A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Malcolm wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:42 pm
Sādhaka wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:10 pm By the title alone (I haven’t listened to the podcast yet), I was under the impression that it is along the lines of the right pointing out that big cities are overrun with junkies, defecating in the streets, etc., due to the left usually running said cities and their leftist policies in those cities....
This, of course, is bullshit. In San Fran and Cali in general this state of affairs exists because housing prices are absurdly high, and there are zoning regs all over the state that forbid the construction of two family+ dwellings. Who instituted those zoning regs? California racists in Berkely:

Those behind the recent changes to state law contend that single-family-only zoning is a relic of a past that is no longer justifiable. It originated in the city of Berkeley a century ago as a segregationist practice to prevent a Black-owned dance hall from locating near a white-only subdivision.
https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housin ... california

This is not a problem in Boston, Providence RI, Portland ME, Hartford Ct., or New Haven, Albany, NY, etc. etc.
Where I live it also has to do with the fact that the urban, left-leaning communities actually have services whereas the more conservative, rural ones do not, and some just run people out of town, sometimes literally bussing them out.

There are a lot of tough questions and it’s always a NIMBY thing to some degree, people are great with homeless services etc. but tend to freak out once there is a a service center near their house, not without good reason sometimes, it’s a big problem that’s only getting worse.
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Queequeg
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:24 pm I changed my wording to reflect that now, my mistake. Anyway, there is a continuum of poverty and homelessness, it’s not like there is some strict line between those things. That’s why early intervention programs for people at risk of homelessness are so important.
I'm generally in agreement on what you're saying and how difficult things get when we get to homelessness and deep addiction issues. I'm just not keen on taking something like a video of a skid row and saying that's monolithically what poverty in America is. There's quite a few rungs higher up on that economic ladder that are poverty level, and quite a few rungs above the actual federal poverty level, where people could easily slip off and end up in abject destitute situations. My point is, when we're talking about poverty in the US, we should be thinking about it in a more expansive way than to just say, "Those homeless people standing around a burning trash can is American poverty."
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Queequeg wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:47 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:24 pm I changed my wording to reflect that now, my mistake. Anyway, there is a continuum of poverty and homelessness, it’s not like there is some strict line between those things. That’s why early intervention programs for people at risk of homelessness are so important.
I'm generally in agreement on what you're saying and how difficult things get when we get to homelessness and deep addiction issues. I'm just not keen on taking something like a video of a skid row and saying that's monolithically what poverty in America is. There's quite a few rungs higher up on that economic ladder that are poverty level, and quite a few rungs above the actual federal poverty level, where people could easily slip off and end up in abject destitute situations. My point is, when we're talking about poverty in the US, we should be thinking about it in a more expansive way than to just say, "Those homeless people standing around a burning trash can is American poverty."
I don’t disagree, I guess my point is that those other levels of poverty are closer to the guys standing around a burning trash can than you might think. It’s shockingly easy to become homeless is the US in some places. This is especially true in smaller places with no good landlord/tenant resources, or even places with an unofficial blacklist.
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:46 pm Where I live it also has to do with the fact that the urban, left-leaning communities actually have services whereas the more conservative, rural ones do not, and some just run people out of town, sometimes literally bussing them out.

There are a lot of tough questions and it’s always a NIMBY thing to some degree, people are great with homeless services etc. but tend to freak out once there is a a service center near their house, not without good reason sometimes, it’s a big problem that’s only getting worse.
Yes, what you say is true. The Mormons, bless their magic underwear, figured out it was cheaper to build housing for homeless people in Utah than have them stress emergency services...
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Malcolm wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:53 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:46 pm Where I live it also has to do with the fact that the urban, left-leaning communities actually have services whereas the more conservative, rural ones do not, and some just run people out of town, sometimes literally bussing them out.

There are a lot of tough questions and it’s always a NIMBY thing to some degree, people are great with homeless services etc. but tend to freak out once there is a a service center near their house, not without good reason sometimes, it’s a big problem that’s only getting worse.
Yes, what you say is true. The Mormons, bless their magic underwear, figured out it was cheaper to build housing for homeless people in Utah than have them stress emergency services...
My town is doing some of this too, with tiny house communities etc. it’s in is infancy I think but definitely a smarter idea.
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:50 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:47 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:24 pm I changed my wording to reflect that now, my mistake. Anyway, there is a continuum of poverty and homelessness, it’s not like there is some strict line between those things. That’s why early intervention programs for people at risk of homelessness are so important.
I'm generally in agreement on what you're saying and how difficult things get when we get to homelessness and deep addiction issues. I'm just not keen on taking something like a video of a skid row and saying that's monolithically what poverty in America is. There's quite a few rungs higher up on that economic ladder that are poverty level, and quite a few rungs above the actual federal poverty level, where people could easily slip off and end up in abject destitute situations. My point is, when we're talking about poverty in the US, we should be thinking about it in a more expansive way than to just say, "Those homeless people standing around a burning trash can is American poverty."
I don’t disagree, I guess my point is that those other levels of poverty are closer to the guys standing around a burning trash can than you might think. It’s shockingly easy to become homeless is the US in some places. This is especially true in smaller places with no good landlord/tenant resources, or even places with an unofficial blacklist.
I'm aware, which is precisely why I don't like characterizing the video above as "This is Poverty". Its much easier to keep people at those higher rungs than it is to get them up to those rungs once they've fallen down that far. Also, its important for people to know that people who are working hard in low wage jobs - doing the things our society tells them to do - are still just scraping by and always at risk of ending up on the street. This doesn't mean "Forget the skels". Its different resources and programs needed at different economic levels.
"Middle class... two paychecks away from being homeless."
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:50 pm
I don’t disagree, I guess my point is that those other levels of poverty are closer to the guys standing around a burning trash can than you might think. It’s shockingly easy to become homeless is the US in some places. This is especially true in smaller places with no good landlord/tenant resources, or even places with an unofficial blacklist.
This is what we're seeing in the Bay Area. The Bay Area has had trouble housing all of its residents for a long time, but the situation has exploded in the past few years. According to this think tank, "between 2017 and 2020, the Bay Area’s homeless population grew by 6,878 individuals to a total of 35,118," which is just a massive increase. An increase like that is necessarily multifactorial, but it seems clear that a lot of those folks were living in precarity, and it didn't take much to nudge them from one side of the line to the other.
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Re: A Quick Walk Through Kensington Ave Philadelphia

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Queequeg wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:15 pm Let's be clear about something here - what you see is not poverty per se.

That's opioid addiction. Those people are strung out of their gourds.
Let's be clear about something here - poverty in the USA really is crushing. And once in the grips of poverty can be inescapable. People are thrown away here. And oftentimes people being thrown away results in opioid addiction.

BTW Last month I went to Montreal to get the monkeypox vaccine. In a section of downtown Montreal there are about five blocks that are also filled with homeless people who are also often suffering from opioid addiction. To some extent they are supported and kept from death by some service either from Quebec or the federal government or both (I saw this because the entire street lined up outside one specific bank on one day when I was there).

In western Europe I almost never saw real homelessness like I have seen esp. in the USA but also in Canada.
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