GOP: Homelessness is Among Top Concerns
Besides pigeon dung, homelessness is among the top concerns for organizers of the Republican National Convention. Not because they want to solve the homelessness problem, but because it’s going to be right across the street from their convention.
This year’s Republican National Convention is being held at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota directly across the street from one of the city’s largest homeless shelters, the Dorothy Day Center. The Center houses about 200 people and is clearly visible from the Convention steps. Read more
Poverty Facts Released
The Urban Institute recently released a report called “Poverty Facts, 2004.”
According to the report:
In 2004, 36.6 million people—or 12.6 percent of the U.S. population—were poor. The “poverty gap”—the amount of additional income required to remove all Americans from poverty—was $105.6 billion. Poverty rates were highest for African Americans, Hispanics, women, and persons under 25. Without government benefits, 61 million people would be poor. Social Security and other social insurance programs remove 21 million people from poverty. Means tested programs remove 3 million people from poverty. If food and housing assistance were counted as income for poverty purposes, an additional 7.6 million people would be counted as not poor.
Full report: Poverty Facts, 2004
The Plan to Gentrify DC
Last week, This American Life featured a segment on gentrification in Washington, DC. Gentrification in DC, residents say, is not led by market forces, but is rather an orchestrated plan to displace blacks from neighborhoods to make way for rich whites.
“The Plan” is incredibly moving and persuasive. It highlights gentrification signs like local government closing public schools, libraries, and hospitals to replace them with condos and, among other things, sushi restaurants. Others, from around the country, discuss how their cities purposely allowed neighborhoods to deteriorate so developers can buy land for cheaper prices.
Is “the plan” a conspiracy theory? Maybe. But the results are striking.
Full Episode: 350: Human Resources
Cities making life even harder for the poor
Cities across the country are passing ordinances that could put panhandlers in jail. According to a USA Today article, “Cities crack down on panhandling”:
Cities have enacted laws targeting the homeless for two decades, including bans on sleeping outdoors or loitering. In the past few years, the focus has turned to panhandling restrictions, said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
Cities are criminalizing the poor in an effort to revitalize their downtowns. Since manufacturing jobs have mostly left America, cities must rely on the service sector and tourism to boost their economies, therefore elevating their interest in hiding the poor and homeless. This puts the poor in a doubly bad situation–first you lose your manufacturing job, then your considered criminal.
So rather than criminalizing the poor–aren’t their lives hard enough?–we should give them housing. Yes, GIVE. I’ve written about this before, and I’ll say it again. It’s cheaper to house the homeless than it is to put them in shelters or send them to jail.
So as the coldest month of the year creeps closer, I’m going to start cataloging all the stories I can find on KnowledgePlex, and other sources, about cities trying to stop low-income housing, or panhandling, or giving out food in public. In the end, I’ll list my findings of shitty things cities are doing to criminalize the poor during the coldest month of the year.
In my view, this is a national war on the poor that’s going under-reported. Let’s see what we can do to put urban issues into the national focus.
