Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Homelessness in Obama's America


Today, the New York Times offers a grim picture of life as a young adult in Barack Obama’s America. In many cases, it means being homeless, sleeping in shelters or on the street:

Across the country, tens of thousands of underemployed and jobless young people, many with college credits or work histories, are struggling to house themselves in the wake of the recession, which has left workers between the ages of 18 and 24 with the highest unemployment rate of all adults….

We often console ourselves with the notion that unemployed young people can go camp out with their parents. In more and more cases, their parents are not doing well enough to take them in.

The Times explains:

These young adults are the new face of a national homeless population, one that poverty experts and case workers say is growing. Yet the problem is mostly invisible. Most cities and states, focusing on homeless families, have not made special efforts to identify young adults, who tend to shy away from ordinary shelters out of fear of being victimized by an older, chronically homeless population. The unemployment rate and the number of young adults who cannot afford college “point to the fact there is a dramatic increase in homelessness” in that age group, said Barbara Poppe, the executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.

And then there is the so-called economic recovery. You know, the phantom recovery that was conjured for the election, but that, strangely enough has not alleviated very much of the unemployment problem.

According to the Times:

Those who provide services to the poor in many cities say the economic recovery has not relieved the problem.

Four years of Obama and this is what we have. Do you think that four more years will make it better?

7 comments:

Tom Murin said...

Too bad they can't follow the Grateful Dead around like their parents or grandparents!

Perhaps Paul Ryan's quote about looking at their "faded Obama poster on their bedroom wall" can be updated to homeless shelter wall?

Fat Man said...

Usually, the NYTimes only notices the homeless during Republican administrations.

Sam L. said...

Wooooowwwwwwww. Homeless In America! With a Democrat President! Unprecedented!

n.n said...

Progressive indigence and homelessness.

Progressive devaluation of capital and labor through trillion dollar account deficits.

Progressive restrictions to our Constitutionally protected rights.

Around one million aliens illegally enter this nation every year displacing children at school, men and women at work, and citizens in hospitals and social services. I wonder how many of them respect the law.

Meanwhile, Obama is helping turn Mexico into a penal colony; turn Egypt, Libya, and Syia into imperial dictatorships.

Several hundred guns and rifles to arm drug cartels in Mexico and America. I thought one was supposed to be enough. Preferably with low-capacity magazines and clips.

The criminals always have the advantage and, apparently, most favored status.

Dennis said...

Given both the vertical and horizontal integration of lawyers and the legal system into almost every single aspect of our lives one wonders whether much of the emphasis is on protecting the criminal, or increasing their power by things like gun control, et al is intentional? No combat commander can, it seems, act without a lawyer over his shoulders. One wonders how much damage is done by having to wait for a legal opinion?
The more laws and therefore the more criminals the more power that resides in the legal profession. The less distinction between real criminals and those who run a foul of lesser offenses maybe purposefully be done?
I noted that almost everything that n.n points to is a function of our legal systems failure to want to address the real problem instead of feel good legislation. The attempt to control doctors, nurses, and the healthcare delivery system in this country through laws that are an invitation to legal action seems more to lessen the status of those in the healthcare system compared to those in the legal system does make one wonder?
No society can withstand the glut of lawyers this country now has to the point that colleges are graduating people with law degrees who will never find a job. It would seem that a police state is a bad thing, but what about a lawyer state that controls almost every aspect of one's life that demands that one has to ignore their religious tenets to meet the demands of a law, be forced to buy healthcare, et al? A state that would take one's ability to defend one's self and their family without serious legal consequences. A state that will use the law to enrich itself at the expense of justice for its citizens.

Dennis said...

One might say, "How can he attack the system that protects his right?" Then that leads one to the question, "Do I have more rights now or am I losing rights at a steady pace.?
There appears to be an inverse relationship between the number of lawyers and the amount of rights one has in this country. Everywhere one looks they see and read where the Constitution is under attack from the very system that is there to uphold it. Where they cannot find a handy penumbra or emanation they invent a justification as to why various aspects of the Constitution should be a nullity in a "Modern" society.
Why do we have laws if the Department of Justice can pick and choose which laws that they think they want to enforce? The DoJ is supposed to be the county's legal representative and they are as prone to ignore of break the law, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Fast and Furious. the Black Panther case, et al anyone, themselves.
Does anyone ever wonder why all of the professions or jobs that might have the ability to earn more money than lawyers is under attack in this country?" Are we to be ruled by Solons who use the government to force us into classes where we are only allowed to have what little they determine is needed for our existence?

Anonymous said...

There IS a just God! They bought it, they own it. "

Are we to be ruled by Solons who use the government to force us into classes where we are only allowed to have what little they determine is needed for our existence?"

Yes. Precisely the point.