Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?"
"Plenty of prisons..."
"And the workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"Both very busy, sir..."
"Those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
The media frame was about “homelessness” but was more about Trumpian hygiene issues projected onto cleansing cities of their “filth”. But did the filthiness start with his administration. And is the next step relocating populations.
Because the homeless are unsightly… especially to foreign visitors.
If you're worth $60k, give a homeless guy $20 and you're more generous than trump
Thank you sir may I have another?
"Please, sir, I want some more.". The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear. "What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.
www.online-literature.com/...
The reason the situation has gotten worse is simple enough to understand, even if it defies easy solution: A toxic combo of slow wage growth and skyrocketing rents has put housing out of reach for a greater number of people. According to Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored housing giant, the portion of rental units affordable to low earners plummeted 62 percent from 2010 to 2016.
Rising housing costs don’t predestine people to homelessness. But without the right interventions, the connection can become malignant. Research by Zillow Group Inc. last year found that a 5 percent increase in rents in L.A. translates into about 2,000 more homeless people, among the highest correlations in the U.S. The median rent for a one-bedroom in the city was $2,371 in September, up 43 percent from 2010. Similarly, consultant McKinsey & Co. recently concluded that the run up in housing costs was 96 percent correlated with Seattle’s soaring homeless population. Even skeptics have come around to accepting the relationship. “I argued for a long time that the homelessness issue wasn’t due to rents,” says Joel Singer, chief executive officer of the California Association of Realtors. “I can’t argue that anymore.”
Homelessness first gained national attention in the 1980s, when declining incomes, cutbacks to social safety net programs, and a shrinking pool of affordable housing began tipping people into crisis. President Ronald Reagan dubiously argued that homelessness was a lifestyle choice. By the mid-2000s, though, the federal government was taking a more productive approach. George W. Bush’s administration pushed for a “housing first” model that prioritized getting people permanent shelter before helping them with drug addiction or mental illness. Barack Obama furthered the effort in his first term and, in 2010, vowed to end chronic and veteran homelessness in five years and child and family homelessness by 2020.
Rising housing costs are part of the reason some of those deadlines were missed. The Trump administration’s proposal to hike rents on people receiving federal housing vouchers, and require they work, would only make the goals more elusive. Demand for rental assistance has long outstripped supply, leading to years long waits for people who want help. But even folks who are lucky enough to have vouchers are increasingly struggling to use them in hot housing markets. A survey by the Urban Institute this year found that more than three-quarters of L.A. landlords rejected tenants receiving rental assistance.
www.bloomberg.com/...
Another similar moment occurred at the end of the press conference, when a reporter asked Trump about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s judgment that “Western-style liberalism” is obsolete. Putin was, of course, referring to the idea of republican governance developed in Europe and America. This is language that would be familiar to Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon. Trump, however, apparently believed it referred to governments on the West Coast of the United States:
- Well, again, he may feel that way. I mean, he sees what’s going on. And I guess, if you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look; and what’s happening in San Francisco and a couple of other cities which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people—I don’t know what they’re thinking.
It is not merely that Trump is ignorant of issues about which one expects the president of the United States to be at least somewhat literate—though that is clearly the case. By promising a plan in four weeks, or baiting Bay Area liberals, Trump is attempting to hide his ignorance in the face of questions he does not understand.
The bigger problem is that Trump’s answer is obviously false, Trump knows that it’s obviously false, and he doesn’t care. (“It relates to everything we’re doing,” is one of Trump’s tells, a claim that is both so grandiose and so lazy as to reveal what’s actually happening.) This is what makes it “bullshit,” in Frankfurt’s sense, rather than simply lying. He is just making things up to suit his purpose. The proof is that he does this repeatedly.