Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. Fresh off of the Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: Facebook page, where we've been discussing all manner of interesting
Speaker 1: stuff like Bob Ross has come up. Have you been
Speaker 1: posting Bob Ross videos? He's the best? Yes? I posted.
Speaker 1: I posted the Peanuts Christmas Times here a little segment. Uh,
Speaker 1: you've been posting some pretty good stuff too, but thank you?
Speaker 1: What what's some what's one of your favorite things that
Speaker 1: have gotten people buzzing lately? Did I posted about Bonnie
Speaker 1: Prince Billy? He was that on my own Facebook page?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, did you know? Because you would
Speaker 1: have taken it down? I would not have. I would
Speaker 1: respect your post. I'm sleepy today because of Bonny Prince
Speaker 1: Billy last night. I would scoff at it, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take it down. I love it. That's become a
Speaker 1: running gag. Is me loving him and you're making fun
Speaker 1: of him? Go ahead, Okay, you're ready for me to
Speaker 1: make fun of him. Yeah, I'm not going to. He
Speaker 1: seems like a nice guy. Okay, So Chuck Chucker's um.
Speaker 1: I wrote a blog post actually recently on homelessness. I
Speaker 1: read it. Did you read it? Really? I read your stuff? Man?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? I'm a fan? Really? Yes? Really? So
Speaker 1: the whole thing, then, you know, this already was centered
Speaker 1: around well, it started around this, um this news that
Speaker 1: came out in July that the homeless, the population of
Speaker 1: homeless school children had risen dramatically to about one million
Speaker 1: kids in US schools, public schools, I would imagine who
Speaker 1: are homeless? Yeah? Right? And uh in one particular area,
Speaker 1: I think by the numbers statistically speaking, in Sue Falls,
Speaker 1: South Dakota, that's a homeless kid per classroom. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: had a huge increase, didn't they there? Oh yeah, something
Speaker 1: like that in that state period. Yeah. In uh, in
Speaker 1: Sioux Falls school district, it's jump over the last five years.
Speaker 1: And what in Texas like a hundred plus percent? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So across the across the US, there's been um an
Speaker 1: increase of forty one percent nationwide, right of school children, Yes,
Speaker 1: of homeless school children and um the so Texas has
Speaker 1: seen an increase of a hundred and thirty nine percent, um,
Speaker 1: Iowa a hundred and thirty six percent. The lowest of
Speaker 1: the highest five is New Jersey with an increase. And
Speaker 1: this is, of course, i'll due to the great recession
Speaker 1: that's going on right now out right, of course. And
Speaker 1: somebody actually posted I haven't read the links, but somebody
Speaker 1: actually posted a comment on the blog that said, um,
Speaker 1: you know it's bad enough. You know, homeless school children
Speaker 1: are depressing enough, but you know there's plenty of homeless
Speaker 1: kids out there who aren't in school. Well yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: thinking about that. So with the economic recession is clearly
Speaker 1: to blame for this increase in homeless school children. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of other factors that over the
Speaker 1: years have contributed to homelessness, which we'll talk about. But Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's talk about homelessness in the United States, shall we?
Speaker 1: And we should say we're just going to concentrate in
Speaker 1: the United States. Actually, I've got a few stats, do
Speaker 1: you have, Well, just some stats, Okay, so let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and talk about this and get the around the
Speaker 1: world out of the way. Worldwide, They they approximate, and
Speaker 1: we should go ahead and say that counting homeless people
Speaker 1: is is a tough bag because they changes drastically week
Speaker 1: to week sometimes. Well, we should say that there's two
Speaker 1: ways of doing it. One is it's called a point
Speaker 1: in time count, where it's basically like, all right, everybody,
Speaker 1: go count the homeless people in your area today, right
Speaker 1: on this one particular night, and then UM reported in
Speaker 1: and then we'll tally the numbers. And then the other
Speaker 1: way to do it is UM basically over a year,
Speaker 1: and that's like a huge undertaking UM usually done by
Speaker 1: the Census Bureau. UM that identifies, you know, how many
Speaker 1: people have used homeless shelters, how many of them have
Speaker 1: been different, and it comes up with a pretty rough number.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but one of the reasons it's it's difficult
Speaker 1: is because fortunes change rapidly in this crazy fast moving world,
Speaker 1: and homeless people sometimes are in cars and campgrounds and
Speaker 1: places where you can't find them, so it's tough to
Speaker 1: get the dead accurate numbers. But having said all that,
Speaker 1: my friend I do have some stats worldwide, approximately one
Speaker 1: people around the world are homeless. Uh the u n
Speaker 1: what did you say? A hundred million people in the world.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you said a hundred one. Uh, the
Speaker 1: u N it says there's about thirty million displaced Indigenous people.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they count that as homeless necessarily,
Speaker 1: I would imagine, so that might be a part of
Speaker 1: that larger number. Um. And then I started thinking about,
Speaker 1: like are there homeless everywhere? And of course there are,
Speaker 1: But I said, what about places like Sweden in Norway,
Speaker 1: like where you would not expect homeless people, they have
Speaker 1: him there. But Sweden only has about seventeen thousand homeless
Speaker 1: out of nine point three million people. It's this pretty
Speaker 1: small percentage. Uh. Norway though, has one point for homeless
Speaker 1: people for every one thousand people, which is it's not
Speaker 1: too far off America's percentage really because we have about
Speaker 1: one percent. Right two About three to three point five
Speaker 1: million people is the latest number I saw. The latest
Speaker 1: number I saw, it was actually less than that. What
Speaker 1: was it? And this this doesn't make sense because it's
Speaker 1: it's to the homelessness population has increased right right in
Speaker 1: the US since the recession. So the two thousand five
Speaker 1: number I think was two point three and three point
Speaker 1: five million between those two, right, like like you just said.
Speaker 1: But then there's another one from two thousand nine, it's
Speaker 1: one point five six. So the numbers are all over
Speaker 1: the place this, right, So that's a little bit from
Speaker 1: around the world, Russia, China, Africa, Canada. It happens everywhere,
Speaker 1: but most of this is U S. Base because that's
Speaker 1: where we are. What we can say though, is that
Speaker 1: percentage wise, there's a disproportionate number of minorities that are homeless.
Speaker 1: Minorities in this country makeup about twelve percent of the population,
Speaker 1: and African Americans make up about fifty and another are
Speaker 1: Hispanic right, homeless in the United States, right, African Americans
Speaker 1: are the account for between thirty eight and of the
Speaker 1: homeless population, right, but they only make up about twelve
Speaker 1: percent of the U. S population, right, And this is
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you'll see most of this in big cities,
Speaker 1: but it's a problem in rural areas as well as
Speaker 1: well as well. And typically homeless families make up a
Speaker 1: greater proportion of the homeless in rural areas, which is
Speaker 1: that's any kind of homelessness is sad, but an entire
Speaker 1: family being homeless, that's really tough. Chuck. We we talked
Speaker 1: about what was driving homelessness right now, driving the increase
Speaker 1: is the recession, but UM in the late twentie and
Speaker 1: this century as well, right, UM, there's been a combination
Speaker 1: of factors and the two biggest drivers are poverty, an
Speaker 1: increase in poverty, and UM a decrease in the availability
Speaker 1: of affordable housing, two huge factors in addition to others
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about later, UM, that have contributed to
Speaker 1: people not having a home, which is the saddest stat
Speaker 1: well because we'll talk about all the other factors like
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol and mental health and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but it's sad that the reason why people don't have
Speaker 1: homes because they can't afford housing. Right. And here's here's
Speaker 1: something I just want to put this out there now.
Speaker 1: I was reading a history of homelessness in the US
Speaker 1: UM and the author was basically saying, homelessness been around forever,
Speaker 1: like apparently, UM, fourteenth century England had vagrancy laws. Right,
Speaker 1: people have been homeless, have been um not necessarily living
Speaker 1: on the streets, but don't have a permanent residence. And
Speaker 1: that's an important point too. When we talk about homelessness,
Speaker 1: we're not just talking about people sleeping on the streets.
Speaker 1: We're not just talking about people sleeping in emergency shelters
Speaker 1: or even in their cars. The true genuine definition of
Speaker 1: homelessness is you don't have a home, you don't have
Speaker 1: a place that your own, you're staying with family, you
Speaker 1: live in a weekly motel, that's homeless as well. Yeah, true, right, Um,
Speaker 1: the but back to the uh, the history of homelessness.
Speaker 1: The author was saying, you know, we've had homeless in
Speaker 1: the US since we've been here. Um, the differences. We
Speaker 1: used to have homeless because we couldn't afford to give
Speaker 1: them work. I couldn't afford to take care of them.
Speaker 1: Now we can't afford to take care of them. We
Speaker 1: just don't write. You know. Well, yeah, that's interesting you
Speaker 1: brought that up because I was reading about other countries,
Speaker 1: and America seems to be unique in a very bad way,
Speaker 1: and that a lot of Americans feel like it's deserved
Speaker 1: and because you messed up by doing something really bad
Speaker 1: or you're on alcohol or drugs, and a lot of
Speaker 1: Americans stick that attitude that homeless people deserve to be homeless,
Speaker 1: and then most of the rest of Americans just don't
Speaker 1: think about it at all, and it's a very invisible
Speaker 1: problem or there are you know, people that do care
Speaker 1: and don't think they deserve it, and they're what we
Speaker 1: call good people or advocates. So how do people get homeless? Josh, Well, Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's talk about it. We we said that poverty and
Speaker 1: UM the lack of affordable housing are two of the
Speaker 1: biggest drivers UM with with poverty. Okay, right now, when
Speaker 1: you when you quantify poverty and the poverty line, you
Speaker 1: basically figure out how much the average person pays in
Speaker 1: a state or in a nation or something like that
Speaker 1: for housing, utilities, food, that kind of thing. Then you
Speaker 1: set a line and say anything below this is you're
Speaker 1: eligible for government assistance. Right, your your poverty stricken. UM.
Speaker 1: In the US, the poverty line is somewhere around seventeen
Speaker 1: grand a year for family of three. Right. The problem
Speaker 1: is there's a big disparity between the poverty line and
Speaker 1: the minimum wage. So the federal minimum wage is seven
Speaker 1: dollars and twenty five cents an hour. Right, for a
Speaker 1: person to work forty hours a week, it's a normal
Speaker 1: work week, UM fifty two weeks a year, vacation none,
Speaker 1: like they work five days a week every week, they
Speaker 1: would gross fifteen thousand eighty dollars. That's not very much money, right,
Speaker 1: So you're actually falling below the poverty line making the
Speaker 1: federal minimum wage. Right, and then consider that actually too
Speaker 1: afford a two bedroom apartment. This is the median across
Speaker 1: the states. UH to afford a two bedroom apartment at
Speaker 1: thirty percent of your income, which is the definition of
Speaker 1: affordable housing. UM at seven making seven, you'd have to
Speaker 1: work eighty seven hours a week. Iculous. So there's a
Speaker 1: big part of the problem right there. Well, yeah, it
Speaker 1: said one of the stats in here that was shocking
Speaker 1: was about fiftcent of homeless people actually have jobs. So, um,
Speaker 1: I saw actually not in this article, but and I
Speaker 1: just across the internetteresting. Well, what is clear is that
Speaker 1: a lot of people end up homeless that I don't
Speaker 1: think they would ever end up homeless. They live paycheck
Speaker 1: to paycheck. They have a job and they're getting by,
Speaker 1: but then something happens, either lose a job, or they
Speaker 1: have some outrageous medical bills, or some catastrophe happens, and
Speaker 1: then your average Joe or Jane with a job can
Speaker 1: find themselves homeless, like pretty easily. Sometimes it's not always
Speaker 1: just some schizophrenic who has a heroin problem, you know, right,
Speaker 1: In fact, most of the time, I would say it's not. Um.
Speaker 1: We also talked about a lack of affordable housing. Right,
Speaker 1: we said, the definition of affordable housing is of your income.
Speaker 1: M A. Apparently there are five million that you're shooting for. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: five million US households pay more than half of their
Speaker 1: income in rent. Right, that is unbelievable. That's called worst
Speaker 1: case scenario. And the rule of thumb is if you
Speaker 1: pay a quarter, you're doing good. Yeah yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: half of your income in rent, you're in a bad,
Speaker 1: bad way. Um, that should be living in whatever big
Speaker 1: city you're living in. Well, that also encompasses that worst
Speaker 1: case scenario. Also encombs as people who live in substandard
Speaker 1: housing as well. So, um, it's not just how much
Speaker 1: you're paying out, it's what you're paying for, right, or
Speaker 1: a combination of the two, right, Um, part of the problem, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Do you remember tech Wood, Yeah, tech Wood housing, Techwood housing,
Speaker 1: US Street. No, it's not that and that um the
Speaker 1: demolished Remember they demolished tech Wood, which is like the
Speaker 1: projects and Atlanta right before the Olympics. They were just
Speaker 1: gone and it was like Okay, all you poor people,
Speaker 1: you don't have to go home because you don't have
Speaker 1: one anymore, but you can't stay here. And that was that.
Speaker 1: And apparently there's a there there. That was a nationwide
Speaker 1: trend since the eighties. Yes, between eight and two thousand three,
Speaker 1: more than two million low rent housing units were basically
Speaker 1: either demolished or turned into you know, high rise, expensive
Speaker 1: high rises. And during that same period, from eighty to
Speaker 1: two thousand three, government assistance for housing um fell by half,
Speaker 1: decreased by half. That's gonna be cool a lot of homeless,
Speaker 1: So it's not. And not only are we not helping
Speaker 1: the homeless, we're actually creating homeless. Right. Well, so, uh,
Speaker 1: we talked about obviously pay and being down on your
Speaker 1: luck to temporarily living paycheck to paycheck, else would you
Speaker 1: become home? Well, you you kind of hit the the
Speaker 1: nail on the head a little bit when you talked
Speaker 1: about heroin addicted schizophrenics. Those those can be a combination
Speaker 1: of those two or separately. Mental illness and addiction are
Speaker 1: two big factors in homelessness as well, with mentally ill
Speaker 1: um Apparently about twenty of all homeless people have some
Speaker 1: type of mental illness. That brings up a really interesting point.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard the urban legend that Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: is responsible for the increase in homelessness because he closed
Speaker 1: down all of the mental institutions. Yes, I have heard that.
Speaker 1: That's actually not too far off the mark. When he
Speaker 1: was governor of California from like sixty seven to seventy four,
Speaker 1: he shut down a lot of these state run psychiatric hospitals.
Speaker 1: When he became president, one of the major things he
Speaker 1: cut funding too was the treatment of mental illness. And
Speaker 1: because of this cut and funding, a lot of mental
Speaker 1: hospitals shut down and a lot of mentally ill people
Speaker 1: found themselves homeless. So kind of indirectly in that sense,
Speaker 1: he he definitely contributed to increase in homelessness. Well, should
Speaker 1: we go ahead and talk about the McKinley Vento Act, then, yes,
Speaker 1: we're talking Reagan. Well, yeah, now that here we go.
Speaker 1: He also signed the first, it says, only significant Homeless
Speaker 1: Act of Congress. Yeah, the McKinley McKinney Vento Act that
Speaker 1: was had a different name, but than they named it
Speaker 1: after Stuart McKinney and Bruce Vento, who were two of
Speaker 1: the biggest champions and it had all sorts of cool
Speaker 1: programs in it, right, Yeah, emergency shelter, transitional housing, healthcare, food,
Speaker 1: job training, substance abuse services, all kinds of cool stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's really ironic that he he was the president
Speaker 1: that signed that in the law, because he is also
Speaker 1: widely credited in this kind take off so many Republican listeners.
Speaker 1: He is widely credited as creating the homeless problem in
Speaker 1: the US, not just through the institutionalization, but through the
Speaker 1: creation of the wealth gap that we've seen between nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty and now. You talked about substance abuse, and about
Speaker 1: two thirds of homeless people struggle with some kind of
Speaker 1: alcohol or drug problem, not surprisingly. And then uh, sadly,
Speaker 1: domestic violence has a big part to do with it,
Speaker 1: especially with women. About half the women are battered women,
Speaker 1: and they oftentimes don't have anywhere to go. They'll flee
Speaker 1: there if if they're brave enough to actually flee, they're
Speaker 1: jerk husband, abuse of husband, then there they have nowhere
Speaker 1: to be because their husband might be the sole breadwinner
Speaker 1: and and that kind of circumstance. So they have battered
Speaker 1: women shelters that God for just for women, that that
Speaker 1: suffer from abuse and kids too. I think half of
Speaker 1: a runaway homeless runaways, um, we're fleeing domestic abuse or
Speaker 1: homeless kids on their own. I guess we're fleeing domestic abuse,
Speaker 1: and about we're fleeing sexual abuse. But it doesn't stop there. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: when you are homeless on the street, you encounter even
Speaker 1: more abuse. Many times you leave home, you leave an
Speaker 1: abusive situation at home, you live on the street. Then
Speaker 1: you get attacked on the street for being homeless, or
Speaker 1: you are forced into doing really bad things for food
Speaker 1: and shelter and stuff like that. On toward things at
Speaker 1: the bus station. At the bus station and veterans, Josh,
Speaker 1: are a big part of our homeless problem. And that
Speaker 1: I can't say satisfy of all because it's all really sad.
Speaker 1: But when you're veterans, when you've got to fight for
Speaker 1: this country and you end up one of the two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand homeless single men, usually with mental illness, substance
Speaker 1: abuse problems because of maybe post traumatic stress disorder, that
Speaker 1: is heartbreaking. Yeah, and and again you just keep kidding
Speaker 1: that nail right on the head man. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of overlapping problems or factors of in homelessness, like you know, veterans,
Speaker 1: maybe homeless veterans maybe more prone to having a substance
Speaker 1: abuse problem or suffering from a mental illness like PTSD
Speaker 1: or substance abuse and mental illness overlap and other people
Speaker 1: as well. Uh. And part of the problem is you
Speaker 1: get to get into a vicious cycle. There are far
Speaker 1: few services, far fewer services available easily accessible on the street. Um,
Speaker 1: then there are if you have a house and an
Speaker 1: income and an address and a number and all the
Speaker 1: normal stuff that that you just kind of need to
Speaker 1: be able to get by in the US these days.
Speaker 1: And you know, you you look at something like the
Speaker 1: Department of Veterans Affairs, which does as good a job
Speaker 1: as they can as far as I know, but they
Speaker 1: can only accommodate about of homeless veterans. But what's so
Speaker 1: frustrating is that they could accommodate all of them. They
Speaker 1: could if they wanted, if they had not, if they
Speaker 1: wanted to, if they had the funding. So you see
Speaker 1: these record bonuses for CEOs on one hand, and then
Speaker 1: you hear about homeless veterans the and he's out there, yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad it was veterans that got you. I
Speaker 1: hope it's homeless school children that get somebody else. I
Speaker 1: hope somebody hears this and realizes that we have all
Speaker 1: the money we need to get it's just some of
Speaker 1: the wealthiest are gonna have to give up a little
Speaker 1: bit of it so that some of the poorest have
Speaker 1: a house. It's as simple as that. We have the means,
Speaker 1: just not the will. Yeah, and we're not talking about
Speaker 1: just some social program with these alcoholics living off my dime.
Speaker 1: We're talking about homeless veterans and children. And you have
Speaker 1: used women. And even if it is alcoholic veterans, we've
Speaker 1: are learned. Have we not learned already that alcoholism and
Speaker 1: all addiction is a brain disease that follows the brain
Speaker 1: disease model these days, you need treatment. Well that's the
Speaker 1: whole stupid American idea that I talked about, was that
Speaker 1: some people feel like they deserve to be homeless. They
Speaker 1: see him on the street and they think, what did
Speaker 1: you do to get here? Yeah? Instead of what can
Speaker 1: I do to help you? Yeah? Well, this is touched
Speaker 1: the nerve today. It's homelessness. Really should be shocked. But
Speaker 1: I'm glad. I'm angry, That's what I'm saying. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're angry too, chook josher's Uh, let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the effects. And a lot of these you
Speaker 1: can file under duh. But it bears saying you're talking
Speaker 1: about women's shelters. Yeah, well women's shelters only let in women.
Speaker 1: And if you have a teenage son, you can kiss
Speaker 1: him goodbye. Yeah, so bye bye family unit. Uh. Physical
Speaker 1: attacks Homeless people are attacked, beaten, kicked, chained, feted, spray
Speaker 1: painted people, lit on fire, peton is pretty bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just because they're homeless. People will go out and beat
Speaker 1: up homeless people. Yeah. Well, there's like a whole line
Speaker 1: of thinking that like serial killers, practice on drifters, or
Speaker 1: sure health effects for kids. Um, if you're homeless, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a higher rate of stomach prob UM's asthma,
Speaker 1: your infections. Depression anxiousness PTSD is pretty prevalent. It's a
Speaker 1: cause of and is caused by homelessness, and not just
Speaker 1: adults but kids as well. Right, Like, you can actually
Speaker 1: start to develop PTSD because you don't know where you're
Speaker 1: going to sleep the next night. I mean, think about it. Chuck, like,
Speaker 1: have you ever been without a home like I, I
Speaker 1: would think it can be really weird to not know
Speaker 1: where you're going to stay or did not just you know,
Speaker 1: have a hard day at work or a hard day
Speaker 1: at school, and to go to know that at the
Speaker 1: end of this day you have no idea where you're
Speaker 1: gonna sleep. Maybe you're gonna sleep in your car, maybe
Speaker 1: you're gonna sleep in the woods. But you don't get
Speaker 1: to just rest. You don't get to just take a shower,
Speaker 1: beer and watch you know, TV or whatever. It takes
Speaker 1: the unwined, So you're you're stress level is heightened constantly
Speaker 1: without any resolution to it, and of course you're going
Speaker 1: to suffer PTSD or at least stomach aches something bad.
Speaker 1: Adults too. It's not just kids. They can get frostbite,
Speaker 1: leg ulcers, respiratory infections, HIV and AIDS, and diabetes way
Speaker 1: more common than homeless population. So lots of health effects
Speaker 1: going on, Josh, I agree, Chuck. So check we talked
Speaker 1: about UM Reagan as both creator and alleviator of homelessness. UM.
Speaker 1: You you talked about some of the programs that the
Speaker 1: McKinney Vento Act created. UM, some of the other programs
Speaker 1: that have been developed in the United States are um
Speaker 1: like Section eight housing, right, do you know about this?
Speaker 1: That's uh, well, there's there's homeless shelters, which are like
Speaker 1: the emergency beds when it's cold, that kind of thing
Speaker 1: you can go temporarily, right, And a lot of those
Speaker 1: are I would say most I don't have any numbers
Speaker 1: on this, but I would say most of those are
Speaker 1: privately operated. Really yeah, interesting. Uh. And then there is
Speaker 1: the Section eight thing that you were talking about, which
Speaker 1: is not public housing. It's when you fill out of
Speaker 1: Section eight vouchure and you can go find just a
Speaker 1: regular private apartment to rent from a landlord. It's got
Speaker 1: to fit certain requirements and if you meet all those requirements,
Speaker 1: you only have to pay thirty of the rent and
Speaker 1: bills and then the government pays the other seven straight
Speaker 1: to the landlord. So that's Section eight. But Section eight,
Speaker 1: you know, they're a huge waiting list, and I read
Speaker 1: that a lot of cities have shut it down until
Speaker 1: the list gets smaller, and they're like, there's no point
Speaker 1: in keeping a list of four years, five years. We're
Speaker 1: just gonna shut it down, get the list smaller, and
Speaker 1: then open it back up in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: So good luck getting Section eight if that's what you're
Speaker 1: trying to do. And Uh, you talked about did you
Speaker 1: did you mentioned public housing? No? So, Um, well you
Speaker 1: talked about shelters. Apparently there were five hundred thousand beds
Speaker 1: and two thousand five. There's now six hundred forty three
Speaker 1: thousand or there where there wasn't two thousand nine and
Speaker 1: about three million to three point five million homeless people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's a pretty significant increase in five years. Um.
Speaker 1: But but with public housing, if if Section eight is
Speaker 1: not an option, there is public housing, or there used
Speaker 1: to be, at least in at tech Wood um, which
Speaker 1: is basically like an apartment block where you go and
Speaker 1: live and you pay what you can um and as
Speaker 1: long as you follow the rules I just made air quotes, um,
Speaker 1: you can stay there as long as you like. Ideally, again,
Speaker 1: there's not that many public housing units are not as
Speaker 1: many as there used to be. Uh, you need to
Speaker 1: talk about food banks because that's a big part of
Speaker 1: being homeless is getting your meal. And you know, the
Speaker 1: United States, it's not like starvation in other countries where
Speaker 1: there is no food. There's a lot of food here,
Speaker 1: lots of food is thrown away. So since the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: do you know that there's an estimate that up to
Speaker 1: half of the food we produced is thrown away, really
Speaker 1: half in the US, and the low estimate is a quarter. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Never go get a job in
Speaker 1: the film industry if you want to. The food waste depresses,
Speaker 1: you know, the craft services and just catering the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's ridiculous. Um, But food banks have been
Speaker 1: around since about the sixties, and that everyone knows. You
Speaker 1: can donate can goods and non perishable items and they
Speaker 1: will distribute them to homeless shelters and homeless people directly sometimes.
Speaker 1: So that's a big deal. You ever volunteered anything like that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Then the Thanksgiving thing before, Ah, this makes me want
Speaker 1: to do more than that though, you know, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: feels like going to church on Easter. You know we
Speaker 1: should do We should build like an addition onto your
Speaker 1: house that we can get house homeless people in. We
Speaker 1: can go there, you go Squatville. We can put up
Speaker 1: a lean to or something that jokes squad Bill. It's
Speaker 1: not a bad idea. Job training though, I mean, we
Speaker 1: we talked about things like public housing and the projects,
Speaker 1: and that's all well and good to give people a
Speaker 1: place to be. But at the same time, you don't
Speaker 1: and this is where the Republicians can go, yes, say it.
Speaker 1: At the same time, you don't want to support a
Speaker 1: nation of people on the government's time without offering some
Speaker 1: kind of job training and something to say, hey, let
Speaker 1: us help you get on your feet, let us help
Speaker 1: you get a job in data entry or on the
Speaker 1: manufacturing line or whatever. So luckily there are groups like
Speaker 1: the Coalition for the Homeless First Step that that you know,
Speaker 1: provide this kind of job job training, and the veterans
Speaker 1: are doing the same thing with the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program,
Speaker 1: right And I should say, there isn't a homeless alleviation
Speaker 1: program in existence in the US that's geared towards simply
Speaker 1: taking care of people. All of them are geared towards
Speaker 1: ending homelessness and the individual and collectively through things like
Speaker 1: job training, through things like UM helping the right resumes,
Speaker 1: rehabs a huge one. Mental health treatment, UM getting people
Speaker 1: cheap drugs, like getting them to a point where they're
Speaker 1: not homeless anymore. Like it's addressing the factors of homelessness.
Speaker 1: Not you don't feel like work, and so here's some
Speaker 1: money that doesn't exist, and I suspect that there's not
Speaker 1: really a desire to just have somebody give you some
Speaker 1: money and not do anything ever and just be poor
Speaker 1: in anybody. I don't know. That's my that's my opinion.
Speaker 1: We disagree, that's awesome. Well, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: disagree that. I don't have enough time to think about
Speaker 1: that right now? All right, Uh, what can you do though? Well,
Speaker 1: you can we can build lean two's on your squatting land.
Speaker 1: You can volunteer, like you said, right, give your time.
Speaker 1: If you don't have the dough, you give a little time.
Speaker 1: If you do have the dough, and it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: just dough. You can donate old toys and books and
Speaker 1: toiletries and clothes. That old computer that's gathering dust that
Speaker 1: you could get seventy five dollars for on Craigslist, you
Speaker 1: donate that instead write it off in your taxes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and maybe homeless people can get trained how to use
Speaker 1: that computer. Where you could donate your car, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big one. Yeah, you can be an advocate,
Speaker 1: try to raise awareness, letter campaigns, all sorts of things
Speaker 1: you can do there. You can hire homeless people. Yes,
Speaker 1: they do have skills. As we've seen now, a lot
Speaker 1: of people who um are recently recently homeless may also
Speaker 1: just be recently unemployed as well and have job skills.
Speaker 1: And then the last one on the list in the article,
Speaker 1: which I thought was at home rate respect huge. Ah,
Speaker 1: when you see that homeless person on the street, don't
Speaker 1: let the first thought to be in your head, Hey jerk,
Speaker 1: how did you mess up to get here? Maybe you
Speaker 1: should think, hey, did you develop schizophrenia in your thirties
Speaker 1: and lose your job because of that and get split
Speaker 1: up from your child because you couldn't care for your
Speaker 1: child even though you you know you want to. Because
Speaker 1: it happened to Will Smith, I was hoping we could
Speaker 1: make it through this without bringing up that stupid movie,
Speaker 1: The Pursuit of Hapwitness. Yeah, well it's you know, they
Speaker 1: make a movie about it. It It was such a big deal.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows that that guy was homeless with a son,
Speaker 1: and he's rich. He's worth sixty five million bucks. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what story I like better is the one
Speaker 1: in this article. The that was a guy. What's his
Speaker 1: named David, Yeah, he's he's quoted David Peartle. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was that part he Yeah, he was a just a
Speaker 1: regular dude, had a job as a rest front manager.
Speaker 1: College graduate and for fifteen years as a restaurant manager
Speaker 1: and developed schizophrenia, got fired, ended up hitchhiking and homeless
Speaker 1: for two years on the streets of d C. And
Speaker 1: now I think he's a heading up a homeless group
Speaker 1: in DC nowity, Yeah, I think he's an executive at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's quoted in this article in the respect like
Speaker 1: what can you do? He says, Um, most of the
Speaker 1: despair and being homeless comes from being treated like you
Speaker 1: don't exist. And there's something we should point out Chuck
Speaker 1: throughout this. It's however, many minutes into this podcast, Um,
Speaker 1: we've just now used the first homeless person's name, first Dan,
Speaker 1: last name of the whole podcast. There's a whole conception
Speaker 1: of invisibility. The nameless they are, they're not the nameless.
Speaker 1: You can completely interchange that with the homeless that's just
Speaker 1: as faceless, just as nameless, just as genderless, just as
Speaker 1: identity lists. And um, I just want to close and
Speaker 1: get everybody to over to on design. There's this awesome
Speaker 1: blog post by a guy named John the kera th
Speaker 1: h A c k a r A called Look or Connect,
Speaker 1: and he's talking about he's using photography to demonstrate, um,
Speaker 1: how we treat the homeless and how we should treat
Speaker 1: the homeless. And there's a photography book called Shelter, and
Speaker 1: this guy roamed around Europe and took photos of homeless
Speaker 1: like impromptu makeshift shelters of like blankets hanging over a limb,
Speaker 1: in in a in the woods or some place under
Speaker 1: an overpass, but in every single picture it's just a shelter.
Speaker 1: Not one homeless person appears in this whole book, and
Speaker 1: the care is pointing out like this is kind of
Speaker 1: emblematic of how we view the homeless. And then he
Speaker 1: was also kind of crediting a girl named Erica show
Speaker 1: Bolts who's a photographer out of Seattle, and she has
Speaker 1: a series called Invisible Families, and she'll she photographs the homeless,
Speaker 1: but then the caption she includes captions beneath the the
Speaker 1: um photograph and it's of that person. So there's one
Speaker 1: of a little kid walking through a homeless camp and
Speaker 1: he's he's got like this bamboo stick up right, you
Speaker 1: see him and the caption is um here Jack Ahearn,
Speaker 1: age nine, marches with the bamboo stick while staying at
Speaker 1: a city located in Skyway. Sometimes Jack win and less
Speaker 1: fellow Nickelodeon's quotes to help him look for worms. On
Speaker 1: other days, he'd play on a pogo stick in mud
Speaker 1: puddles or with the resident cab kitten that had six
Speaker 1: digits on one paw. The bamboo stick was a gift,
Speaker 1: so like, that's a person now, not a homeless kid.
Speaker 1: That's Jack A hear In, age nine. Well and then
Speaker 1: and the the gentleman from DC suggests that if you
Speaker 1: have a regular walk to work in a city or something,
Speaker 1: you see the same homeless person on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: then ask them what their name is one day, call
Speaker 1: them by their name, look him in the eye. If
Speaker 1: you don't have to give them money, if you don't
Speaker 1: want to, little things like that can make a big
Speaker 1: difference in a person's self esteem and maybe allows them
Speaker 1: to view themselves as human again. And you can give
Speaker 1: them if you're worried about giving the money that they
Speaker 1: spend on alcohol or something, give them, get a get
Speaker 1: a little food, give voucher, you know, something like that.
Speaker 1: So there is everybody. Our fifth summation of the podcast,
Speaker 1: fit and final. Yes, if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about homelessness, um, you can type that word into the
Speaker 1: search bar how stuff works the blank generic genderless identity
Speaker 1: list search bar. Very nice. And since they said that,
Speaker 1: it's time for is it listener mailman? Yeah, And in
Speaker 1: the spirit of this podcast, we're gonna do a big
Speaker 1: old Kiva round up. You want to explain what Keeva
Speaker 1: is real quick. Kiva is a website where schmos like
Speaker 1: you and me can go and donate well, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say donate lynn increments of twenty five dollars to entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: in developing countries and people on their way up here
Speaker 1: in the United States even uh. These loans are pulled
Speaker 1: together uh to create a larger loan which ultimately repay
Speaker 1: a loan that's already been made to the person uh,
Speaker 1: and then that person uses it for their business, repays
Speaker 1: the loan. You actually get your twenty five bucks back,
Speaker 1: that's right if you want, and you can reinvest it.
Speaker 1: And basically it's micro lending. Yes, And we have our
Speaker 1: own loan team which we're proud to say is the
Speaker 1: number four team and members on all of keeping out.
Speaker 1: I know that's really something behind atheists number one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Christians are number two. There's like so angry and right
Speaker 1: behind the AD and UH Team Obama is number three
Speaker 1: and little old us are right there, but in front
Speaker 1: of Australia. So to go over that list again, go
Speaker 1: Chuck from wonderful Atheist of America Christian Coalition Team Obama
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Australia so all pretty cool, and
Speaker 1: we have as of today we've loaned UH as a
Speaker 1: collective three thousand, four hundred and six members have loaned
Speaker 1: ten tho, eight hundred and thirteen loans to the tune
Speaker 1: of three d and thirteen thousand, eight hundred bucks. So
Speaker 1: that is not bad. Is this gonna be up for Christmas? I?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Jared. Yes, we would suggest you can
Speaker 1: get a Kiva gift certificate and give it to your
Speaker 1: love one at Christmas. It's a nice little cool thing
Speaker 1: to do it like a stocking stuffer, right, and they
Speaker 1: go and lend it, but ultimately if they want, they're
Speaker 1: just postponing getting that twenty five or seventive bucks cash
Speaker 1: um for a month or two. And with that it's repaying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's repaid, it's not a donation. And with that, here
Speaker 1: comes a listener mail because this one really got me. Uh, hi,
Speaker 1: two of them really quick. Um. Hi, guys, my name
Speaker 1: is Kara and I am another one of your thirteen
Speaker 1: year old fans. Just want to say hi, and how
Speaker 1: much I love your show. Uh. Some friends and I
Speaker 1: make and sell jewelry and donate the profits to Kiva.
Speaker 1: That is awesome. I know you guys have your own
Speaker 1: key to team and I love that you use your
Speaker 1: power to do good. Uh. Since most people haven't heard
Speaker 1: of Kiva, please mention this on your show. It would
Speaker 1: be so great to get some business that we can
Speaker 1: read loan. You can see some of our jewelry and
Speaker 1: loans at www dot tiny, u r l dot com
Speaker 1: slash project raw and I went today and they have
Speaker 1: these little ear rings and little necklaces and rings and
Speaker 1: things that these thirteen year old girls may make my hand.
Speaker 1: And they've loaned three seventy five bucks so far. And uh,
Speaker 1: that is Kara and Kensington, Maryland. And that is so cool.
Speaker 1: I can't even talk about it. When thirteen year olds
Speaker 1: are doing stuff like this and CEOs are getting rich
Speaker 1: and thumbing their nose at the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: So Karmen is gonna bite you one day, sir, and
Speaker 1: this one. We usually don't plug other KYVA teams, but
Speaker 1: we're going to because this from our our buddy, Sergeantly
Speaker 1: newly promoted staff Sergeant Walker, Mr Bryant, with your inspiration,
Speaker 1: I've started my own KYBA team for the Armed Forces.
Speaker 1: With the whole Armed Forces. He started an Army team. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's different if you're well, he says, Armed Forces
Speaker 1: KEYVA team, but it says Army in the in the
Speaker 1: u r L. So if you're in the Marine Corps,
Speaker 1: do not give uh. It is www dot kiva dot org,
Speaker 1: Slash Team, slash US Underscore, Army Underscore, Kiva Underscore Team.
Speaker 1: And he says, wondering if you could just give a
Speaker 1: little shout out to all the Armed Forces personnel listening
Speaker 1: to your show, and can they donate to our Army team.
Speaker 1: And so I'm gonna encourage you to donate for the
Speaker 1: Army team. Everyone else donate for the stuff you should
Speaker 1: know team and support Project RAW. I can't believe you
Speaker 1: did this without checking with me. You know what's supporting end.
Speaker 1: So sorry. Anyway, good holiday mojo come in your way
Speaker 1: if you get involved with stuff like this. Well, congratulations
Speaker 1: on the promotion staff Sergeant Walker Kara, congratulations on being
Speaker 1: a very very cool thirteen year old actually a very
Speaker 1: very cool person in general. That's right. Uh. Since it's
Speaker 1: around Christmas time and I'm about to weep, why don't
Speaker 1: we just bring it on home, drive it through my
Speaker 1: heart with the sweetest Christmas story you've ever heard in
Speaker 1: your entire life, that's fact based. Have you got one? No,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I'm asking for them. I'm on the
Speaker 1: verge of tears. I want to just go ahead and
Speaker 1: have my this lit a couple of times too, Did
Speaker 1: you really? Okay? Uh? If you have a good story
Speaker 1: for us, a good holiday story, we want to hear it.
Speaker 1: Send it in an email. You can wrap it up.
Speaker 1: I have a ribbon on to right. Make sure the
Speaker 1: card is attached, and send it to stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
Speaker 1: icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
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