Showing posts with label Homelessness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homelessness. Show all posts

Friday, February 3, 2023

The Homeless Deserve More

 

There are a number of reasons people become homeless, neither of them as important as finding that person or persons shelter. We gave a person on the street money recently and he was overjoyed to receive it, followed by a multitude of thanks. It was cold that day here in Phoenix and as we drove off from the Costco, I wondered where he would sleep that night, expected to be in the 30s to 40s. The desert can be brutal after the sun goes down with some pretty low wind chills.

The Phoenix government says...
PHX C.A.R.E.S. sends trained outreach teams, who take the time to build rapport and trust with people on the street, to encourage them to accept the services and resources that are offered to help end their homelessness.

I wonder if they helped our homeless friend? But, Phoenix has established a Strategies to Address Homelessness Task Force that has found 3,096 on the street in the city, 5,029 in Arizona's largest county, Maricopa, They found them, now what are they doing? Here are a few of the efforts...

  • $10 million to purchase a hotel to house homeless military veterans
  • Summer heat relief at the Phoenix Convention Center
  • Refurbished public housing increasing access to affordable energy-efficient apartments
  • $20 million annually for city services related to homelessness, including services providing shelter for 5,430 individuals and families
  • Partnerships with community organizations including UMOM, CPLC, Native American Connections, Justa Center, St. Vincent de Paul and others.
There's more you can see here. This is what they are doing in Phoenix and Maricopa County, Arizona. Later Nasty Jack Buzz will explore what is being done about homelessness nationwide.   READ MORE...

Monday, October 7, 2019

Mark Zuckerberg says billionaires don't deserve to have that much money


MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2019 NEWS BYTES

Mark Zuckerberg wants to give up his billionaire status...  

Mark Zuckerberg video on no one deserves this much money...

  
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, is a billionaire with a net worth of almost $70 billion in 2019. On the other hand, he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, "have promised to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares to help charity via their philanthropic organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative." I emphasized the "promised," because I have never trusted this guy since his blatant arrogance of doing what he damn well pleased with your personal information on Facebook. I give him nothing he can sell. Just recently,,,
"Facebook must pay a record-breaking $5 billion fine as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, by far the largest penalty ever imposed on a company for violating consumers' privacy rights," according to USA Today.
Facebook $5 billion fine...



There's more...
Zuckerberg has appeared in congressional hearings after the Cambridge Analytica scandal surfaced. Facebook suspended the data analysis and political consulting firm in March 2018 for improper access to user data. That move came after The New York Times and U.K.'s The Observer said Cambridge Analytica had access to 50 million profiles and used them to target ads during the 2016 presidential election campaign.
And Facebook is accused of not warning its users of the fact that they were at risk for a data breach, "which left around 29 million user accounts open to hackers," reports techradar. Hackers were stealing FB "access tokens," a problem known for years by the social media giant, but failed to fix it, despite knowing. Which prompted more blatant arrogance from Facebook...
“Even more egregiously, Facebook took steps to protect its own employees from the security risk, but not the vast majority of its users.”
Mark Zuckerberg and his wife donated $100 million to Newark public schools, also to disease issues, and then $1.2 billion by the two to their Chan Zuckerberg Foundation for education, housing, science and improving the criminal justice system. But Warren Buffett is the most charitable billionaire, followed by Bill Gates. Here's the WB/BG giving pledge explained by Vox...
"In 2010, the two of them launched a campaign that they hoped would change philanthropy: the Giving Pledge. The idea was to persuade their fellow billionaires to pledge at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity. It was greeted with enthusiasm.
That claim seems to have been borne out — as far as it goes. Ten years later, we are in a position to evaluate some of the effects of the Giving Pledge. Hundreds of billionaires have signed on, with Bloomberg and other big names like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Mackenzie Bezos among them. More than $500 billion have been pledged, and money is already being donated to a range of causes."
Melinda Gates on Warren Buffett/Giving Pledge...


But on the downside of the wealthy as of 2018, according to Poverty USA:

  • 16.2% of children live in poverty
  • 9.7% of seniors live in poverty
  • 25.4% of Native Americans live in poverty
  • 20.8% of Blacks live in poverty
  • 10.1% of Whites live in poverty
  • 10.1% of Asians live in poverty

 $19,985 is considered the poverty level for a family of 3, but what is worse, 5.3% of the population—or 17.3 million people—live in deep poverty, with incomes below 50% of their poverty thresholds. And 29.9% of the population—or 93.6 million—live close to poverty, with incomes less than two times that of their poverty thresholds. Even more serious, a total of 552,830 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2018. This number represents 17 out of every 10,000 people in the United States. There is no justification I know of for this statistic in America.

I am sure all of the above group agree fully with the Facebook CEO's words. But, is there a way to end poverty?...
Jeffrey Sachs, as one of the world's leading experts on economic development and the fight against poverty, stated that the cost to end poverty is $175 billion per year for 20 years.
So why don't we line up Warren Buffett's group of Giving Pledge billionaires to each contribute the $1.75 billion needed each year and by 2013, at least homelessness will be solved to the best of our ability. That is the most critical of the two, and then turn the attention to helping those at the poverty level. It sounds like a plan to me, and I would hope the Giving Pledge group would also. And by the way, Mark Zuckerber's billionaire status is not completely his fault; he is just the messenger. The fault is you, readers giving up all your personal data that Facebook sells for billions. Think about it.


Friday, May 10, 2019

Trump going to penalize those on poverty line even more


The "great humanitarian" is "considering changing the way the government measures poverty." According to anti-poverty groups it could "push many low-income individuals off assistance programs such as food stamps, Medicaid and Head Start." That starts the report by NPR and it only gets worse. Arloc Sherman of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says...
"this change would mean that millions of people eventually could see their benefits either reduced or eliminated because they wouldn't be considered as poor as they were under the old measure."
Sherman continued...
"'They [the Trump administration] have a goal, and the goal is to cut people of low or moderate income off of government assistance.' He noted that the idea is being floated at the same time that the White House is proposing work requirements and steep budget cuts for safety net programs."
A notice of the possibility of changing the poverty calculation appeared in the Federal Register seeking public comment. NPR reports: "The current poverty line for a family of four is about $26,000. Each year, the government adjusts the line for inflation based on the consumer price index." An alternative being considered...
"is whether to use a version called the 'chained CPI,' which is lower than the rate currently used. The chained CPI assumes that as the prices of goods go up, individuals substitute less expensive items, thereby reducing their overall expenses."
Although both George W. Bush and Barack Obama tried to sell this approach, which economist do think is "a more accurate way to measure inflation," apparently they were never able to get it passed. And even though the bill is very controversial among anti-poverty forces, some say it is imperative to measure inflation correctly. On the other hand, homelessness, which is often caused by those at the poverty level losing what little help they get, goes up.

In Arizona's Maricopa county where I live, Phoenix residents have reported 1,500 homeless encampments, revealing that there are 6,614 people homeless, up 316 from last year. The local paper says...
"Unsheltered homelessness used to be a small percentage of the overall homeless population. In 2014, it made up 22 percent of the population. This year, it's nearly 50 percent."
One might ask, is this increase due to the effects of the policies of the Donald Trump administration? And now he wants to take away more from this group? 

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