San Diego Homeless survey has chilling results

[FreeState]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/oct/01/san-diego-homeless-survey-results-out/

Eighty percent of those surveyed last week reported being homeless for more than a year, 76 percent reported having at least one behavioral health issue, 55 percent reported having no health insurance, 37 percent were found to have health conditions associated with a high mortality risk and 36 percent reported being a victim of a violent attack since becoming homeless.

Twenty-five percent said they were veterans. Many also reported having an income stream. Thirty percent said they get money from recycling bottles and cans, 22 percent reported getting Social Security benefits, 22 percent said they panhandle and 18 percent reported receiving food stamps.

The canvassing effort that was done on the cusp of San Diego's season of colder weather involved 240 volunteers, 180 of whom walked the streets three consecutive mornings and contacted more than 1,040 homeless people. Nearly three out of four of the homeless people who were asked agreed to be surveyed, and 556 agreed to have their pictures taken.

The effort to identify and find help for the most vulnerable people sleeping on downtown city streets was led by the Downtown San Diego Partnership and the Centre City Development Corp. in collaboration with the United Way of San Diego County, the county of San Diego, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the San Diego Housing Commission.

[itsrobert]

1. Even if you have a job here, you can't afford to live here

Rent is over $2000 a month for a cracker box. All the people who lost their homes is taking all rental property up. Rent is going through the roof.

[slackmaster]

5. I was skeptical of itsrobert's claim, so I went to the rental listings on the site linked in the op

itsrobert is right. Rents have gone up a lot.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. wow. You'd think all the foreclosures would make housing cheaper

[slackmaster]

10. It's a good time to buy in San Diego

For renters, not so good.

[FreeState]

22. That is if you can get a loan....

Seriously, it took us almost 2 years to re-finance to a lower payment without taking money out against the original loan. Its ridiculous.

[xchrom]

2. What a sad picture this paints. Nt

[county worker]

3. I use to live in San Diego. If you watched the local news at 6:00 PM (at least back when I was

watching) there was never a mention of homelessness or anything that would upset a tourist. "Just another perfect day in paradise."

I remember a day when a pregnant woman was stoned to death at a San Diego trolley stop in Lemon Grove. I was there when the police came because I drove by there everyday. I rushed home to see it on the news and it was never mentioned at all.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Omg! How could that not make the news?

:cry:

[bobbolink]

8. How? Have I mentioned that we are INVISIBLE?

[slackmaster]

25. PMFJI, but county worker did not say that the woman who was stoned to death was homeless

Or are you telling us that you are pregnant now?

;-)

[bobbolink]

30. this is serious, lives are being lost, yet you want to joke.

I'm done with this shit.

Go to the lounge with your act.

You are now on ignore, where y0u belong.

Bye...

[slackmaster]

36. I wasn't joking.

:shrug:

The death of that woman was tragic, but it really didn't have anything to do with bobbolink's pet issue.

We all go off half-cocked sometimes. Some of us deal with having those instanced pointed out to us better than others.

[dionysus]

40. i'm sure they're really broken up about being on your ignore....

:rofl:

[Johnny2X2X]

6. You stay classy San Diego

[tjwash]

14. gfy

[Dreamer Tatum]

16. Link, please. nt

[county worker]

24. If you think I am making that up your wrong but I can't prove anything to you so I don't care what

you think. It happened before there was an internet. I think that it is really funny how people believe something exists if there is a link. How foolish!

[slackmaster]

26. I believe I remember that incident. It turned out to be a gang hit of some kind.

Very ugly.

[county worker]

27. I think I remember it was gang related also. We always were told to stay away from

Lemon Grove because us gangs but that was how I got home from work.

[Liberal_in_LA]

28. I remember when they pushed the homeless out of part of downtown to build that big mall

[slackmaster]

38. Yes, they also cleaned out the historic red light district on Broadway

The homeless people and the hookers all simply moved somewhere else.

The city council passed an anti-vagrancy ordinance with a $20 fine for sleeping outdoors in public. That was quickly ruled unconstitutional.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. There were MANY stories that did not make the news

I actually killed one (out of spite)

One of our three news model anchors went down to TJ to ahem do a ride along with the cops. Lo and behold there is a fire, and there is a gas tank in the house.

Well when fire personnel drop a hose and start running that is your free clue to do the same. But no, we are Muricans and we know what we are doing! Long story short we transported cameraman to the spital with broken thigh bone... and when all was said and done the raw footage was leaked to local news media that shared with their direct competitors. I wonder how exactly that could have happened.

It was the same channel NOBODY wanted on their scenes anywhere from Rosarito to LA. No wonder they were the first to get a news chopper and not marked vans. If you live in this town and you have been paying attention you exactly what news models I am talking about.

That said, on a serious note there was one story that we needed killed, like the cops, the FBI, the Army (both sides) and a few other interests. Now THAT they wanted to jump on. Reason for that was the inevitable panic that would have resulted. But a few others that SHOULD have made it, never did.

[HockeyMom]

7. I worked with a homeless, disabled boy last year

They lived out of their van in Naples, Florida. His Dad worked in construction and when the housing market went bust, he was out of work for over 6 months, and they lost their home.

His Dad got a job in North Dakota. He was hired on a Tuesday and the following Saturday they left Florida.

[bobbolink]

11. Here is what I want you to take special note of:

"Eighty percent of those surveyed last week reported being homeless for more than a year"

"Homeless more than a year" is code (dog whistle) for "freaking nutz". "The Chronic Homeless" (notice that we are not even people, just "the"), means that we have been homeless a long time, and therefore it is obviously our own freaking fault... we are alcoholics, we are druggies,, we are NUTZ.

THAt is the constant meme, and yet... look at that survey. Do you begin to understand the lies that are pushed?

When low-income housing wait lists (*IF* there even are any!) are YEARS long, then of course, people will be homeless for years.

It doesn't take a chess player to figure that out, but people buy the lies.

[county worker]

12. I remember wing nut radio in the morning trying to get people to roust out the people living

in the canyons east of town.

[bobbolink]

13. Did you take in what I said about the code?

It is important.

It really is.

I didn't type all that for the fun of it.

It is Important.

[county worker]

23. I lost everything when I lived in San Diego, We had a brand new condo.

Then I lost my job. That was back in the early 90's. The ads read, "we are an equal opportunity employer, women and minorities encouraged to apply." That meant no white guys will be hired.

I use to go sit with the homeless people to see how they lived because I felt I would be one of them shortly. I became clinically depressed and wanted to kill myself but I ended up in a place called Halcyon in El Cajon. They kept me alive and I got a laborers job. I was sober for a couple of years and believed in the idea of turning your life over to a higher power, which is what I did. Even though her parents were telling her to leave me, my wife stuck by me all that time and I didn't think she would. We ended up in a one bedroom apartment in Lakeside.


We now have an income of over $150,000 a year and I still turn it over. I know that people think I'm a fool but I believe in the power of attraction.

What I learned by that experience is that no matter how much your life is in the crapper you have to try things to get out of the crapper. There is no guarantee that what you try will work so you try something else. There is a guarantee that things will not get better if you don't try.

[bobbolink]

31. thank you for letting me know that you *didn't* get what I was writing about.

You wanted to sermonize.

I'm glad you are so much better than the rest of us.

Maybe some day you will get it.

[dionysus]

41. what the hell? once again you lash out at someone for no reason. it makes me wonder

[Name removed]

33. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. I read last night in one of the articles I was researching about a man who said

homeless is his address, not his name.

I am going to be more careful to use the phrases "homeless people" or "people without homes" instead of "the homeless," which I feel is dehumanizing and therefore desensitizing.

[bobbolink]

18. Thank you for understanding! Dehumanizing is exactly what it is!

[Mimosa]

17. " When low-income housing wait lists (*IF* there even are any!) are YEARS long"

Bobbolink, you probably know that in East Point GA, earlier this year, more than 5,000 people showed up just to apply for a housing assistance list. And some were turned away after waiting in line for many hours.

[bobbolink]

19. The articles I read said 30,000 showed up, and 62 were injured.

[Mimosa]

20. You're right about that one, Here's the link (I was thinking of another episode)

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/analysis/in-depth/the-end-of-the-american-dream/6511702.article



Last month American police in riot gear were called out to deal with 30,000 people who turned up to a shopping centre car park in Atlanta, Georgia, in the hope of joining the waiting list for housing assistance.

Under a broiling southern sun at the Tri-Cities Plaza shopping centre in East Point, an unruly crowd broke ranks and rushed to be first in line at makeshift stations where authorities attempted to pass out application forms for a voucher that would cover part of their rent.

East Point is a city of about 40,000 people in the south west suburbs of Atlanta. Roughly 80 per cent of its residents are black and about one in every five lives below the federal poverty line.

So desperate were these residents to get hold of an application form that the movements of the mob-like crowd left 62 people injured, some of them children, mostly as a result of being trampled. Ambulances took 20 people to hospital while riot police moved in to control the crowd.

[bobbolink]

21. Notice the slant of the article?

Thank you for posting that.... I wish that people cared as much about this as about what Palin was seen wearing.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

32. This is my editorial comment on homeless people.

At my blog, La Vida Country:

http://lavidacountry.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/my-artwork/

A scene that is transformed by being witnessed by an angel of compassion.

[bobbolink]

39. Thank you for giving a link to your work! Have you done any more on this topic?

Are you willing to do more?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

34. kick for the night owls.

[grantcart]

35. I don't go downtown often but recently a friend took us to a Padre game

The homeless now stretch for blocks. Block after block after block. Families too.

Very tragic.

I understand why business owners who are affected are concerned, the whole community should be involved.

[TexasObserver]

37. recommend