Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Chuck here and welcome to the Saturday Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know Select episode. I picked this one out
Speaker 1: this week. It's ah well, it's our famous homelessness episode
Speaker 1: and for those of you don't know, we recorded this
Speaker 1: and released it around Christmas time December ten. We thought
Speaker 1: it would give everyone the warm fuzzies and make people
Speaker 1: want to go help those in need. But no, actually
Speaker 1: it did do that for some of you. But we
Speaker 1: actually got a lot of flak over this one, and
Speaker 1: very disappointingly, a lot of people wrote in and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, people deserve to be homeless. They put
Speaker 1: themselves there. I am not supposed to help them if
Speaker 1: they can't help themselves, screw it. And that was really
Speaker 1: disappointed to hear. But we stand by the show. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good one. So please to enjoy our
Speaker 1: episode on homelessness from two thousand ten and have a
Speaker 1: great Saturday. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: Fresh off of the Stuff you Should Know Facebook page,
Speaker 1: where we've been discussing all manner of interesting stuff like
Speaker 1: Bob Ross has come up. Have you been posting Bob
Speaker 1: Ross videos? He's the best? Yes? I posted. I posted
Speaker 1: the Peanuts Christmas time? Is here a little segment? Uh,
Speaker 1: you've been posting some pretty good stuff too, but thank you?
Speaker 1: What's what's some what's one of your favorite things that
Speaker 1: have gotten people buzzing lately? Did I post about Bonnie
Speaker 1: Prince Billy or 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 Bunny Prince
Speaker 1: Billy last night. I would scoff at it, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take it down. I love that. 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 ready for me to
Speaker 1: make fun of him. I'm not going to. He seems
Speaker 1: like a nice guy. Okay, So Chuck Chucker's um. I
Speaker 1: wrote a blog post actually recently on homelessness. I read it.
Speaker 1: 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 eight percent increase.
Speaker 1: And this is, of course, i'll due to the great
Speaker 1: recession that's going on right now, 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 ChIL
Speaker 1: children are to pressing enough. But you know there's plenty
Speaker 1: of homeless kids out there who aren't in school. Well yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you think about that. So with the economic recession is
Speaker 1: clearly 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 for picular night. And then um reported
Speaker 1: in and then we'll tally the numbers. And then the
Speaker 1: other 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: hundred people around the world are homeless, uh the u N.
Speaker 1: And what you say, a hundred million people in the world.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you just said a hundred one million,
Speaker 1: Uh the u N. It says there's about thirty million
Speaker 1: displaced indigenous people. I don't know if they count that
Speaker 1: as homeless necessarily, I would imagine so that to be
Speaker 1: a part of that larger number. UM. And then I
Speaker 1: started thinking about, like, are there homeless everywhere? And of
Speaker 1: course there are, but I said, what about places like
Speaker 1: Sweden and Norway, like where you would not expect homeless people,
Speaker 1: They have them there, But Sweden only has about seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand homeless out of nine point three million people. It's
Speaker 1: this pretty small percentage. Uh. Norway though, has one point
Speaker 1: for homeless people per every one thousand people, which is
Speaker 1: it's not too far off America's percentage really because we
Speaker 1: have about one percent right two About three to three
Speaker 1: point five million people is the latest number I saw.
Speaker 1: The latest number I saw, it was actually less than that.
Speaker 1: What was it? And this this doesn't make sense because
Speaker 1: it's it's to the the the homelessness population has increased
Speaker 1: right in the US since the recession. So the two
Speaker 1: thousand five number I think was two point three and
Speaker 1: three point five million between those two right like like
Speaker 1: you just said. But then there's another one from two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. It's one point five six. So the numbers
Speaker 1: are all over the place. A bet this not right.
Speaker 1: So that's a little bit from around the world, Russia, China, Africa, Canada.
Speaker 1: It happens everywhere, but most of this is U S
Speaker 1: base because that's where we are. What we can say, though,
Speaker 1: is that percentage wise, there's a disproportionate number of minorities
Speaker 1: that are homeless. Minorities in this country make up about
Speaker 1: twelve percent of the population, and African Americans make up
Speaker 1: about fifty and another are Hispanic right, homeless in the
Speaker 1: United States, right, African Americans are the account for between
Speaker 1: thirty eight and of the homeless population, right, but they
Speaker 1: only make up about twelve percent of the US population. Right,
Speaker 1: And uh, this is you know, obviously you'll see most
Speaker 1: of this in big cities, but it's a problem in
Speaker 1: rural areas as well as well as well. And typically
Speaker 1: homeless families make up a greater proportion of the homeless
Speaker 1: in rural areas, which is that's any kind of homelessness
Speaker 1: is sad, But an entire family being homeless, iss, that's
Speaker 1: really tough. Chuck. We we talked about what was driving
Speaker 1: homelessness right now. Driving the increase is the recession, but um,
Speaker 1: in the late twentie and this century as well. First, right, UM,
Speaker 1: there's been a combination of factors and the two biggest
Speaker 1: drivers are poverty, an increase in poverty, and UM a
Speaker 1: decrease in the availability of affordable housing, two huge factors.
Speaker 1: In addition to others that we'll talk about later, um,
Speaker 1: that have contributed to people not having a home. The
Speaker 1: saddest stat what a well, because we'll talk about all
Speaker 1: the other factors like drugs and alcohol and mental health
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, but it's sad that the reason
Speaker 1: why people aren't have homes because they can't afford housing. Right.
Speaker 1: And here's here's something I just want to put this
Speaker 1: out there now. I was reading a history of homelessness
Speaker 1: in the US UM and the author was basically saying,
Speaker 1: homelessness been around forever, like apparently, um, fourteenth century England
Speaker 1: had vagrancy laws, right, people have been homeless, have been um,
Speaker 1: not necessarily living on the streets, but don't have a
Speaker 1: permanent residence. And that's an important point too. When we
Speaker 1: talk about homelessness, we're not just talking about people sleeping
Speaker 1: on the streets. We're not just talking about people sleeping
Speaker 1: in emergency shelters or even in their cars. The true
Speaker 1: genuine definition of homelessness is you don't have a home,
Speaker 1: you don't have a place that's your own, you're staying
Speaker 1: with family, you live in a weekly motel. That that's
Speaker 1: homeless as well. Yeah true, right, Um, But back to
Speaker 1: the uh the history of homelessness. The author was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had homeless in the US since we've
Speaker 1: been here. Um, the differences. We used to have homeless
Speaker 1: because we couldn't afford to give them work. I couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to take care of them. Now we can't afford
Speaker 1: to take care of them. We just don't write you know. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. You brought that up because I was reading
Speaker 1: about other countries. In America seems to be unique in
Speaker 1: a very bad way, and that a lot of Americans
Speaker 1: feel like it's deserved and because you messed up by
Speaker 1: doing something really bad or you're on alcohol or drugs,
Speaker 1: and a lot of Americans take that attitude that homeless
Speaker 1: people deserve to be homeless, and then most of the
Speaker 1: rest of Americans just don't think about it at all,
Speaker 1: and it's a very invisible problem, right or there are
Speaker 1: you know, people that do care and don't think they
Speaker 1: deserve it, and they're what we call good people or advocates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how do people get homeless? Josh, Well, Chuck, let's
Speaker 1: talk about it. We we said that poverty and um,
Speaker 1: the lack of affordable housing are two of the biggest
Speaker 1: drivers um with with poverty. Okay, right now, when you
Speaker 1: when you quantify poverty and the poverty line, you basically
Speaker 1: figure out how much the average person pays in a
Speaker 1: state or in a nation or something like that for housing, utilities, food,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Then you set a line and
Speaker 1: say anything below this is you're eligible for government assistance.
Speaker 1: Right your your poverty stricken. UM. In the US, the
Speaker 1: poverty line is somewhere around seventeen grand a year for
Speaker 1: a family of three. Right. The problem is there's a
Speaker 1: big disparity between the poverty line and the minimum wage.
Speaker 1: So the federal minimum wage is seven dollars and twenty
Speaker 1: five cents an hour. Right, for a person to work
Speaker 1: forty hours a week, that's a normal work week, UM,
Speaker 1: fifty two weeks a year, vacation none, like they work
Speaker 1: five days a week every week. Uh, they would gross
Speaker 1: 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 for
Speaker 1: across the states. Uh, to afford a two bedroom apartment
Speaker 1: at thirty 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. Ridiculous. So there's a
Speaker 1: big part of the problem right there. Well, yeah, it said.
Speaker 1: One of the stats in here that was shocking was
Speaker 1: about fiftcent of homeless people actually have jobs. So, um,
Speaker 1: I saw actually not in this article, but I just
Speaker 1: across the internet. Well, what is clear is that a
Speaker 1: lot of people end up homeless that I don't think
Speaker 1: they would ever end up homeless. They live paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 1: They have a job and they're getting by, but then
Speaker 1: something happens. They either lose a job, or they have
Speaker 1: some outrageous medical bills, or some catastrophe happens, and then
Speaker 1: your average Joe or Jane with a job can find
Speaker 1: themselves homeless, like pretty easily. Sometimes it's not always just
Speaker 1: 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. UM.
Speaker 1: 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 all shouldn't be living in whatever
Speaker 1: big city you're living in. Well, that also encompasses that
Speaker 1: worst case scenario. Also encombs as people who live in
Speaker 1: substandard housing as well. So, um, it's not just how
Speaker 1: much you're paying out, it's what you're paying for, right,
Speaker 1: or a combination of the two, right, Um, part of
Speaker 1: the problem. Chuck, do you remember tech Wood? Yeah, techwood housing,
Speaker 1: techwood housing. Uh no, it's not. And that, um, the
Speaker 1: demolished Remember they demolished tech Wood, which is like the
Speaker 1: projects in 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. So that's gonna equal 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. So, uh, we
Speaker 1: talked about obviously pay and being down on your luck
Speaker 1: temporarily living paycheck to paycheck, why else would you become home? Well,
Speaker 1: you kind of hit the the nail on the head
Speaker 1: a little bit when you talked about heroin addicted schizophrenics.
Speaker 1: Those those can be a combination of those two or separately.
Speaker 1: Mental illness and addiction are two big factors in homelessness
Speaker 1: as well with mentally ill um. Apparently about twenty of
Speaker 1: all homeless people have some type of mental illness. That
Speaker 1: brings up a really interesting point. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: the urban legend that Ronald Reagan is responsible for the
Speaker 1: increase in homelessness because he closed down all of the
Speaker 1: mental institutions. Yes, I have heard that that's actually not
Speaker 1: too far off the mark. When he was governor of
Speaker 1: California from like sixty seven to seventy four. He shut
Speaker 1: down a lot of these state run psychiatric hospitals. When
Speaker 1: he became president. One of the major things he cut
Speaker 1: funding too was the treatment of mental illness. And because
Speaker 1: of this cut and funding, a lot of mental hospitals
Speaker 1: shut down and a lot of mentally ill people found
Speaker 1: themselves homeless. So kind of indirectly in that sense, he
Speaker 1: he definitely contributed to an increase in homelessness. Well, should
Speaker 1: we go ahead and talk about the McKinley Vento Act then,
Speaker 1: since we're talking Reagan, Well, yeah, now that here we go.
Speaker 1: He also signed the first and it says only Significant
Speaker 1: Homeless Act of Congress. Yeah, the McKinley McKinney Vento Act
Speaker 1: that was had a different name, but then they named
Speaker 1: it after Stuart McKinney and Bruce Vento, who were two
Speaker 1: of the biggest champions, and it had all sorts of
Speaker 1: cool 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 into law because he is also widely
Speaker 1: credited in this kind of 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 de 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 in 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. Yeah, right, But it
Speaker 1: doesn't stop there. Unfortunately, when you are homeless on the street,
Speaker 1: you encounter even more abuse. Many times you leave home,
Speaker 1: you leave an abusive situation at home, you live on
Speaker 1: the street. Then you get attacked on the street for
Speaker 1: being homeless, or you are forced into doing really bad
Speaker 1: things for food and shelter and stuff like that, untoward
Speaker 1: things at 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 saddest 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 hitting
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 may be more prone to having a
Speaker 1: substance abuse problem or suffering from a mental illness like
Speaker 1: PTSD or substance abuse and mental illness overlap and other
Speaker 1: people as well. Uh, And part of the problem is
Speaker 1: you get to get into a vicious cycle. There are
Speaker 1: far few services, far fewer services available easily accessible on
Speaker 1: the street. Um then there are if you have a
Speaker 1: house and an income and an address and a fine
Speaker 1: number and all the normal stuff that that you just
Speaker 1: kind of need to be able to get by in
Speaker 1: the US these days. And you know, you you look
Speaker 1: at something like the Department of Veterans Affairs, which does
Speaker 1: as good a job as they can as far as
Speaker 1: I know, but they can only accommodate about of homeless veterans.
Speaker 1: But what's so frustrating is that they coul accommodate all
Speaker 1: of them. They could if they wanted, if they had not,
Speaker 1: if they wanted to, if they had the funding. So
Speaker 1: you see these record bonuses for CEOs on one hand,
Speaker 1: and then you hear about homeless veterans. The money'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 gets 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 that 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 abused women.
Speaker 1: And even if it is alcoholic veterans, we've already learned.
Speaker 1: Have we not learned already that alcoholism and all addiction
Speaker 1: is a brain disease that follows the brain disease model
Speaker 1: these days, you need treatment. Well, that's the whole stupid
Speaker 1: American idea that I talked about, was that some people
Speaker 1: feel like they deserve to be homeless. They see him
Speaker 1: on the street and they think, what did you do
Speaker 1: to get here? Yeah, instead of what can I do
Speaker 1: to help you? Yeah? Well, this is touched a nerve today.
Speaker 1: It's homelessness. Really shocked. But I'm glad, I'm angry, That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Okay, I'm glad you're angry too, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So Josher's uh, let's talk about some of the effects.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these you can file under duh.
Speaker 1: But it bears saying, well, you're talking about women's shelters. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: women's shelters only let in women. And if you have
Speaker 1: a teenage son, do you can kiss him goodbye? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So bye bye family unit. Uh. Physical attacks homeless people
Speaker 1: are attacked and beaten, kicked, chained, fet on, gurnated, spray
Speaker 1: painted people, lit on fire, pet on 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 problems, asthma, ear infections,
Speaker 1: Depression anxiousness PTSD is pretty prevalent. Yeah, it's a cause
Speaker 1: of ang is caused by homelessness and not just um
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? H No? Like
Speaker 1: I I would think it can be really weird to
Speaker 1: not know where you're going to stay or did not
Speaker 1: just you know, have a hard day at work or
Speaker 1: a hard day at school and to go to know
Speaker 1: that at the end of this day. You have no
Speaker 1: idea where you're gonna sleep. Maybe you're gonna sleep in
Speaker 1: your car, maybe you're gonna sleep in the woods. But
Speaker 1: you don't get to just rest. You don't get to
Speaker 1: just take a shower, pop a beer and watch you know,
Speaker 1: TV or whatever it takes the unwine. So you're you're
Speaker 1: stress level is heightened constantly without any resolution to it.
Speaker 1: And of course you're going to suffer PTSD or at
Speaker 1: least stomach aches something bad. Adults too. It's not just kids.
Speaker 1: They can get frostbite, leg ulcers, respiratory infections, HIV and AIDS,
Speaker 1: and diabetes way more common than homeless population. So lots
Speaker 1: of health effects going on. Josh, I agree, Chuck so check.
Speaker 1: We talked about UM Reagan as both creator and alleviator
Speaker 1: of homelessness. UM. You you talked about some of the
Speaker 1: programs that the McKinney Vento Act created. UM. Some of
Speaker 1: the other programs that have been developed in the United
Speaker 1: States are UM like Section eight housing. Yeah, right, do
Speaker 1: you know about this? That's uh, well, that there's there's
Speaker 1: homeless shelters which are like the emergency beds when it's cold.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing where you can go temporarily, right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of those are I would say most
Speaker 1: I don't have any numbers on this, but I would
Speaker 1: say most of those are privately operated. Really yeah. Interesting. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there is the Section eight thing that you
Speaker 1: were talking about, which is not public housing. It's when
Speaker 1: you fill out of Section eight vulture and you can
Speaker 1: go find just a regular private apartment to rent from
Speaker 1: a landlord. It's got to fit certain requirements and if
Speaker 1: you meet all those requirements, you only have to pay
Speaker 1: third of the rent and bills and then the government
Speaker 1: pays the other straight to the landlord. So that's Section eight.
Speaker 1: But section eight, you know, they're a huge waiting list,
Speaker 1: and I read that a lot of cities have shut
Speaker 1: it down until the list gets smaller, and they're like,
Speaker 1: there's no point in keeping a list of four years,
Speaker 1: five years. We're just gonna shut it down, get the
Speaker 1: list smaller, and then open it back up in a
Speaker 1: couple of years. Yeah, So good luck getting section eight
Speaker 1: if that's what you're trying to do. And uh, you
Speaker 1: talked about did you did you mentioned public housing? Know? So, um, well,
Speaker 1: you talked about shelters. Apparently there were five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: beds and two thousand five. There's now six hundred forty
Speaker 1: three thousand or there where there wasn't two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: and about three million to three point five million homeless people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's a pretty significant increase in five years. Yea. 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 an apartment block where you go and live
Speaker 1: and you pay what you can um and as long
Speaker 1: 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. We need to
Speaker 1: talk about food banks because that's a big part of
Speaker 1: being homeless, as 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 lots of food here. Lots
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: quarter Wow. Yeah, I'll tell you what. Never go get
Speaker 1: a job in the film industry if you want to.
Speaker 1: The food waste depresses, you know, the craft services and
Speaker 1: just catering the whole thing. You know, it's ridiculous. Um,
Speaker 1: But food banks have been around since about the sixties,
Speaker 1: and that everyone knows. You can donate can goods and
Speaker 1: non perishable items and they will distribute them to uh,
Speaker 1: homeless shelters and homeless people directly sometimes, So that's a
Speaker 1: big deal. You ever volunteer or anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've done the Thanksgiving thing before. Ah, this makes me
Speaker 1: want to do more than that though, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that feels like going to church on Easter. You know
Speaker 1: we should do We should build like an addition onto
Speaker 1: your house that we can get house homeless people in.
Speaker 1: We can go there, you go chuck squat Squatville. We
Speaker 1: can put up a lean to or something that chokes.
Speaker 1: Squatville's not a bad idea job training though. I mean
Speaker 1: we 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. Yeah, 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 to write resumes, YEA,
Speaker 1: rehab rehabs a huge one, mental health treatment, UM getting
Speaker 1: people cheap drugs, like getting them to a point where
Speaker 1: they're not homeless anymore. Like it's addressed seeing the factors
Speaker 1: of homelessness. Not you don't feel like work, and so
Speaker 1: here's some money that doesn't exist. And I suspect that
Speaker 1: there's not really a desire to just have somebody to
Speaker 1: give you some money and not do anything ever and
Speaker 1: just be poor in anybody. I don't know, that's my
Speaker 1: that's my opinion. We disagree, that's awesome. Well I don't
Speaker 1: know if I disagree on that. I don't have enough
Speaker 1: time to think about that right now. All right, Uh,
Speaker 1: what can you do though? Well? You can we can
Speaker 1: build lean two's on your squatting land. You can volunteer,
Speaker 1: like you said, right, give your time. If you don't
Speaker 1: have the dough, you can give a little time. Uh.
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 dollars for on craigslistuld donate that
Speaker 1: instead write it off in your taxes, and maybe homeless
Speaker 1: people can get trained how to use that computer. Where
Speaker 1: you could donate your car. Yeah, oh yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: big one. Yeah. You can be an advocate, try to
Speaker 1: raise awareness, letter campaigns, all sorts of things you can
Speaker 1: do there. You can hire homeless people. Yes, they do
Speaker 1: have skills. As we've seen a lot of people who
Speaker 1: um are recently recently homeless may also just be recently
Speaker 1: unemployed as well and have job skills. And then the
Speaker 1: last one on the list in the article, which I
Speaker 1: thought was bring at home, great respect, huge h When
Speaker 1: you see that homeless person on the street, don't let
Speaker 1: 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, yeah, well it's you know,
Speaker 1: they make a movie about it. It It was such a
Speaker 1: big deal. Everyone knows that that that guy was homeless
Speaker 1: with a son and now he's rich. He's worth sixty
Speaker 1: five million bucks. Actually, you know what story I like
Speaker 1: better is the one in this article. The that was
Speaker 1: a guy what's his named? David? Yeah, he's he's quoted
Speaker 1: David Purtle. Yeah, he was in that respect part. He Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a just a regular dude, had a job
Speaker 1: as a restaurant manager, college graduate and for fifteen years
Speaker 1: as a restaurant manager and developed schizophrenia, got fired, ended
Speaker 1: up hitchhiking and homeless for two years on the streets
Speaker 1: of d C. And now I think he's a heading
Speaker 1: up a homeless group in d C now, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he's an executive at it. Yeah, but he's
Speaker 1: quoted in this article in the respect like what can
Speaker 1: you do? He says, Um, most of the despair and
Speaker 1: being homeless comes from being treated like you don't exist.
Speaker 1: And there's something we should point out, Chuck throughout this.
Speaker 1: It's however, many minutes into this podcast, Um, we've just
Speaker 1: now used the first homeless person's name, first and last
Speaker 1: name of the whole podcast. There's a whole conception of invisibility.
Speaker 1: The nameless they are, they're not the nameless. You can
Speaker 1: completely interchange that with the homeless that's just as faceless,
Speaker 1: just as nameless, just as genderless, just as identity lists.
Speaker 1: And um, I just want to close and get everybody
Speaker 1: to over to on design. There's this awesome blog post
Speaker 1: by a guy named John the Kara th h a
Speaker 1: c k a r A called Look or Connect and
Speaker 1: he's talking about he's using photography to demonstrate, um, how
Speaker 1: we treat the homeless and how we should treat the homeless.
Speaker 1: And there's a photography book called Shelter, and this guy
Speaker 1: roamed around Europe and took photos of homeless like impromptu
Speaker 1: makeshift shelters, of like blankets hanging over a limb, in
Speaker 1: in a in the woods or some place under an overpass.
Speaker 1: But in every single picture it's just the shelter. Not
Speaker 1: one homeless person appears in this whole book, and the
Speaker 1: care is pointing out like this is kind of emblematic
Speaker 1: of how we view the homeless. And then he was
Speaker 1: also kind of crediting a girl named Erica Schultz who's
Speaker 1: a photographer out of Seattle, and she has a series
Speaker 1: called Invisible Families and shell She photographs the homeless, but
Speaker 1: then the caption she includes captions beneath the the um
Speaker 1: photograph and it's of that person. So there's one of
Speaker 1: a little kid walking through a homeless camp and he's
Speaker 1: he's got like this bamboo stick up a right, we
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 unless fellow
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon's quotes to help him look for worms. On other days,
Speaker 1: he'd play on a pogo stick in mud puddles or
Speaker 1: with the resident cam kitten that had six digits on
Speaker 1: one paw. The bamboo stick was a gift. So like,
Speaker 1: that's a person now, not a homeless kid. That's Jack
Speaker 1: a hear in age nine. Well, and then the gentleman
Speaker 1: from DC suggests that if you have a regular walk
Speaker 1: to work in a city or something where you see
Speaker 1: the same homeless person on a daily basis, then ask
Speaker 1: them what their name is one day, call him by
Speaker 1: their name, look him in the eye. If you don't
Speaker 1: have to give him money if you don't want to.
Speaker 1: Little things like that can make a big difference in
Speaker 1: a person's self esteem and maybe allows him to view
Speaker 1: themselves as human again. And you can give them if
Speaker 1: you're worried about giving the money that they spend on
Speaker 1: alcohol or something, give them, get a get a little food,
Speaker 1: gift valcher, you know something like that. So there it
Speaker 1: is everybody our fifth summation of the podcast, fifth and
Speaker 1: final Yes, if you want to learn more about homelessness. Um,
Speaker 1: you can type that word into the search bar. How
Speaker 1: stuff works the blank generic genderless identity list search bar.
Speaker 1: Very nice. And since I said that, it's time for
Speaker 1: is it listener mailman? Yeah, And in the spirit of
Speaker 1: this podcast, we're gonna do a big old Kiva round up.
Speaker 1: You want to explain what Kiva is real quick. Kiva
Speaker 1: is a website where schmos like you and me can
Speaker 1: go and donate well, I shouldn't say donate lynn increments
Speaker 1: of twenty five dollars to entrepreneurs in developing countries and
Speaker 1: people on their way up here in the United States
Speaker 1: even uh. These loans are pulled together uh to create
Speaker 1: a larger loan which ultimately repay a loan that's already
Speaker 1: been made to the person uh, and then that person
Speaker 1: uses it for their business, repays the loan. You actually
Speaker 1: get your twenty five bucks back, that's right if you want,
Speaker 1: and you can reinvest it. And basically it's micro lending. Yes,
Speaker 1: And we have our own loan team, which we're proud
Speaker 1: to say is the number four team and members on
Speaker 1: all of keeping out. I know that's really something behind
Speaker 1: atheists number one. Christians are number two. There's like so
Speaker 1: angry and right behind the ads, and uh, Team Obama
Speaker 1: is number three and little old US are right there
Speaker 1: but in front of Australia. So let's go over that
Speaker 1: list again. Go for chuck from Wonderful Atheists of America,
Speaker 1: Christian Coalition, Team Obama stuff you should know Australia. So
Speaker 1: all pretty cool and we have, as of today, we've
Speaker 1: loaned as a collective three thousand, four hundred and six
Speaker 1: members of loan ten thou eight hundred and thirteen loans
Speaker 1: to the tune of three d and thirteen thousand, eight
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. So that is not bad. Is this gonna
Speaker 1: be up for Christmas? I? I I don't know, Jerry. Yes,
Speaker 1: we would suggest you can get a Kiva gift certificate
Speaker 1: and give it to your love one at Christmas. It's
Speaker 1: a nice little cool thing to do it, like it's
Speaker 1: stocking stuffer and they go and lend it. But ultimately
Speaker 1: if they want, they're just postponing getting that twenty five
Speaker 1: or bucks cash um for a month or two and
Speaker 1: with that repaid. Yeah it's repaid, it's not a donation.
Speaker 1: And with that here comes a listener mail because this
Speaker 1: one really got me. Uh hi two of them really quick. Um. Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: my name is Kara and I am another one of
Speaker 1: your thirteen year old fans. Just want to say hi
Speaker 1: and how much I love your show. Uh. Some friends
Speaker 1: and I make and sell jewelry and donate the profits
Speaker 1: to Kiva. That is awesome. I know you guys have
Speaker 1: your own Kiva team, and I love that you use
Speaker 1: your power to do good. Uh. Since most people haven't
Speaker 1: heard of Kiva, please mention this on your show, would
Speaker 1: be so great to get some business that we can
Speaker 1: re 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 earrings and little necklaces and rings and things
Speaker 1: 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 Uh, we usually don't plug other Kiva teams,
Speaker 1: but we're going to because this from our our buddy,
Speaker 1: sergeant newly promoted Staff Sergeant Walker, Mr Bryant, with your inspiration,
Speaker 1: I've started my own Kiva 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: Kiva 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 don't want to
Speaker 1: support the n m D. So sorry. Anyway, good holiday
Speaker 1: mojo come in your way if you get involved with
Speaker 1: stuff like this. Well, congratulations on the promotion, Staff Sergeant Walker, Kara,
Speaker 1: congratulations on being a very very cool thirteen year old,
Speaker 1: actually a very very cool person in general. That's right.
Speaker 1: Since it's around Christmas time and I'm about to weep,
Speaker 1: why don't we just bring it on home, drive it
Speaker 1: through my heart with the sweetest Christmas story you've ever
Speaker 1: heard in your entire life, that's fact based. Have you
Speaker 1: got one? No, I'm just saying I'm asking for them.
Speaker 1: I'm on the verge of tears. I want to just
Speaker 1: go ahead and have my first a little weep, be
Speaker 1: a couple of times too, Did you really? Okay? Uh?
Speaker 1: If you have a good story for us, a good
Speaker 1: holiday story, we want to hear it. Send it in
Speaker 1: an email. You can wrap it up. I have the
Speaker 1: ribbon on tight, make sure the card is attached, and
Speaker 1: send it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com for mora on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com