother had a deformed leg and was mostly deaf. Is it worth it to society to let people suffer like that, financially, socially, and emotionally?
When Mom got a job after the Supreme Court decided it ought to be illegal to have separate mens’ and womens’ want ads, she bought a little house and planted a garden. All veggies and berries, though you had to run for the berry patch. Mom’d go, “Oh, maybe I’ll make a pie,” and then all the blackberries would disappear. Every year, no matter what, she planted that garden. So did my older brother. I don’t know if it was really necessary, but I do know that when things were so dark for me I couldn’t even crawl out of the house to plant carrots, I learned that morning glories practically plant themselves. Getting your hands in the earth has a powerful effect on the psyche.
What you spend on good storage, you save on plastic bags and wasted food. I’ve only managed to make turkey gravy once that measured up to my mom’s, and the container lid came off in the freezer. Gravy and Mom’s chocolate cakes are incredible achievements. Of course, I’m fixated here in those whipped cream tubs. (And no matter how poor we were, if somebody on the block suffered a loss or anything, those people would find on their back step a whipped cream tub or two full of sandwiches or cookies, wrapped in waxed paper, with a note on top in beautiful Spencerian hand. The ability and necessity to reach out is no luxury.)
The thing that occurred to me was this: until quite late in life, I didn’t realize we were poor. The folks worked very hard to keep us from knowing.. Our houses were kept so clean you could perform surgery on the kitchen floor. Our clothes were “vintage” and patched-----dammit, missed THAT trend!----but it was beautifully done. I wonder now that “destroyed” jeans are quite the fashionable thing if the destroyed jeans of the poor are also fashionable.
Keeping somebody dry and fed isn't enough. There has to be that other necessity, whatever you want to call it. How do you feed someone's *soul*? That has to be a part of it, too. A window garden, a kitten, a library card----these things are not just entertainment or having a hobby, they create joy. Poor people are just as entitled to that as billionaires----hell, they probably *need* it more after years of abuse and deprivation, and it might just more bang for that social services buck.
To rescue people from poverty is a good beginning step, but people aren’t dogs that you put in a kennel and give adequate food to. I hate it that the financial argument is most likely to work.
I’m all for giving the opportunity to earn pocket change, but there are some very, for lack of a term, broken people in this world and they should not be denied the occasional little luxury or treat because they can’t even do that much. The question was, what is MINIMAL. I think even the most destitute and dysfunctional should have a slice of birthday cake, the occasional pretty thing… you get the idea.
Of course, the more you want to hustle and do things the more you get… but that’s not minimal, that’s above minimal.
There’s one essential lacking from everyone’s list, though Mr. Dibble came very close: a sense of community. It is essential, and it does come from the most disadvantaged people, themselves.
I started a thread on this sometime back, but there’s an excellent homeless community outside Austin based on that sense of community. In fact, the community is based on needs formerly homeless people identified. The highlights:
•Tiny houses with front porches (that sense of community) but no kitchens, bathrooms. Those are communal.
•Residents pay around $400/month but can earn that money by working within the community (or at outside jobs).
•There’s no time limit: you can live there forever–especially important for mentally ill folks.
•There are computers and computer classes, an art studio and art classes, a car shop and car repair classes; a gift shop (There are plenty of visitors), a B&B (again, visitors), a communal movie theater.
•Residents must abide by a few simple community rules and by local laws. No drug use, but access to rehab programs.
•Access to mental health services.
• Not paid for by taxes. The community is largely self-supporting but also gets corporate donations.
•Started by a church, BUT no evangelism or religious requirements or atmosphere. There’s a small non-religious area for those who care to use it. Any faith, no faith–all welcome.
The guiding principle: “Housing will never cure homelessness, but community will.”
Housing-
A reasonably safe place to call home with at least 100 sq ft/person
Reasonable access to a working kitchen (no more than 2 families/kitchen)
A working bathroom per family
Food-
Healthy meals sufficient for everyone to be slightly overweight if they chose to eat that much.
A basic cell phone and ready access to computers and the internet.
Child Care/Public Education-
Child care from birth for families with working parents
A quality public education from K-12
Free public college for anyone in the top 33% of graduating seniors
Free public trade schools for anyone in the top 60% of graduating seniors
Health care-
Readily accessible health care based on best practices
This means that at some point we stop providing things like dialysis, chemotherapy, etc. for free.
