Tag: poverty

Demand At Food Banks Has Soared To Record Levels All Over The United States

Why is demand at food banks all over the country higher than it has ever been before?  The media keeps insisting that economic conditions are just fine, but it has become quite obvious to everyone that this is not true.  In particular, the rising cost of living has been absolutely crushing households from coast to coast.  In the old days, most of the people that would show up at food banks were unemployed.  But now food banks are serving large numbers of people that actually do have jobs but that don’t make enough to pay for all of the basics.  The ranks of the “working poor” are growing very rapidly, and this is creating an unprecedented crisis all over America.

Perhaps you think that I am exaggerating.

Let me share some specific examples that will prove that I am not.

In Pennsylvania, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank saw “its highest need on record this past year”…

A new report shows the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank saw its highest need on record this past year. It comes as we mark Hunger Action Month across the country.

Toi Payne of Pittsburgh’s Allentown neighborhood gets emotional thinking about how the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank in Duquesne and other local pantries have been lifesavers for her for the past 30 years.

“We need these places,” Payne said. “Without the food banks, I think a lot of people would be struggling even more, you know, and it helps like the elderly and people like me that’s on disability.”

We are also seeing record demand in Montana…

North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish served 613 families a Thanksgiving meal – a record high.

They anticipate more than 1,000 food bank customers for their Christmas holiday distribution on December 18-19.

“Year round here we’re feeding over a 1,000 of our neighbors every week and the need goes up during the holiday season,” said North Valley Food Bank Director of Development Mandy Gerth.

And in the San Francisco area…

This holiday season, food banks say they’re facing greater need than ever before. In Silicon Valley, they say 1 in 6 people are coming in for food assistance. In San Francisco, that number is 1 in 5. But the organizations say donations are not keeping up with demand.

For all the food banks, December is a big month. Both in terms of need, and in terms of fundraising. And they say what happens now will impact the entire year ahead.

In some parts of the nation, food banks are absolutely shattering all of the old records.

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SF says homeless tents down 60%; homeless haven’t gone anywhere, just tentless

Amid a tightening mayoral race, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the number of homeless tents have declined 60% since peaking in July 2023. Meanwhile, homeless individuals say they’re still around and have simply ditched their tents to avoid being arrested under the mayor’s new enforcement of anti-camping laws. 

 In July 2023, homeless tents peaked at 609, and homeless vehicles at 1,058. By July 2024, those numbers had declined to 319 and 474, respectively. Since Ninth Circuit overturned a regional ban on enforcement of anti-camping ordinances in July — in a case, then ruling supported by Breed and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — Newsom has since issued an executive order banning encampments from state property and ordered municipal governments to take similar action. 

San Francisco began enforcing anti-camping laws after the ruling, arresting but not detaining homeless individuals who have refused to leave their tents. While there is no data available for August or September, the newly released October count has homeless tents and vehicles down to 242 and 548, declines of 24.1% and 3.4% respectively, since the ruling.

“Every day our City workers are out in San Francisco offering help, bringing people indoors, and cleaning up our neighborhoods and we are seeing the results,” said Breed in a statement. “We are a compassionate City that leads with services, but we also will continue to enforce our laws when those offers are rejected.”

According to the San Francisco Standard, homeless individuals are leaving their tents to avoid arrest, but are still remaining on the streets; Standard reporters found no increase in utilization of shelter or bus tickets elsewhere.

Breed and her two opponents are neck and neck, with Levi Strauss heir and homelessness expert Daniel Lurie holding a narrow lead at 51% if the election were held today in the city’s ranked-choice voting system that allows voters to rank their first 10 choices for a given office. The candidate with the least amount of votes is dropped in each round, with that candidate’s votes distributed to voters’ next preference on their ballot, until a candidate has a majority.

While Breed would get 38% of first-round votes and Lurie just 21%, Lurie’s popularity as citizen’s second choice brings him to 51% by the fourth-round. Aaron Peskin, who sits on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and thus has one of the consolidated city-county’s most powerful positions, nearly tied Lurie in earlier rounds of voting in the survey, but fell behind due to Lurie’s hold as voters’ popular second choice. 

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Minnesota food pantry bans white people, says ‘resources’ are only for ‘Black & Indigenous Folx’

A Minneapolis, Minn. food pantry is only giving food to “Black and Indigenous” people, those who are hungry and white are told not to take the “resources” available. Mykelo ‘Keiko’ Jackson, who runs the food pantry, was awarded a Minnesota State grant to open the food pantry.

The sign on the pantry reads: “The resources found in here are intended for Black & Indigenous Folx. Please refrain from taking anything if you’re not.” An August post emphasized the mission, saying “With the help of our community and MDH: African American Health Office we’ve distributed 2,249 lbs of food to Black & Indigenous Folx in North Minneapolis. This is what liberation looks like on a small scale. We’d like to say THANK YOU to everyone that has supported this initiative, donated their time or resources to be in aid of commUNITY.”

Jackson’s policy forced the food pantry to close down and open in another location. After opening on July 27 on the north side of the city, near the Sanctuary Covenant Church, Jackson let it be known that white people were not welcome to the food for the poor. Local chaplain Howard Dotson, 54, said that he went to the food pantry but was denied entry due to his race. He’s white.

“This is not building community, it’s destroying it,” he told Alpha News. “I went over there and confronted her. I told her that I saw the sign and I asked if she really thought she could take grant money from the state and discriminate against poor white people.” He filed a complaint, which Jackson said was an exhibition of his “white privilege.”

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Migration, Assimilation, and the Limits of Compassion

As I write this I am sitting on a balcony thirty feet above the Plaza Mayor in the center of Madrid Spain. Madrid is a fantastic city and, in my opinion, one of the last cities in the world where the idea and reality of what a healthy city should be still exists. This is my sixth visit to Spain where my wife lived during her Junior year of college, and brought me shortly after we were married. This trip is even more fascinating than the others. The reason for the difference is due to the dismaying contradictions posed by an exciting, safe, and strongly interactive urban giant such as Madrid and the declining, almost Third World, cities that now characterize much of America.

Madrid is dynamic, energetic, diverse, and full of an amazing range of disparate people, both residents and a horde of extremely varied tourists from seemingly everywhere. That spirit is disappearing in Western European nations that are struggling to cope with a flood of immigrants—legal and otherwise, as well as a generation of migrants from other lands who for a variety of reasons have failed to culturally or politically assimilate into the nations that provide homes, education, and opportunity. For some the issue even goes beyond non-assimilation. A significant number of second-generation individuals whose families migrated to Europe detest or hate the new nation of their birth and maturation.

Examples are easily found. Paris is experiencing serious ethnic strife and conflicted diversity related to a disturbing degree of non-assimilation of new entrants. London, where I lived on three occasions and still love dearly, is barely holding on to the vestiges of its cultural identity as a flood of migrants from cultures extremely different from what has been called “Britishness” have supplanted a significant part of London’s spirit and culture. The more cynical have even referred to London as “Londonistan.”

Stockholm is beset with rising crime, addiction, and “culture shock” as a result of large-scale immigration into what had been a well-intentioned immigration policy by a compassionate Swedish nation. The conflict over immigration doesn’t stop there. Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and Denmark are increasingly “closing the gates” in an effort to protect their traditions, identity, and culture.

In America, cities such as New York, Washington, DC, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and a disturbing number of other significant urban areas are disintegrating, and with crime, homelessness, and educational dereliction.

I am sharing these thoughts because of my concern about the inability of major Western democracies to cope with the massive flow of migrants and refugees from disadvantaged and dangerous countries who seek new lives for themselves and their children because they are trapped in a vicious reality of authoritarian and dictatorial regimes, little or no opportunity, corruption, and violence. The World Bank, United Nations, and other institutions have predicted huge movements of refugees taking place between Third or Fourth world nations, those in which conflicts and persecutions exist that create special levels of danger and persecution for identifiable classes of people to the degree they deserve to be termed “refugees” under international law. Along with this are people granted Temporary Visa Status due to natural disasters or war in their countries.

All that sounds great in the abstract as a matter of compassion. But the US and Western Europe appear to be the only nations that are expected to take care of the tens of millions of people who leave their own country for various reasons, including economic advantage, while the rest of the world somehow escapes any responsibility to contribute to the alleviation of what is happening.

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Bill Gates uses vaccines and genetically modified crops to impoverish and reduce the world’s population

Bill Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has funded various scientific research programs and vaccination initiatives, such as “Grand Challenges Explorations.”

It’s not only his investment in vaccines globally that is the problem.  He has also invested in companies that contribute to poverty and pollution and seeks maximum returns on his investments regardless of the social cost.

Gates’ advocacy for vaccines is intertwined with population control, with many concluding his true interest is in reduced fertility or even the elimination of a significant portion of the world’s population.

In addition to vaccines, he has also supported genetically modified organisms in food, which have been linked to health and environmental issues such as the development of super-bugs and super-weeds.

His Foundation has invested in genetically modified crops research, claiming to help African farmers grow their own food but it has led to dependence on large corporations for seeds, pesticides and equipment.

You probably think the above is an introduction to an article written fairly recently, but it’s not.  The article that follows was written 9 years ago.

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California County Fines Man $120,000 for Refusing to Evict a Family From His Property

Hundreds of people live in trailers and campers on the streets of Santa Clara County, California—a very visible sign of the ultra-expensive county’s homelessness crisis.

Despite the scale of vehicular homelessness in the county, county officials have spent years focusing their enforcement actions on a single trailer parked on private property.

For years now, winery owner Michael Ballard has allowed his longtime vineyard manager, Marcelino Martinez, and his family to live rent-free in a trailer parked on the winery’s property.

County officials say this violates a county ordinance prohibiting recreational vehicles (RVs) parked on residential parcels from being used as dwelling units. Therefore, Martinez’s trailer has got to go.

Ballard has been trying to fix the violation by building a permanent home for Martinez and his family on the property. But getting all the needed permits from the county for that home has taken years.

In the interim, Ballard has refused to evict Martinez’s family from the property.

“I’m not going to remove this trailer because that will cause them to be homeless and I’d be putting this family on the street and I’m not going to do that,” Ballard tells Reason.

In response, the county has issued Ballard daily fines for every day he refuses to remove the trailer. These fines total some $120,000.

Ballard is now suing the county in federal court, arguing the fines violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on excessive fines.

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HUD Explores Cash over Housing Vouchers

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is toying with the idea of providing American renters cash aid instead of vouchers. Current vouchers only demand that tenants pay 30% of their income on rent, while the US taxpayers foot the rest of the bill. The department says it is still too difficult for would-be tenants to use these vouchers and would like to provide them with cash to use as they see fit.

Pilot programs are appearing across America. Philadelphia swapped out vouchers with cash for 300 renters across the city. Since the government is incapable of efficiently running these smaller programs, the waitlist for housing vouchers in Philadelphia overwhelmed the city to the point that it was shut down for a decade. Those in the pilot program earn under 50% of the local median income with a child under the age of 15. Not only is their portion of rent reduced to 30% of income, but the government has provided them with debit cards to cover the additional portion of rent. Technically, they can spend it however they see fit.

Housing development agencies say cash is preferable to vouchers as landlords bypass discrimination laws and are more likely to reject potential tenants who use government vouchers. If someone has a business, does it not make more sense that they would be hesitant to partner with someone who they know cannot pay? Advocates believe “red tape” items like unit inspections are causing delays. Advocates also insist that providing cash will directly will help these people move to safer neighborhoods, neighborhoods where the residents work and pay their share of taxes into the system. These people insist that everything should be done to provide for those who remain underemployed or underemployed without addressing the root problem.

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Electric Vehicles for the Impoverished

Dear Readers: everyday we are bombarded with stranger than fiction news regarding “green energy”, “global warming”, and EVs.

Sorting through all the absurdities takes time, so for your convenience, here I present a specially curated nugget.

In my ramblings and basura sorting, I recently identified an exotic niche EV curiosity: a Washington State program that promotes and subsidizes EVs for folks at or below poverty level, defined as a 4 person household that brings in less than $93,000/year, or per guidelines below:

The million dollar question: why does a person at the poverty level need an EV?
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these less than fortunate people don’t need or want an EV, but would instead better benefit from a reliable ICE car or hybrid that gets decent mileage, right?

Is the EVs for the Impoverished Program a ploy to get rid of EVs sitting moribund at dealerships with no takers?

Or perhaps the program is yet another example of white-guilt virtue signaling per this report: “Most US car owners would benefit from EV switch, but lowest-income Americans could be left behind: study”

Whatever the case, the hit to taxpayers is quite significant, as backed out of the data shown below.

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Newsom issues executive order for removal of homeless encampments in California

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Thursday to direct state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments, a month after a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces.

Newsom’s order is aimed at the thousands of tents and makeshift shelters across the state that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks. The order makes clear that the decision to remove the encampments remains in local hands.

The order comes after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces. The case was the most significant on the issue to come before the high court in decades and comes as cities across the country have wrestled with the politically complicated issue of how to deal with a rising number of people without a permanent place to live and public frustration over related health and safety issues.

“There are simply no more excuses. It’s time for everyone to do their part,” Newsom said in a statement.

While Newsom cannot order local authorities to act, his administration can apply pressure by withholding money for counties and cities.

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Portland enforces homeless camping ban after SCOTUS ruling, county continues giving out tents

After Portland, Oregon, announced it would implement a ban on homeless street camping and impose fines or jail time for those who refuse shelter, Multnomah County says will continue distributing tents and tarps to homeless individuals despite the city’s efforts. The news comes just as the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that cities can remove homeless encampments from public property.  

On Monday, the city announced that it would start enforcing the new ban which applies to any homeless person offered reasonable shelter who refuses. Violators could be fined $100 or jailed. The ban also prioritizes targeting camps that pose significant health and safety risks in the community.  

Despite the city’s ban, the county will keep handing out tents and tarps, aiding those living on the streets, according to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, per KATU News.   

“We’re not stopping handing out tents and tarps. We’re just not going to be purchasing any more,” said Pederson. “We do have supplies on hand that are sufficient for the needs we have right now.”  

On Wednesday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler criticized the county’s actions, explaining, “It doesn’t make any sense that with 6,000 homeless people on our streets that we would hand out more than 6,000 tents and nearly five times that many tarps.”  

The city and county are currently in the middle of negotiating a three-year homeless response plan. Pederson emphasized she wouldn’t be pressured to stop distributing tents and tarps to reach a new deal.   

“If anyone was going to be using this to have an ultimatum about what our policy was going to be, that’s not something I was going to stand for,” she said.  

Responding to questions from KATU about the city and county’s relationship, with the county distributing tents and the city enforcing the ban, Pederson remarked, “I think it’s a sign of where we are right now, where we don’t have enough capacity within our existing system for shelter.”  

Mayor Wheeler responded to the same line of questioning, stating, “I think it says you have two separate governments.”  

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