[RE]

OK, here's an incentive UBI pilot program in Denver.

https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2023/07/19/denver-universal-basic-income-project-reports-early-success

Denver's universal basic income project reports early success

Now, the $50/mo group is a joke.  This pays your cell phone bill.

The other 2 programs are slightly more realistic, but neither is enough by itself just to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in the Denver market, much less cover all the rest of your basic costs for living like food, transportation and communication.  So you're homeless hard case you're trying to help bootstrap himself up still needs a job, but even a $15/hr min wage job should be enough supplemented by the UBI.

One would expect that staying eligible for your monthly UBI check requires staying clean and not getting in trouble with the cops, but thats gonna take frequent visits by a social worker at the least.  The real question is assuming your hard case can clean up enough to actually get a job like say stacking shelves in a warehouse, will he be able to keep it for more than a week?  Show up on time for his shifts, not get in fights with other workers, do what the boss says without mouthing off, resist the temptation to steal some merchandise, not call in sick more than once or twice a month etc?  The social skills said person has acquired to survive living on the street are not generally the same ones needed in the workplace.

Anyhow, the UBI is at least some attempt to save these lost souls, but the cost of expanding it beyond a pilot program would be high, because after all not only the hard cases need the UBI, so does every other worker in the warehouse.  The rednecks who work there and are not ex-junkies would not be pleased if they didn't get the free money also.

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[K-Dog]

I removed the double post.

The article says the money comes from charitable donations.  Taxes would have to generate money if UBI ever is more than an experiment.

It is a patch job.  Extra money offsets costs the homeless, (I am going to put the term 'unhoused' up my ass sideways.) can't afford because of the ever growing economic divide.

Over the past 50 years, the highest-earning 20% of U.S. households have steadily brought in a larger share of the country's total income. In 2018, households in the top fifth of earners (with incomes of $130,001 or more that year) brought in 52% of all U.S. income, more than the lower four-fifths combined, according to Census Bureau data.

In 1968, by comparison, the top-earning 20% of households brought in 43% of the nation's income, while those in the lower four income quintiles accounted for 56%.

Taxes are essential, but the Republican party has cut taxes so only the military and police float in a sea of cash.  There is nothing left for anything good.

Overall, 61% of Americans say there is too much economic inequality in the country today, but views differ by political party and household income level. Among Republicans and those who lean toward the GOP, 41% say there is too much inequality in the U.S., compared with 78% of Democrats and Democratic leaners, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in September 2019 found.

From which we can conclude American Republicans are bigger A-holes than Democrats are.  But they may in fact only be more honest.

The top 20% has to stop buying apartment buildings and charging $2000 a month rent.  But Dems will fight rent controls as hard as Republicans.  Those in the top 20% think it is their god given right to charge as much rent as they want.  They earned that money the bank paid interest on and it is a free country so they can do what they want.  Some such bull they will say.

Both American Political parties and the American lumpenproletariat worship the elite.

[RE]

It is a patch job.  Extra money offsets costs the homeless, (I am going to put the term 'unhoused' up my ass sideways.) can't afford because of the ever growing economic divide.

Here in fact is where the real problem lies, because all that would happen if you did hand out an extra $1000/mo to everyone, landlords would simply jack up the rents to reflect the additional cash in the renter's wallets.  As long as there is a shortage of affordable housing, property owners will charge as much as the market will bear.  The end result id price inflation, and the recipients of this money end up no better off than before they got it.  Landlord profits will of course increase though.

UBI programs can't work without price controls also, which is something the rentier class of capitalists will never accept.  Once you do go down this road, you are in a managed economy, like the old Soviet Union.  At least there though everybody did have an apartment, although they were all pretty shit and butt ugly project type housing.  We all know also how well project housing worked out here in the FSoA Inner Cities in the aftermath of LBJs "Great Society" programs, which turned out not so great.

Goobermint may allocate money to build these places, but they never allocate the continuing money necessary to maintain them.  They may look pretty good as architectural models and right before the 1st occupants move in, but after a year or two lights are out in hallways, elevators don't work and playgrounds and common areas are strewn with garbage and used needles.   Middle class critics shake their heads and bloviate about how "those people" don't take pride in their homes and don't maintain them properly.  You think those prideful Condo owners do their own maintenance?  Hell no, they pay a monthly fee to the HOA to do regular maintenance and a waste management company to pick up the trash every day.  A housing project is lucky if the sanitation dept shows up once a week to empty their dumpsters, which regularly begin to overflow.  New lightbulbs have to be requisitioned, and when they arrive promptly get stolen by the hard cases blowing crack pipes on the basketball court.  There's no doorman keeping track of who enters the buildings, andentrance doors locks are broken and not fixed.

Thus the whole affordable housing problem remains a major bear, and as long as these projects exist they are petri dishes for blooming drug addiction, gang activity and the regular domestic violence and drive by shootings we are all too familiar with from TV cop shows.

Do I have an answer for this problem?  Not really, but what wwe are currently doing or not doing DEFINITELY is not working, so almost anything eelse is worth trying.

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[Nearings Fault]

I don't generally find people who invest in real estate evil but the last decade has created a lot of moral ambiguity. Here is an article
https://globalnews.ca/news/8754119/canada-budget-2022-home-prices/
So, 30 percent of serving federal politicians have income property. That leads to some hazy decision making as far as I'm concerned if you have to regulate it. On a more local level I know of 3 examples of places that should be traditional basic rentals that are now glamped up air b and b setups. Hard to fault the owners as the people are there for only a few days and you make as much as with a whole month of regular rental, they pay up front, you don't have to worry about trying to evict serial non payers, the short term renters have set out rules about damages and responsibilities that would make a tenant landlord arbitrator apoplectic. Then there is seasonal cottages. They used to get rented out in the winter to a group of people who generally lived in a camp like setting 9 months a year then rented a better place all winter. Those setups dried up as more and more cottage owners decided the extra money was not worth the hassle. I don't think the local rules have caught up to the trends yet. If we cared about housing we would have insurers penalize the crap out of short term renters, cancel any kind of tax offset for second properties mortgage interest for starters.

[RE]

I read an article recently which said the "home ownership" paradigm was fading into the sunset asa greater and greater percentage of single family dwellings are being purchased as investment properties by corporations like Blackrock and then rented out.  Not surprising since few people can qualify for mortgages at the prices they sell at now.  Said corporations can also afford to keep properties off the rental market to reduce supply and artificially maintain high prices.  The capitalist system is definitely NOT set up to benefit the individual homeowner.  Rather it favors corporations with access to large amounts of cheap debt unavailable to the individual.  You can't get a mortgage at a rate a couple of points over the Fed discount rate like an investment capital firm has access to through the CMBS market.

Of course all this debt has been rehypothecated so many times there isn't really collateral to cover all that debt, so eventually it will collapse.  Until it does though, the system is totally FUBAR.

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[RE]

Setting new records for dead bums on the streets of Anchorage.  This is in summer.  If they don't figure out the shelter issue, it's gonna be a rough winter for the hard cases.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2023/07/27/anchorage-surpasses-homeless-outdoor-deaths-record-reports-6-deaths-in-less-than-a-week/

Anchorage surpasses homeless outdoor deaths record, reports 6 deaths in less than a week

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[K-Dog]

Setting new records for dead bums on the streets of Anchorage.  This is in summer.  If they don't figure out the shelter issue, it's gonna be a rough winter for the hard cases.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2023/07/27/anchorage-surpasses-homeless-outdoor-deaths-record-reports-6-deaths-in-less-than-a-week/

Anchorage surpasses homeless outdoor deaths record, reports 6 deaths in less than a week

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It is hard to explain how I do this calculation.  People dying in hospital are not in the count.  So 29 means to me that there are about 10,000 homeless in Anchorage.

I could be way off.  In the thousands for sure.

Any local sources have a number?

[RE]

According to this article, the current count is "more than 3000" homeless homo saps (HHS) in Anchorage.  How many more?  Who knows?  Taking an average between K-Dog's 10K and 3K, call it 6500.  This with a total population of slightly under 300K, for an HHS rate of 2%. If a city the size of NYC (8M) had this HHS rate, there would be 160K HHS.  Actual estimate is around 70K, so about double the per capita rate there.

Latest plan?  Hand them free tickets to the Lower 48.  One quote from a HHS said he'll go to Seattle because he heard the weather is better there.     I would suggest Miami for the Winter, then he probably could get a free bus ticket to Bangor next summer.  Be a Snowbird HHS rat!  Or maybe get his free plane ticket destination as Honolulu.  Hawaii is pretty comfortable year around due to being surrounded by the pacific ocean.

One thing an AK HHS would be giving up if he accepted one of these one way tickets to paradise on the streets of Seattle would be his annual share of the PFD,, the check every resident gets from  the Oil industry, which last year was $3200.  This year it's looking to be half that, but still it covers your cancerettes if you keep your smoking habit down to 1/4 pack/day, or better yet roll your own.

There is a big Mall named Northway that's been closed for years I would think would be a logical choice, but so far they got no funding for anything.  If they don't figure out something, its gonna start getting ugly in about 3 months.  At least the bears are hibernating in the winter though. 

https://alaskapublic.org/2023/07/31/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/

Anchorage homeless face cold and bears. A plan to offer one-way airfare out reveals a bigger crisis

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[K-Dog]

AI is being deployed at just the right time.  A virtual Kurt Russell can do a remake.

Escape from AK



Don't feed the bears

[RE]

The long arm of the law once again used to prevent those too poor to afford a fixed domicile to help themselves and use the Bugout Machine solution for serviceable shelter during the cold Alaska winter.  If there's no law on the books against it, TPTB will just make a new one!  Prroblem solved.

Now, personally I don't know why the owners of these BMs all pick these Downtown locations, because there are many much more desirable places a little further out of downtown with better access to Walmart and other Food Superstores where you go to get you supply of propane, food and of course booze and smokes.  Maybe because congregating in groups makes it harder for the Gestapo to tow away a lone vehicle when it is discovered in a concealed location away from prying eyes and not lowering the property values much f already pretty low rent districts.  Of course, the slumlords who own properties where for a price you can legally park your BM, and don't want their clients to use the free option of the commons.

In the capitalist model, there are no commons, all land is Private Property or Goobermint owned, and rent and taxes must always be paid to have a place to live.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2023/10/02/growing-number-of-homeless-vehicle-campers-in-anchorage-presents-a-dilemma-for-the-city/

Growing number of people living in vehicles presents a new dilemma for Anchorage

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[RE]

As if our own homegrown homeless problem isn't bad enough, our usual forward thinking goobermint is importing families from other countries, all through legal channels and not illegal migrants without having any kind of plan in place on how or where to house them.

Now, we all know that pressure is on to keep the immigrants flowing in, because of a serious shortage of cheap labor to staff Mickey Ds, hotel maids, restaurant dishwashers and landscapers for the Hamptons mansions of the .001%.  At the same time however, there is a shortage of affordable housing if you even have a decent paying job, much less the often sub-minimum wage jobs available to wetbacks who can't even speak english yet.  They don't even at least have the forethought to just import unmarried single who could triple and quadruple up to afford a 1 bedroom slum or efficiency studio in a section 8 motel, they are shipping them in complete with the kindergarten kids in tow.  This to insure that there are still more workers to take low paid jobs in the pipeline a decade from now.

Where is this influx coming from?  Besides the usual suspects down in Central & South America, you of course also have the war refugees from Ukraine, Iraq, Palestine etc rolling in by the boatloaad.  We are not talking small numbers here, MA a relatively small state already boasts 7000 families, expected to be up to 7500 by the end of the month.  This of course just as winter begins to bite in the Northeast.  One can only guess how many are debarking in NYC tonight, since it is the traditional first stop for the tired, hungry & poor population of useless eaters necessry to keep the capitalist system running.

At some point here this shit is just gonna break, and they will not be able to gloss over it with a few million thrown at motel slumlords to put some roofs over these people's heads.  The clock is ticking.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-migrant-crisis-gov-healey-oct-16/45547842

'We do not have enough space' in Massachusetts shelters, Gov. Healey says

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[RE]

Back from the East Coast to Homeless in the far west of the Last Great Frontier, with Winter beginning to set in but not quite yet baring its full white icy teeth, Anchorage is finally implementing its plan for the Homeless population.  Although a smaller estimated number than Mass-of-we-could-give-2shits, their budget is concommitently smaller as well.  They also of course predictably have underestimated the numbers even publicly, and I can about guarantee the actual number of unreported and uncounted is near double the published count.  So, they already have a waiting list with no place to put them, and are scrambling to figure something out before the sub-zero nights come rolling in along with snowfall measured in feet and nor inches.  48 dead already this year, so we're on track to set a new annual by Dec 31st, but the winter toll between now and the Ides of March is the really interesting one to watch.

Fortunately, I remain comfortably housed in my $16,500/mo Dorm Room for Cripples at SNIF University, which so far Medicaid continues to reliably pay on time, although I have had some suspicious "impromptu" chats regarding a discharge plan from the supervising doctor and the asst Social Work director so I'm never feeling very safe, with the Sword of Damocles always hanging over my head that I'll be given an ultimatum about getting out of here for someplace cheaper to house my crippled ass.

Still not freezing to death as a homeless cripple on the streets of Anchorage, Alaska.

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https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2023/10/18/as-officials-begin-moving-anchorages-unhoused-to-winter-shelter-a-long-and-growing-waitlist-sparks-alarm/

As officials begin moving Anchorage's unhoused to winter shelter, a long and growing waitlist sparks alarm

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[RE]

IF one happens to have a car they can sleep in...

I've always advocated for Van ownership if you are sliding off the economic cliff, and prior to getting evicted from your last apartment if you do own a car, trade it in for a van before you pay your last couple of months of rent.

Vans can park in all the same spots as carz, but unlike RVs don't totally advertize that you live in it as long as it looks like a mom's soccer van or a flower shop delivery vehicle.  Vans provide much more comfortable sleeping space and more room for storage of extra clothes, a hibachi grill, a computer work station etc than a car does.  Also you can have a toilet bucket/seat combo and piss jug for privacy for your excretory needs during the nightime sleeping hours.  After you poop into the bucket lined with a plastic shopping bag, you go dispose of the poop in the nearest dumpster.  Trucker use this trick all the time.  OTR tractors have nice sleeping berths but no mini bathroom like RVs usually.

I kept a van bugout machine right up until this last move into the SNIF.  It just became too big a pain in the ass keeping the battery charged up since I never used it.  Although in a pinch I probably could still drive using my left foot, getting in and out by myself was close to impossible.  So now, if I lose my last fixed domicile living arrangement, I will die when the next winter sets in, a frozen cripple living on the streets of Anchorage Alaska.  So far, it looks like I am good for this winter though.

https://vandwellers.org/

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[RE]

How about booking them into AirBnBs?  The Homeless  Hilton!  Beverly Hills 90210 Homeless?

Seriously, as a mixed use facility with tourists, the problems are obvious, but there is no reason an entire hotel couldn't be booked by the city.  Corporations do this all the time for conventions.  They get a reduced rate on all the rooms.  The city would have to take out insurance for damages.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4275376-la-will-destroy-its-tourism-industry-if-it-turns-its-hotels-into-homeless-shelters/https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4275376-la-will-destroy-its-tourism-industry-if-it-turns-its-hotels-into-homeless-shelters/

LA will destroy its tourism industry if it turns its hotels into homeless shelters

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[RE]

We have all been treated for quite some time to all of the impromptu Tent Cities that homeless and migrants have set up in various major cities as well as along the Rio Grande as they await their interviews for entrance into the Land of Good & Plenty.  Until now however the only ones that were officially run by Da Goobermint were the ones directly surrounding the Border Crossings.

The combined problem of locally grown homelessness and rapid influx of migrants from war zones and failed states has now become so large that major cities like New York and Phoenix are opening up official Hoovervilles, the name for the Tent Cities that sprung up under the administration of Herbert Hoover, POTUS at the beginning of the Great Depression.

1930s Seattle had 8 Hoovervilles around the city

I have long been in favor of creating designated spaces for legalized camping in tents and cars & RVs as an alternative to the regular sweeps and cleanups of locations, where the residents pickup and move somewhere else for a while, then eventually move back, rinse and repeat 2 or 3 times over the winter months making problems for everyone since they don't have anywhere better for them to go to.  You can make the encampment disappear for a while but the people do not disappear.  Not yet anyhow.

So OK, now they are trying the legal tent cities method, with 2 problems.  On the one hand, the Human Rights advocates types do not consider such living arrangements worthy of human habitation since they lack such amenities a hot & cold running water, flush toilets and central heating.  The prospective residents don't like them because they are dropped down in the middle of nowhere without so much as a convenience store nearby, plus restrictions against alcohol.  This means you can't even have a beer at home in your tent space!  That really is inhumane treatment!

With their current configuration, I do not forsee these Hoovervilles to make much of a dent in the homeless situation.  Right now in NYC where empty commercial real estate is in hefty supply, I think renting out some of these buildings and converting them for residential living would be a better alternative.  That won't happen too soon either.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2023/11/13/phoenix-structured-campground-open-for-homeless-population/71524369007/

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/migrant-crisis/controversial-tent-city-shelter-opens-to-migrant-families-in-nyc/4855588/

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