Strange video with a question about one part

[kinnip]

I remember driving a classmate home in high school, 1990ish. This was in Meridian, MS. Her neighborhood was a huge amalgam of odd cuts of plywood, corrugated metal and trash bags. They had chickens running everywhere and what looked to be a dozen people per shack. There must've been hundreds of them. They even had mail boxes so they could get their government "paychecks". Shanty towns are nothing new. MP can probably tell you some stories about what goes on in D.C. It's pretty appalling considering our well-to-do goobermnet representatives drive by cardboard communities every day then walk right into the Capitol and vote themselves a raise.

 

[DTchickens]

Quote:
whoa. thats my city... i guess it isn't possible but i've never seen it. of course i dont go to town much either

 

[kinnip]

It's been a long time since I've been to Meridian (Navy brat). It was near the train tracks. I want to say it wasn't far from the big lumber yard, but I haven't been there since '92.

 

[HennysMom]

I worked at Bolling AFB and the Pentagon - so I had to drive into DC and the Navy Yard every day, did it for 10 + years...

Its appalling needless to say.... and admittedly, I was terrified to get out of my car on some days when I needed gas when I ran out - and I did a few times, but was terrified - so I made sure I always filled up BEFORE I left to drive to work.

Sad, but true...

 

[DTchickens]

Quote:
oh yeah, i know where thats at. (if im correct) Its the "Ghetto" now,

 

[MissPrissy]

I do the paper work for our local food bank. People really play their cards and gamble with what they can get for free. I am the one that catches the game players. It is the game playing majority that makes it bad for the people who are really in need. some of them have enough elatives they play the circle and collect from more than one food pantry charity.

Then there is the cycle that prevails with women especially. I have seen 4 generations of women come in for food every single month and have a live in man on their household list that 'can't find work' and have several children in tow. Great grandmother, grandmother, daughter and a teen mother working the system. They all get food stamps and a gov't check, living in the same gov't housing complex

When bags and boxes are packed I have seen people turn down food items and say we aren't poor enough to have to eat that (dry beans, rice, pasta, deer meat, etc).

HUH?

If they won't take what is being offered they have never really gone hungry or had to do without.

Many of the people that get handouts don't deserve them.

It is my position that in order to collect food stamps, welfare checks, charity from local harvest food banks, etc - the recipients that are able should have to volunteer in some way helping others - then they learn how to help themselves.

 

[HennysMom]

I AGREE 100% Miss Prissy -

to get it...you have to give BACK and it should be on a time-frame basis (i.e., we will give you assistance for 8 months, but in that 8 month timeframe you must accept the first job that WE think is acceptable/meets income to what others are making/busting their rumps out in the real world).

After that - all bets are off.

Sort of like these kids that have babies "oh I want a baby, but have no job, no education, no nothing, but I'll let the gov't pay for it like my mom does"

 

[whatsup chickenbutt]

this is nothing new. It just so happens that the media can sensationalize it now to some political gain. There are tent cities all over the place in America, and always have been, and the sad truth is the majority, (I DID NOT say all) are there by their own accord. Not because they would say they WANT to be there, but because the lifestyles they CHOOSE put them there. Of course they will all tell you they would rather be somewhere else. But their actions speak otherwise. I owned a business in a part of town that was full of homeless people. I saw them and spoke with them on a daily basis. Most of them were very nice, but I saw the opportunities they had to better themselves and the choices they made to, instead, stay in the condition they were in. The reality is there is a lower class of people that just dont have the drive to succeed. I am not denying that people fall on hard times, and hard working people will find themselves in a situation that calls for desperate measures, but the majority of those people are not them.

 

[andorraclaim]

I think most tent cities in the south are not by their own accord. Google persistent poverty counties, it's a term the government uses to classify places that do not grow economically. The majority are in the south (old confederacy). Cameron Park in Brownsville, Tx is the poorest place in the US. Almost everyone lives on 6k a year or less. That's less on what people in Guatemala live on. And it's because of one thing only; they are native, natural born citizens who are non-English speaking. Read up on it. And let's refrain from saying anything like "Well maybe they should learn the language of the country!" They didn't hop no border, it crossed them.

I think the point of the LA tent stories, is that this is happening in LA - not the deep south. And some living in those cities are there because of the mortgage/economic crisis. Not everyone who is worst off than you is a lazy, drug using has-been.

 

[HennysMom]

yes but one can move to a better location if the pay is only 6K a year, it is possible, its done all the time - if one truely wants to better themselves and their families. Its how this great nation was born; people came here from everywhere with nothing more than mere pennies in their pockets and better'd themselves, learned the language and made it. If they are native, natural born citizens - then they should speak English, no excuse for not speaking it. Our kids are required in our school systems to take foreign languages, it is mandatory as a requirement to graduate, it is required in college. On every single item I purchase, in every single place I go now, someone is speaking another language - every menu is in Spanish and in English - and thats just been in the past few years. Why is that? English is our language - didnt know we were bi-lingual as a nation and now "Spanglish" is our new language. Sorry - to me we are all Americans - not "White-American", "African American" "Mexican-American" "Latin-American" "Blue-American" "Orange American" "Rainbow-American"

You get the idea - We're just Americans - plain and simple.

Sorry, I dont buy it. I can see both sides of each, as I said..but...there are people that choose to be in certain situations while others are out there actually trying to better their circumstances.