$12,000/yr is genuinely pocket change in many parts of the US
I’ve had income less than that most my life so yeah, idk, it seems like a lot to me.
But there’s always available rentals.
Is that really true? So if you’re poor you can basically live in Massachusetts for free? Has to be some catch. So many desperate people around who would want that. And if the answer is that most of them just don’t know about it, that not-knowing must be a part of how it’s able to be sustained.
Ultimately for me the whole issue is about freedom. If someone is trapped in a job or relationship they don’t want, finances shouldn’t be any barrier to saying no. Not understanding how welfare systems work, not being willing to subject yourself to the process or being too ashamed or whatever, should not be a barrier to getting help. People shouldn’t have to be paranoid about anything that might make them more money because they’re going to have to go through a lot of paperwork as a result and maybe end up worse off. It shouldn’t be possible to use someone’s struggle to survive as leverage to make them work.
$12,000/yr is genuinely pocket change in many parts of the US
I’ve had income less than that most my life so yeah, idk, it seems like a lot to me.
Let me just confirm with you. Is the topic making “chicken” rich, or about reducing poverty? The places with the highest homeless rate are the places where $12,000 won’t buy you out of the gutter. My niece just got her first tiny little apartment with a roommate. Rent alone is $2,400 a month, and it’s the cheapest thing money would buy, and 2 friends splitting a 1-bedroom is a tight squeeze. She’ll be ok and doesn’t need any aid, but there’s nothing around cheaper than that. A lot of labor jobs are making $15-18/hr (sounds like a lot to you, but that is well under our poverty line here) and they are living with parents or 3-5 people in a 2-bedroom slum. I’ll explain Section 8’s why below.
Is that really true? So if you’re poor you can basically live in Massachusetts for free? Has to be some catch
Yes. Yes. And… Yes :-/
There’s a few catches. But before the catches, understand that section 8 is “tier 2”, for people with some income. Tier 1 are projects. They give Section 8 to people they find more “stable”, and families/elderly, and send the rest to projects.
The first is that Section 8 won’t protect from foreclosure and people with low income often have volitile income. A section 8 landlord is often a beast when it comes to evicting you
The second is that we are trained from childhood to be disgusted by people who live Section 8. Of every 10 poor people I’ve known in MA, 8 are unwilling to apply for housing subsidy. They’ll live on a friend’s couch, or with family, or find the worst slum apartment they can before being on Section 8.
The third is paperwork. We have a lot of homeless in MA, but most of it is because people are unable or unwilling to maneuver the red tape
There are currently about 150,000 Mass residents in Section 8 or Projects. Unfortunately, there are still 15,000 homeless in Massachusetts. Of those, 93% live in shelters (no questions asked). That’s about 1,000 people sleeping on the streets, and that is not ok. But a vast majority of those 15,000, and nearly 100% of those 1000, have severe issues - mental and/or drug-related - that are preventing them from taking the steps necessary to get into the housing they need.
The real scary problem is that THIS MONTH an article came out that the shelters finally hit capacity, and are waitlisting homeless people :(. A $1000/mo UBI isn’t going to get even one of them off the street. Yes, it would give them money for food, drugs, or alcohol. Hopefully the former because Yang would make those homeless people opt out of EBT and (possibly) Masshealth. The UBI wouldn’t significantly help any of the 150,000 people in subsidized housing who would have to opt out of it under a plan like Yang’s.
Ultimately for me the whole issue is about freedom. If someone is trapped in a job or relationship they don’t want, finances shouldn’t be any barrier to saying no
I agree. And you nailed it. The issue isn’t money, it’s freedom. A person being able have a decent place to live and food, no questions asked, is what they really need. And we can do that for about 1/5 of the cost of a $1000/mo UBI. I used to walk by a homeless guy every morning on the way to work in Cambridge. It was terrible. He always had an empty bottle of something cheap next to him. He couldn’t ask for help. He’s the kind of person I see when I think about supporting the poor. What would $1000/mo give him, that homeless guy in Cambridge? Not much of anything. He’s not going to catch a bus to Mississippi where $1000/mo is Middle Class (as much as the more corrupt politicians wish all the homeless would do, but that’s another story). He’s going to sleep on that sidewalk.
If someone walked up to him and said “we have an apartment for you. Don’t worry about paperwork. Here’s the key”. Well THAT would do something.
If someone walked up to him and said “we have an apartment for you. Don’t worry about paperwork. Here’s the key”. Well THAT would do something.
Should definitely happen. Chronic homelessness is another one of those things where there are legitimate reasons it would benefit more from targeted support. It’s not even a cost issue since doing this has been shown to reduce overall related government expense. Still, relative to the total population there are very few people in that situation, and the idea here is to transform how the majority of people are affected by financial pressures and alter the social contract for everyone.
Absolutely. Welfare consistently has over a 100% ROI. We all get richer. Our RICH even get richer. People needing to have someone “lesser” to look down their noses at have led us all to PAY to put people on the streets instead of feeding and sheltering them. We sacrifice so we can make people suffer.
We should be ashamed of ourselves. There’s no real upside to anyone to let people suffer. Bootstraps are nothing but evil.
EDIT: Sorry walked away before finishing. As for the “very few people in that situation”… sure. But the problem is that everyone else in this economic region is in a similar boat. $12,000/yr is just not going to do anything for them.
And it’s great for Mississippi, but there is a correlation between poverty and cost of living. The neediest people are those who live in areas like Boston. The least needy people are in areas like Mississippi. If we’re going to throw around a $4T+ financial welfare initiative, shouldn’t we make sure the neediest Americans aren’t the least helped by it?
And yeah, that’s tough when the financing is in “dollars”. But if the financing is in “foods” or “rent” (like Section 8 in MA, but minus means-testing) then nobody can really complain that someone renting in Mississippi gets fewer dollars of benefit than someone renting in MA. They both get a (for example) decent 2-bedroom apartment fully covered wherever they want to live.
You live in Boston or Manhattan independently on $12,000/yr?
The formal Poverty Line for Boston is $50,000/yr. More if you have dependents
I don’t see how you can claim to live somewhere with $500/mo grocery bills and $2000/mo slum rent prices and think $1000/mo is better than having your rent and groceries covered, especially if you have to opt out of all welfare to get the $1000/mo.
You’re saying, today, you would opt out of all future welfare for $1000/mo? And you live somewhere with a poverty line more than 5x that? Why?!? Most people I know on welfare get more than that already.
Did not realize your meaning was “geographic economic region”, so no that isn’t where I live, my mistake for making assumptions. I don’t know if I can get behind what you’re saying though, since the implication seems to be that everyone could have a no-strings, no restraints right to the basics of life on their own terms and at their own discretion, but that is trumped by the right to be living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and a concentration of funds should be allocated there instead of spread out more and to more people. I get that it sucks to have to move away from the places and people you know, but it doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff to me.
And I also want to respond to
But if the financing is in “foods” or “rent” (like Section 8 in MA, but minus means-testing) then nobody can really complain that someone renting in Mississippi gets fewer dollars of benefit than someone renting in MA
Because there are clear reasons why a person might prefer to live in one place rather than another, and why people being stuck in Mississippi in a housing welfare scheme with some lock in would be getting screwed over compared to people lucky enough to have started off in Boston. And it isn’t really possible with zero lock-in or barrier to entry either, because of the previously mentioned finite nature of housing availability vs demand.
I’ve had income less than that most my life so yeah, idk, it seems like a lot to me.
Is that really true? So if you’re poor you can basically live in Massachusetts for free? Has to be some catch. So many desperate people around who would want that. And if the answer is that most of them just don’t know about it, that not-knowing must be a part of how it’s able to be sustained.
Ultimately for me the whole issue is about freedom. If someone is trapped in a job or relationship they don’t want, finances shouldn’t be any barrier to saying no. Not understanding how welfare systems work, not being willing to subject yourself to the process or being too ashamed or whatever, should not be a barrier to getting help. People shouldn’t have to be paranoid about anything that might make them more money because they’re going to have to go through a lot of paperwork as a result and maybe end up worse off. It shouldn’t be possible to use someone’s struggle to survive as leverage to make them work.
Let me just confirm with you. Is the topic making “chicken” rich, or about reducing poverty? The places with the highest homeless rate are the places where $12,000 won’t buy you out of the gutter. My niece just got her first tiny little apartment with a roommate. Rent alone is $2,400 a month, and it’s the cheapest thing money would buy, and 2 friends splitting a 1-bedroom is a tight squeeze. She’ll be ok and doesn’t need any aid, but there’s nothing around cheaper than that. A lot of labor jobs are making $15-18/hr (sounds like a lot to you, but that is well under our poverty line here) and they are living with parents or 3-5 people in a 2-bedroom slum. I’ll explain Section 8’s why below.
Yes. Yes. And… Yes :-/
There’s a few catches. But before the catches, understand that section 8 is “tier 2”, for people with some income. Tier 1 are projects. They give Section 8 to people they find more “stable”, and families/elderly, and send the rest to projects.
There are currently about 150,000 Mass residents in Section 8 or Projects. Unfortunately, there are still 15,000 homeless in Massachusetts. Of those, 93% live in shelters (no questions asked). That’s about 1,000 people sleeping on the streets, and that is not ok. But a vast majority of those 15,000, and nearly 100% of those 1000, have severe issues - mental and/or drug-related - that are preventing them from taking the steps necessary to get into the housing they need.
The real scary problem is that THIS MONTH an article came out that the shelters finally hit capacity, and are waitlisting homeless people :(. A $1000/mo UBI isn’t going to get even one of them off the street. Yes, it would give them money for food, drugs, or alcohol. Hopefully the former because Yang would make those homeless people opt out of EBT and (possibly) Masshealth. The UBI wouldn’t significantly help any of the 150,000 people in subsidized housing who would have to opt out of it under a plan like Yang’s.
I agree. And you nailed it. The issue isn’t money, it’s freedom. A person being able have a decent place to live and food, no questions asked, is what they really need. And we can do that for about 1/5 of the cost of a $1000/mo UBI. I used to walk by a homeless guy every morning on the way to work in Cambridge. It was terrible. He always had an empty bottle of something cheap next to him. He couldn’t ask for help. He’s the kind of person I see when I think about supporting the poor. What would $1000/mo give him, that homeless guy in Cambridge? Not much of anything. He’s not going to catch a bus to Mississippi where $1000/mo is Middle Class (as much as the more corrupt politicians wish all the homeless would do, but that’s another story). He’s going to sleep on that sidewalk.
If someone walked up to him and said “we have an apartment for you. Don’t worry about paperwork. Here’s the key”. Well THAT would do something.
Should definitely happen. Chronic homelessness is another one of those things where there are legitimate reasons it would benefit more from targeted support. It’s not even a cost issue since doing this has been shown to reduce overall related government expense. Still, relative to the total population there are very few people in that situation, and the idea here is to transform how the majority of people are affected by financial pressures and alter the social contract for everyone.
Absolutely. Welfare consistently has over a 100% ROI. We all get richer. Our RICH even get richer. People needing to have someone “lesser” to look down their noses at have led us all to PAY to put people on the streets instead of feeding and sheltering them. We sacrifice so we can make people suffer.
We should be ashamed of ourselves. There’s no real upside to anyone to let people suffer. Bootstraps are nothing but evil.
EDIT: Sorry walked away before finishing. As for the “very few people in that situation”… sure. But the problem is that everyone else in this economic region is in a similar boat. $12,000/yr is just not going to do anything for them.
And it’s great for Mississippi, but there is a correlation between poverty and cost of living. The neediest people are those who live in areas like Boston. The least needy people are in areas like Mississippi. If we’re going to throw around a $4T+ financial welfare initiative, shouldn’t we make sure the neediest Americans aren’t the least helped by it?
And yeah, that’s tough when the financing is in “dollars”. But if the financing is in “foods” or “rent” (like Section 8 in MA, but minus means-testing) then nobody can really complain that someone renting in Mississippi gets fewer dollars of benefit than someone renting in MA. They both get a (for example) decent 2-bedroom apartment fully covered wherever they want to live.
Well, again, I’ve been there my whole life and can say for sure that’s not true.
You live in Boston or Manhattan independently on $12,000/yr?
The formal Poverty Line for Boston is $50,000/yr. More if you have dependents
I don’t see how you can claim to live somewhere with $500/mo grocery bills and $2000/mo slum rent prices and think $1000/mo is better than having your rent and groceries covered, especially if you have to opt out of all welfare to get the $1000/mo.
You’re saying, today, you would opt out of all future welfare for $1000/mo? And you live somewhere with a poverty line more than 5x that? Why?!? Most people I know on welfare get more than that already.
Did not realize your meaning was “geographic economic region”, so no that isn’t where I live, my mistake for making assumptions. I don’t know if I can get behind what you’re saying though, since the implication seems to be that everyone could have a no-strings, no restraints right to the basics of life on their own terms and at their own discretion, but that is trumped by the right to be living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and a concentration of funds should be allocated there instead of spread out more and to more people. I get that it sucks to have to move away from the places and people you know, but it doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff to me.
And I also want to respond to
Because there are clear reasons why a person might prefer to live in one place rather than another, and why people being stuck in Mississippi in a housing welfare scheme with some lock in would be getting screwed over compared to people lucky enough to have started off in Boston. And it isn’t really possible with zero lock-in or barrier to entry either, because of the previously mentioned finite nature of housing availability vs demand.