Ronald Jackson's GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES NOW: homelessness

Showing posts with label homelessness. Show all posts

The NYPD is Kicking People Out of Their Homes, Even if They Haven’t Committed a Crime

The morning of May 4, 2011, Jameelah El-Shabazz watched out the window of her Bronx apartment as a team of police officers fanned across the rooftop of Banana Kelly High School. The 43-year-old mother of five said she didn’t think much of the scene — drug raids were common in her neighborhood. As she did most…

Most Americans Are One Paycheck Away From the Street — 63% Can't Deal With $500 Emergency

Photo by Franco Folini.

By Quentin Fottrell
Americans are starting 2016 with more job security, but most are still theoretically only one paycheck away from the street.

Approximately 63% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000 emergency room visit or a $500 car repair, according to a survey released Wednesday of 1,000 adults by personal finance website Bankrate.com, up slightly from 62% last year. Faced with an emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (23%), borrowing from family and/or friends (15%) or using credit cards to bridge the gap (15%).

This lack of emergency savings could be a problem for millions of Americans. More than four in 10 Americans either experienced a major unexpected expense over the past 12 months or had an immediate family member who had an unexpected expense, Bankrate found. (The survey didn’t specify the impact of that expense.) “Without emergency savings, you may not have money to cover needed home repairs,” says Signe-Mary McKernan, senior fellow and economist at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on social and economic policy. “Similarly, without emergency savings, people could raid their retirement account.”

The findings are strikingly similar to two other reports, one by the U.S. Federal Reserve survey of more than 4,000 adults released in 2014. “Savings are depleted for many households after the recession,” it found. Among those who had savings prior to 2008, 57% said they’d used up some or all of their savings in the Great Recession and its aftermath. And another survey of 1,000 adults released last year by personal finance website GOBankingRates.com found that most Americans (62%) have less than $1,000 in their savings account (although that doesn’t include retirement or other investment accounts).

Why aren’t people saving? Millions of Americans are struggling with student loans, medical bills and other debts, says Andrew Meadows, a San Francisco-based producer of “Broken Eggs,” a documentary about retirement.

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Chicago Opens the Door to Privatizing Half its Public Housing — Thanks To Mayor Rahm Emanuel

December 1998 demolition of S. Lake Park Avenue & 39th Street Photo adapted by Ronald David Jackson
(from a Photo by Christopher Morris)

By Rebecca Burns
Chicago, long a pioneer of privatization, is poised to embark on a sweeping experiment with the city’s public-housing stock. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) plans to court private investment in as much as half of its public-housing units through the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), a new federal program billed as a way to “revitalize” housing for the poor and address a $26 billion backlog in needed repairs.

But housing advocates around the country worry that RAD is just a prelude to privatization. RAD, approved by Congress in 2011, gives local housing authorities broad latitude to raise funds, including the ability to mortgage or sell public-housing buildings. Critics believes that if public housing is opened up to the vagaries of the mortgage market and the whims of private developers, large swaths of low-income housing could wind up in foreclosure, or become luxury condos once RAD’s affordability requirements expire.

Steven Knight, supervising attorney at the National Housing Law Project, says that the program’s “stated goals are very laudable” but “the devil is in the details–local housing authorities have to get these transactions right, and if they don’t, the consequences may be severe and long-lasting.”

So, will Chicago get it right? RAD arrives in the city as the CHA is already under fire for failing to spend millions of dollars earmarked for affordable housing while amassing at least $440 million in cash reserves, even as more than 280,000 people sit on its housing waitlist. These financial shenanigans were enabled in large part by the CHA’s deregulation in 2000 under now-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s, who pushed to remove federal oversight of the housing authority’s budget as vice chairman of its board.

[...]

Chicago public housing residents’ fears of displacement have proved prescient in the past. Just 11 percent of former public-housing residents whose high-rises were demolished beginning in 1999 had returned to mixed-income developments constructed through the Plan for Transformation as of 2011. For example, Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes were once the nation’s largest public-housing project, with 27,000 residents. A $500 million redevelopment effort knocked down the complex’s 28 high-rises and replaced them with a mixed-income community of just 2,300 units.

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How Police Get Away With Murder: The "He Went for My Gun" Cover-up (Video)

The "He went for my gun" coverup was also used by the officer who murdered Michael Brown. In this case the police officers, knowing they were being video taped, engaged in a "real time" coverup by yelling "drop the gun" just before they shot the unarmed mentally impaired homeless man.

Witness says he didn't see the victim reaching for any cop's gun.

By Michael Pearson, Holly Yan and Sara Sidner,

The man who captured dramatic video of a fatal police shooting in Los Angeles said Monday he saw no justification for the weekend killing.

Why didn't the police simply "shoot the man in the leg? He's already on the ground," Anthony Blackburn told CNN.

Los Angeles police said they're investigating the shooting, the latest high profile incident involving lethal force by police in the wake of officer-involved killings in Ferguson, Missouri and New York last year.

Blackburn's video from Sunday already has been watched millions of times. It starts with a man swinging his arms at police officers near the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles' Skid Row -- a neighborhood rife with poverty.

One officer tackles him, and three others try to subdue him. At least one pulls out a stun gun and tries to shock the man.

Witness: I didn't see suspect reaching for LAPD's gun - 03:16

"Drop the gun!" a man yells.

Seconds later, five gunshots ring out, prompting shock and screams from bystanders.

RELATED STORY: LA Times Propaganda Headline — "Once a weapon is grabbed, 'all bets are off'."

"Why did y'all shoot that man?" one witness yells. "Y'all got (him) tased. Why did you y'all shoot that man?"

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Philippines Admits Homeless Families Were Hidden in a Posh Resort During Pope Francis Visit

An illustration by the anonymous art collective Pixel Offensive shows Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman, donning
the yellow color of the ruling Liberal Party and whitewashing the walls to hide street children from the Pope.

By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya
After repeatedly denying that the homeless and poor were removed from the streets of Manila in preparation for the visit of Pope Francis to the country, the Philippine government’s Social Welfare Secretary admitted to sending some 100 poor families to an air-conditioned resort in time for the papal visit.

A teary-eyed Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Dinky Soliman said in a Senate investigation meeting that her agency took them to an air-conditioned resort in Batangas to clear Roxas Boulevard, which was part of the route taken by the pope's motorcade in Manila.

The Chateau Royale resort in Nasugbu Batangas is located 90 kilometers south of the predominantly Catholic country’s national capital. The agency spent $97,600 for the six-day “family camp” supposedly as part of the Aquino government’s anti-poverty efforts. According to the agency, the training aimed to equip the participants with the skills that will help them find jobs or livelihood.

It's worth pointing out that Pope Francis, who is popular for his support for the poor, visited the country to see firsthand the real conditions of indigent and destitute Filipinos, especially the victims of typhoon Haiyan. Filipino netizens ridiculed the DSWD secretary and the administration of President Noynoy Aquino:

dear dinky soliman, kung ang itinago mo ke @Pontifex ay ang mukha mo at d ang mga homeless, mas marami sana ang natuwa sayo. :) @dswdserves
— cecille (@cecille_hbl) January 25, 2015

Dear dinky soliman, if only you hid your face from @Pontifex and not the homeless, more would have been happy with you.

hiding the poor from pope francis is purely anti poor sec. dinky soliman. #hypocrisy
— Robert Protacio (@sybillsantino) January 23, 2015

Nagmano ka pa naman kay Pope Francis Dinky Soliman! Mga walanghiya kayo!
— Alyssa Po (@alyyyssapo) January 23, 2015

And you were blessed by Pope Francis, Dinky Soliman! How shameless of you!

And witness how Dinky Soliman imagines poor people becoming a threat to the Pope's security. That stupid secretary should resign at once!
— Jude M. Mangilog (@judemangilog) January 24, 2015

Does Dinky Soliman think the Pope is clueless of the street kids fiasco?At this Info Age nobody can hide anything.
— eugenio isidro (@eugenio_isidro) January 24, 2015

Sec Dinky Soliman bakit mo naman tinago mga street children eh yan nga hhinahanap ni Pope? Nakakahiya na naman tayo intrrnational community
— Resty Mendoza (@restymendoza) January 23, 2015

Sec Dinky Soliman why did you hide the street children when they were precisely the ones the Pope was looking for? What an embarrassment we are to the international community.

Another Pixel Offensive meme shared on Facebook.

Secretary Soliman had earlier denied a news report that the department gathered and hid the poor during the papal visit. She insisted that the training given by her agency merely coincided with the visit of the pope.

After Soliman confessed about the “outing” of the homeless families, Filipino lawmakers have launched an investigation into the incident.

The poor families were taken back to Manila after the pope left the country.

Reprinted with permission from Global Voices.

America's Neo-Nazi Policing - Pt 14: Police Murder of Mentally Ill Homeless Man Sparks Citizen Rebellion in Albuquerque, New Mexico — Victim Camped In 'Unauthorized Area'

Police charge "commando style" at homeless and mentally ill James Boyd just before shooting him dead. Police dogs,
stun guns, and bean bags were used on Boyd just before the fatal moment. Why the police didn't simply surround him
and wait him out is unknown. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Erik Ortiz
The killing of a mentally ill homeless man by New Mexico cops two weeks ago was caught on camera — a disturbing scene that became the flash point for Albuquerque residents already alarmed by a rise in police-involved shootings.

Tensions boiled over late Sunday as hundreds of protesters and cops in riot gear clashed on downtown streets.

But the unrest appears far from over: Online hacktivist collective Anonymous — no stranger to fomenting outrage — has pledged to keep a cyber spotlight on the Albuquerque Police Department’s problems.

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_______________________________________________
America's Neo-Nazi Policing

Part 1          Part 2         Part 3          Part 4          Part 5

Part 6          Part 7         Part 8          Part 9          Part 10

Part 11    Part 12 Part 13    Part 14    Part 15

Part 16    Part 17 Part 18    Part 19    Part 20

Part 21        Part 22       Part 23        Part 24

$91,000 Raised for Homeless Woman Arrested for Leaving Children in Car To Go To Job Interview

Photo: Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office

By Terry Tang
A Phoenix woman arrested after leaving her two kids in a hot vehicle during a job interview is fighting to clear her name in court, with the support of a New Jersey woman who has raised more than $91,000 to help her effort.

RELATED STORY: Homeless Woman Jailed and Could Lose Custody of Children —
She Left Them in Car to Go to Job Interview

Unemployed and on food stamps, Shanesha Taylor went to the job interview last month at a Scottsdale insurance company.

The 35-year-old wasn't able to find a sitter, so she left her 2-year-old son and 6-month old baby in her Dodge Durango with the key still in the ignition and the windows rolled down an inch.

A witness found the infant crying hysterically and sweating profusely as temperatures inside the SUV exceeded 100 degrees.

Taylor was arrested after returning to the vehicle, and her tearful mugshot later caught the attention of 24-year-old Amanda Bishop of New Jersey.

Bishop said she was inspired to set up a fundraising web page for Taylor because she could relate to growing up in a family that doesn't have a lot of money.

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Police Murder of Mentally Ill Homeless Man Sparks Citizen Rebellion in Albuquerque, New Mexico — Victim Camped In 'Unauthorized Area'

Homeless Woman Jailed and Could Lose Custody of Children — She Left Them in Car to Go to Job Interview

Photo: Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office

Homeless woman jailed, could lose custody after leaving kids in car during job interview (via Raw Story )

A homeless Scottsdale, AZ woman was arrested and her children placed in protective custody after she left them in her car to go to a job interview. Think Progress reported that Shanesha Taylor, 35, left her two-year-old and six-month-old in the car…


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