Our population may be small, but we are leaders in homeless encampments!  This one is like a Poster Child.







Definitely shows the worth of keeping a Bugout Machine as part of your preps.  At minimum, everyone should have an old pickup or van with a trailer hitch and a small cargo trailer.  Next step up is a Class-C RV.  You can put together the basic package on the used market for under $5K.  Add a Storage Unit @ $50/mo to keep valuables safe and a cell phone for $20/mo for communications.  Min wage job 10hrs/wk and you can live pretty good.  Snowbird and drive south for the winter.

I do miss my bugout machines. 

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2024/06/25/midtown-anchorage-camp-where-a-man-was-killed-is-a-site-of-despair-and-dysfunction-neighbors-say/

RE

Welcome Friends to another edition of Wolf Response. I'm your host, Richard Wolf, and I want to talk to you today about what is a genuine housing crisis here in the United States.

Now, on one level, I'm horrified to have to talk to you about this. What really sparked my determination to prepare this for you was the announcement by Treasury Secretary Yellen of a $200 million contribution of the treasury to address the housing crisis. This is the equivalent of confronting an entire state in this country of desperate poverty and announcing with great fanfare that you're going to give $11.14 to help deal with the crisis. People will look at you as if you were crazy, which you would be. I am embarrassed for the United States government. I'm embarrassed for Treasury Secretary Yellen, and let me explain what I mean.

The housing crisis has been brewing in the United States for 30 to 40 years. All kinds of specialists and experts have written reports, many that I read and commented on, documenting this crisis. It's real simple: there are not enough homes for the people of this country who need them. There are especially insufficient homes for young families starting out who don't have a lot of money. The statistics show that the relationship between the average cost of a home and the average income American families are earning has been going in the wrong direction for 35-40 years. In other words, people don't have enough money to afford homeownership, which keeps being presented to people as if it were part of the American dream that they're entitled to if they work hard. Well, it's become more and more unaffordable.

That has forced more and more people to forego owning their own home and rent instead, and so rents have gone crazy. We measure in the United States affordable housing with a simple statistic: housing is affordable, owning or renting, if it doesn't cost you more than 25%, maybe up to 30%, of your income. There are many millions of Americans, many millions, who are spending more than 25% or 30% for their homes, for their housing, and it's been that way.

Now, you will hear conservatives, if you listen to them, explain to you that economics is about supply and demand, and that supply and demand, if allowed to function freely—you know, the free market—will solve all our problems. Wrong. It hasn't solved the housing problem. We've had an imbalance between the demand for housing and the supply of housing that has gotten worse over the last 30 years, not better. The capitalist economy in which we live has not solved that problem, not even come close, and that's a failure. There's no honest way, if you're going to be honest, to get out of that sad reality.

This system, this capitalist system, free enterprises that build housing or not, free banking enterprises that lend people money to buy a house or not, employers who pay you enough to afford housing or not, allowing them all to do their profit-driven, maximizing their benefits as employers ends up with the housing prices we're living with. An honest politician, and we have few of those left, would tell you our system is broken and point to housing as a prime example.

And I haven't even gotten to the extreme failures—the people that are homeless and are more and more in number and visible across this country, the people who aren't homeless but are crowded way too many in too few square feet of housing. No, I could, but I won't. I'm going to talk about the average situation because it's a big, fat capitalist failure, and we ought to be big enough people to say: the most important things in life, food, clothing, shelter, and supporting communities. If housing, shelter is one of them, then on that score alone we ought to be able to say our system doesn't work. That's the reality. That's the real crisis. And as long as we have no honest politicians dealing with it, if all we have is periodic speeches like Secretary Yellen telling us that she's come up with a $200 million—$2 million per state—it's nothing.

I did a little calculation: Elon Musk's assets are $200 billion. Given a 5% return, that's $200 million a week. We don't touch his wealth, we don't touch the income of $200 million. We give that amount—that weekly income of this billionaire is what's available for the entire housing crisis of this country. That's what our Secretary of the Treasury takes us for: idiots, fools. People likely say, "Oh, $200 million is a lot," because they don't understand how piddly it is relative to what is the need. Don't be fooled. This is a system increasingly unable to do what an economic system ought to be able to do simply on the grounds of human decency.

If these kinds of presentations strike you as worthwhile, please go to our website, help us with a small donation if you can, share this video with others who might be interested, and as I often say, I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

The Homeless Crisis has ratcheted up another notch with the recent decision handed down by the SCOTUS overturning a ruling by the Appeals court that allowed Homeless folks to camp outside when no alternative housing is available.  Effectively, this criminalizes being homeless.

Here on the Last Great Frontier we are leaders in Homelessness despite a small population and lots of places people can set up tents or park RVs, which they do.  It's generally tolerated until the campsite gets too big or there is major violence, aka somebody gets killed.  Usually over a drug deal.

In fact, most cities have empty lots that could be made open for camping or buildings that could be squatted on, but they won't designate them as such because if people can live legally without paying rent it undermines the property ownership paradigm and real estate bizness.

The problem of course is that as more people become homeless due to economic circumstances, once the municipality run shelter space fills up, where do they go?  In Boston, they've been using Logan airport, but as of July 9th they will be kicked out from there also.

Unless they are arrested, all that "abating" a homeless encampment does is force the folks to move to another spot.  Which is just a big pain in the ass game of musical chairs.  For the homeless person, unless you still have a car it means really paring down your personal possessions to keep it all packed and ready to move every day.

Dropping down below cars, lots of homeless use shopping carts to keep all their stuff together and ready to roll.



Personally, if I still had both legs and reasonable health, I would go with a bike-trailer combo.  There are some nice commercial ones or you can DIY pretty easily.





Actually, I could pull either of these easily with my EV Scooter, so in the event I move back to independent living in an apartment and have room to store it, I think I will build one as my new prep hobby for SHTF Day.  I would build one that allows me to also pull my EV Wheelchair with it.  Top speed would not be fast, walking speed and hill climbing ability limited with the wheelchair loaded, but I could also motorize the trailer which would make the load up to 500 lb which would be plenty.  Advantage is I would have a lot of batt storage capability.  I already wired in a 1500W inverter to my EV wheelchair.

Anyhow, I think they cleared the Farbanks St encampment, which is a bummer because I was going to take the bus over there to check it out.  Gotta find out where they moved to.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2024/06/28/what-the-supreme-courts-ruling-on-homeless-camps-could-mean-for-anchorage/

https://apnews.com/article/massachusetts-homeless-migrants-shelter-boston-logan-airport-47a5dc25691a2f34f1496eec1c042baf

RE

I think we could see the forced displacement of unhoused folks into what I would call internment camps out in the middle of nowhere – a mass migration of unhoused people from one place where their existence is banned to other places where the laws don't ban their existence. Many cities already have authorized camps in far-out locations that are completely invisible to the general public.

If/when Trumpolini gets reinstalled as POTUS Dementus, you can count on this being the "Final Solution" to the Homeless problem.  Homeless people will simply become "Desapericido", dissapeared from the streets by rounding them up on buses and driven outside of town to an Internment Camp set up next door to the City Dump, for disposal of Human Waste.  This way, as the garbage accumulates in the camp they can periodically have the inmates shovel it into wheelbarrows and roll it over to the dump themselves.

The camps will have Army style barracks tents with two rows of a dozen bunk beds, 48 people to a tent. Each meat package will have a container box under the beds and a locker next to the bed  on the wall in which to store personal items.  Behind each tent there will be 4 Porta-Potties for excretion.  There will be a single Shower tent at the end of each double row of bedroom tents with unheated water, and each tent will have a once a week shower schedule.  In front of the entrance to each row will be a large Gazebo tent where there are lunch tables and MREs are distributed, delivered daily, along with a water truck and a daily bus arrival in the morning and evening of meat packages.  The camp will be enclosed by razor wire with the gates closed at 8PM curfew and opened at 6AM with arrival of the first bus or food/water truck.  The camp will be a minimum of 10 miles outside the city limits.

When the camp fills to Max Capacity, Meat Packages there the longest will be bused to the outskirts of the next city and dropped off, where they can then walk into the city to look for a park or street near a strip mall they can shoplift or dumpster dive enough food to survive until they are rounded up again by the city's Human Waste Collection bus and shipped outside town to their camp.  Then rinse and repeat until they have been in every city in the FSoA at least once.  This should take a few years.

Downtowns will be free of unsightly homeless meat packages begging for food and the homeless population will be evenly redistributed around the whole country.  I think 20% of people could be homeless before the folks with homes and jobs would even notice them occassionally walking into town with a backpack or pulling a carryon bag of clothes.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/29/law-professor-homeless-rights-supreme-court-ruling

RE

Sounds like they're doing something, right?  A 5 Year Plan!  Then you read this line:

The first Anchored Home strategic plan was from 2018-2021, and assembly chair said this is a continuation and update of the plan that has been in place for the last four to five years, that focuses on getting off the streets and into housing.

So, IOW, they are going to continue doing exactly what they have been doing for the last 5 years, which hasn't been working!  In the words of Albert Einstein:



They estimate there are 3000 homeless, but this year they only had shelter for around 1000.  They intend to add 150 beds/yr, so at 5 years they still will have less than 2000 beds.  Does anyone think there will be fewer homeless in 5 years?

Does the plan actually address the main CAUSE of the homeless crisis, which is lack of affordable housing?  Nope.

At least I still have a roof over my head.  Of course in Nov when Trumpovetsky gets installed in the Oval Office, who knows what will happen to medicare?  They'll probably ship us to a concentration camp in the Yukon.

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2024/07/17/long-term-short-term-homeless-solutions-be-explored-assembly-meeting/

Anchorage assembly adopts five-year strategic homeless plan

RE

Expecting an American Politician to do more than knee-jerk to the homeless problem is wishful thinking.  An American politician can't understand that some problems might be the result of systemic system contradiction.  It would be heresy to admit to such a thing and it buys no votes.

That said, any solution that forecasts into the future is a MORAL failing unrelated to witch doctor economics, which is the only kind of economics American politicians know.  The failing is not one of simple ignorance.  There is tacit acceptance.

I doubt your Alaskan Politicians can see themselves in a mirror.  They can't reflect.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 18, 2024, 10:15 PMExpecting an American Politician to do more than knee-jerk to the homeless problem is wishful thinking.  An American politician can't understand that some problems might be the result of systemic system contradiction.  It would be heresy to admit to such a thing and it buys no votes.

That said, any solution that forecasts into the future is a MORAL failing unrelated to witch doctor economics, which is the only kind of economics American politicians know.  The failing is not one of simple ignorance.  There is tacit acceptance.

I doubt your Alaskan Politicians can see themselves in a mirror.  They can't reflect.

The problem here is there is no provision in the capitalist system for people who cannot or will not work, for whatever reason, so no housing except FREE housing would be affordable.  Before food stamps/SNAP cards, people at the very bottom either stole food or starved, or died from some disease from dumpster diving for food.  If they stole, they eventually landed in prison.

Food has become so cheap and ubiquitous in Amerika that handing out SNAP cards so people with ZERO income don't starve means they don't disappear through death as quickly.  That means they accumulate on the street.  They used to Squat in abandoned buildings in slum areas, but to take NYC as an example, the East Village which was a total slum area when I was in HS has all been renovated and gentrified.  There still may be some empty buildings in the South Bronx where people squat, but mostly they were demolished and are piles of rubble.

So, you start with the population of people with psychological problems and drug addicts on the street.  Then you have a person who loses his job and gets evicted.  He's now on the street with these people.  It doesn't take long before he also has a drug or alcohol problem, if he didn't have it before that.  Then you add recent immigrants with no job and add them.  All these street people are basically unemployable, they don't bathe regularly and they have to move around as the cops come and do sweeps to clear encampments.

Just like the society has to hand out Free Food to people with ZERO income, on the humanitarian level it has to provide FREE shelter.  It doesn't matter if they don't have a job because they are Schizophrenic or simply lazy, they still need a place to sleep and to shit and shower.  The mindset of the capitalist is "What incentive is there for people to work if we give them a free room and free food?"  The truth there is that unless the job pays enough to make the person's life significantly better than just a room with a bed, shower & toilet access, there is no incentive.   However, I think most people once they have their basic needs taken care of would choose to work at least part time so they could buy a bicycle and a cell phone and aspire to more and further improving their life.  If they are happy though just contemplating the meaning of life and playing chess in the park, that's OK too.  As a society we do have the resources to put up basic shelter that is free for everyone.

The society is quite comfortable with people who are born Rich not working.  Many an Aristocrat born with some Title has gone his whole life never working, and we are fine with that.  But if a person born poor wants to go through life not working, they are supposed to die.  If you feed them but don't give them somewhere to sleep and stay clean, they end up on the street.  So the common sense, obvious answer is simply to build the housing to accommodate that.

Now, the question is, what type of housing and where do you put it?  I think the Modular shipping Conex Tiny Home type housing is ideal for most locations.  It can be stacked to get good density and use of real estate.  It would come bare bones with just a cot to sleep on, a table and chair, a toilet, sink and shower.  Well insulated with heat and electricity.



If the person works and saves money, they can upgrade to buying their own modules they can have towed anywhere in the country.



Prices for your own starter module would be as cheap as $5000.  You have a safe place for all your personal possesions to stay locked up.

In cities with empty office buildings, they coul be gutted and a lift system installed that would raise the module to any floor and slide it in place.  All you need from the building is its steel framework.  Imagine simply sliding modules into this structure.



or this one



a round structure with a central atrium would be very safe with all the entries visible to the apartments.



As long as the modules come in a standard size, they can fit any building design you like.

To move your module into a nicer one than the free ones would cost money and be incentive to work to improve your situation.  You get to keep what you have accumulated over time though and moving is EZ.  You just ship your home on a Pod moving truck.



I guarantee this would be cheaper than the money currently being spent of the homeless problem.  The Real Estate biz will never allow it though.

RE

QuoteThe society is quite comfortable with people who are born Rich not working.  Many an Aristocrat born with some Title has gone his whole life never working, and we are fine with that.

I'm not.

In my world even an Einstein would have janitorial duty two days a week.  But no more than that considering the other job which has greater value  *.  Rich people would be those who have retired on a nice pension after working for twenty or more years.

When I think about the social contract I think about it from both ends.  I take my socialism seriously.  It is not about just getting free stuff.  That is adolescent.  Many people are into socialism just for free stuff **.  Not me.  The social contract goes both ways.

We are actually on the same page.  Everyone's basic needs should be met.  No exceptions.

* The Idle Rich who are lazy and never bothered to learn or develop skills would get low rated jobs because their labor has low social value.  Everyone should be employed at full social value.  On the other hand.  (In a thought experiment revolution.)  Many not so idle rich have had time to develop skills and would prosper under socialism.  If they adjusted attitudes.  For a few this would be easy because they recognize a better world, they are a part of this better world, and their needs are still met.  For others adjustment would be impossible because their core identities are built around exploitation.  For such living good is not good enough.

** Those in their youth who dabble in socialism only from a desire for free stuff develop warped and distorted understandings of it.  Jordan Peterson is an example of this.  He is happy to share his ignorance with anyone who will listen.

I agree that everybody who is able bodied physically and mentally should have to work at something and that everybody regardless of education or how brilliant they are should have to do some time each week working the shit jobs nobody wants but some people have to do all the time because they aren't qualified for anything else.

However, what do you do with the person who is just plain lazy and doesn't show up for work he doesn't like?  What is the punishment for Laziness if a person is guaranteed food to eat and a place to sleep, shit and shower?  Do you imprison them?  Force them to listen to Rap Music?

RE

Now that I have explained the common sense solution, here's why the RE bizness will never allow it to even start.

As soon as you start offering these FREE Universal Basic Shelter containers, everybody who is in one of the many tiny cramped NY studio or 1 bedroom apts that are no bigger than this (and sometimes smaller) but is paying rent of $3000/month will want one.  So it's not just the currently homeless who need shelter that you have to provide for, it's everyone with a low income who wants to start saving money and will take what amounts to a very small drop in standard of living to move into a free container home.

No kid just graduating HS is gonna want to stay at home and live with Mom & Dad when they can have their own little box to play video games and vape.  They don't have sex anymore, but in the old days having your own pad was how you finally graduated from 3rd base in the back seat of your car and got laid.

Free shelter, even very basic like this totally undermines the current RE market.  All the housing currently used for low income people becomes worthless.  I wouldn't move out of my container size free dwelling until I was making big money.  It's not worth it if it takes up 1/3rd or more of your monthly income.

The solution to this might be to have a 25% Housing Tax on all incomes.  So once you start making $10K/mo, it might be worth it to leave the system, although you still have to pay the tax in addition to your for pay home costs.

Besides this, as soon as you start offering this, the demand would be so great they never could supply the containers and places to drop them fast enough.  How do you you decide who gets them first?  A lottery?

Anyhow, it's not gonna happen.  Free Basic Shelter is pretty much an impossible dream to get rolling, except perhaps after collapse and a significant die off.  Then there sshould be plenty of excess housing around.

RE

QuoteAs soon as you start offering these FREE Universal Basic Shelter containers, everybody who is in one of the many tiny cramped NY studio or 1 bedroom apts that are no bigger than this (and sometimes smaller) but is paying rent of $3000/month will want one.  So it's not just the currently homeless who need shelter that you have to provide for, it's everyone with a low income who wants to start saving money and will take what amounts to a very small drop in standard of living to move into a free container home.

There can be no solution then.  Not short of a revolution.  In Japan the 'market' was able to provide a half-assed solution.  But America can't have anything like this.   

Markets can't respond to crisis, but Japan has unique circumstances.  A capitalist solution was already in place providing a digital office in a country where privacy is limited.  That solution somewhat adapted to provide 'housing' to people who can behave themselves better than most Americans can.


Internet Cafe Refugee - Homeless in Japan

And in this one we find what living the good life in a Internet cafe is like.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 20, 2024, 01:16 PMThere can be no solution then.  Not short of a revolution. 

Sadly, this is the case.  Because the Property Ownership system is so deeply embedded into our culture, all property of any type will either belong to an individual or belong to the state.  So to make Free Housing possible, all housing has to belong to the state.  It doesn't all have to be equal, if you make more money by working harder or have a higher paying job it can be priced higher, but the availability of free housing at the bottom level undermines how much can be charged for more luxurious digs.

While the dream of free housing isn't achievable this way, AFFORDABLE housing probably is.  If these container size homes are offered at a cheap enough price (say $5000) and cities zoned for where to put them and built the Frameworks they go into, charging say $500/mo rent and to hook up to the water, sewage and electric, this would put housing within reach of most people with min wage jobs.

Meanwhile, until then I still advocate for the Stealth Van & Trailer combo as the closest approximation you can have as an insurance policy against falling straight down to the street level sleeping rough level.





RE

Quote from: RE on Jul 19, 2024, 01:09 PMI agree that everybody who is able bodied physically and mentally should have to work at something and that everybody regardless of education or how brilliant they are should have to do some time each week working the shit jobs nobody wants but some people have to do all the time because they aren't qualified for anything else.

However, what do you do with the person who is just plain lazy and doesn't show up for work he doesn't like?  What is the punishment for Laziness if a person is guaranteed food to eat and a place to sleep, shit and shower?  Do you imprison them?  Force them to listen to Rap Music?

RE

I had to go to work so I could not answer the question right away.

It would take more than one incident to label a hard case, but while at work an interesting thing happened.  Before closing a couple came in to do some shoplifting.  They each left with a full shopping cart, their take was in the thousands.  They picked by price.  Hard cases they are.  Serious grifters.

If we confront a shoplifter, we will be fired and this causes the young men I work with to do nothing at all.  I'm part time employed on the bottom of the totem pole.  Actually not even on the totem pole.  So it was not on me to call the police.  I would have.   

This was case where the police should have been called right away.  Everybody working knew what was up, and the couple were in the store a long time to make sure that they would not be messed with on the way out our door.  The couple should be arrested and jailed but in the land of plenty we just call what they do 'shrinkage' and pass the costs along.  To this couple the huge new 'we prosecute shoplifters to the fullest extent of the law' advertised the fact that, no actually we do not.  We just like posting signs big signs that lie to you.

In a world where we have eliminated homelessness and hunger not everyone gets a tenth floor penthouse and prime rib for dinner.  A restaurant may have a free menu like a kids menu.  You can have a cheese sandwich and an apple any time you want.  Ordering something else would require a plastic credit card with a job or retirement so the card has a positive credit balance.  All of which the state can provide.  But everyone still has to work.  Not paying bills would have consequences.  Theft is still theft.

I have asked myself the question, how would your life (mine) change if your (my) socialist dream ever came true.  You (I) still have to get to work on time, or my social credit score (work history) suffers.  I have asked myself this question many times.  What would be different.  It has been a useful exercise.

Consequences we have for bad behavior now are inconsistent and as it is now, our society breeds criminal behavior.  In a more planned economy BOTH consequences for negative, and rewards or positive social conduct (showing up for work or not) become consistent.  More consistent than what we have now.  A fact which no doubt, scares the pants off some people.

A right-wing nutjob fears society would fall apart under socialism because everything is suddenly free.  They are wrong.  Prime rib still costs more.  We still have money.  Rewards for behaving in a socially positive way would mean a family is be able to buy a house unlike they are able to do now.  In a managed system rewards and punishments become consistent, more consistent than they are now. 

People go off about China having a social credit score.  I don't get their concern.  What is an American resume, a credit score, and a clean criminal record but the same fucking thing.  To get the good jobs I have had here required I looked good and show my papers.  As I must do in any civilized system.

With expectations more clearly defined, most people would be able to live a more successful life.  Define success as you wish, but a cheese sandwich and an apple does not work for me.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 20, 2024, 09:21 PMIn a world where we have eliminated homelessness and hunger not everyone gets a tenth floor penthouse and prime rib for dinner.  A restaurant may have a free menu like a kids menu.  You can have a cheese sandwich and an apple any time you want.  Ordering something else would require a plastic credit card with a job or retirement so the card has a positive credit balance.  All of which the state can provide.  But everyone still has to work.  Not paying bills would have consequences.  Theft is still theft.
............

With expectations more clearly defined, most people would be able to live a more successful life.  Define success as you wish, but a cheese sandwich and an apple does not work for me.

This returns to my original proposal.  NOT showing up for work does have consequences.  The consequence is that ALL you get is the bare bones box to live in and mac & cheese you eat.  If you are an ascetic who is happy with just this, you can live this way.  But if you want anything MORE than this, you need to work.

You start with the Mandatory 10 hr/wk Community Service job that everybody must do. These are all the unskilled jobs from street sweeper to janitor etc that would pay min wage.  They would be assigned weekly at the community employment office.  Once completed, if you have another skill like Dentist, you can drill teeth and make more for those work hours.

There's still problems.  People who do their community service job might be slackers.  They show up for work and pick up the broom, but they don't get much sweeping done.  They work slow and take long smoking breaks.

Then for the people with skills, if they are in short supply you might need say electricians to work lots of hours to get everybody's electricity going after an outage.  So they don't show up for their community service job.  If it's just once in a while, OK, but what about systemic shortages?  Not enough Nurses, are you going to make a nurse work 10 hours pushing a broom?

RE

QuoteThere's still problems.  People who do their community service job might be slackers.  They show up for work and pick up the broom, but they don't get much sweeping done.  They work slow and take long smoking breaks.

The supervisor will write in his/her report that the individual is not be invited back next week.  The individuals card balance falls to the cheese sandwich level.  Bouncing around from job to job would identify someone who needs training.

No different than now, except that someone with a problem gets help.