How have environmental rule and regs worsened our housing for low income and middle class?

Because our AC died on the hottest day of the summer (95) and current EPA laws on R-22 prevent it being fixed (will have to replace) I was trying to research to what extent our energy and environmental laws have contributed to homelessness or even pricing low income out of real estate wealth or the competition for a good rental. It's only common sense that the constant drum beat of climate change on the building trades and the corresponding greater concern for mother earth than a mother in America has to hit the more fragile in the wallet. Zip, nada, zilch in the research, especially EPA and Energy Star articles. So I'll just continue to know in my gut that saving the environment is throwing a lot of people out of work and out of their homes. Soon, you may be seeing a lot of cars up on blocks as the bidenflation roars ahead.

But my eyes landed on an interesting fact sheet about homelessness in Washington DC. It decreased significantly under the Trump booming economy, but was still higher than most big cities. The January 2018 count (a point in time) showed 3,761 single adults, and 924 families (3,134 people), and 9 minors alone. So I took a closer look at the singles: 51% were chronically homeless, but only 19% of the adults in the families were chronically homeless. I think that was my big takeaway. 50% of the singles had formerly been institutionalized--from jail or hospital to the streets; 19% of the singles had a history of domestic violence, much lower than the family rate; 30% of the singles had chronic substance abuse and 32.7% had a history of mental illness; 24.6% of single homeless adults were chronically ill and 18% were disabled. Median age for the singles was 51 and for family adults 29.

 
I was a librarian not a social worker, so I won't suggest a solution, but I do know that saving families is a big part of the solution of homelessness, and housing is probably the smallest part. Families are a social safety net, and many of our government policies can't answer that need.
https://www.legalclinic.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Fact-Sheet-on-Homelessness-and-Housing-Instability-in-DC.pdf

Non-defense spending

 Six charts illustrating what is happening to non-defense spending/safety net. 6 Charts Highlight Trends Driven by Growing Nondefense Spending (dailysignal.com)

The growth of the federal budget and the debt has been driven by an unsustainable growth in nondefense spending.

These charts illustrate how we got here and the long-term consequences to our nation’s financial health.

Cancer treatment checklist

I found this at a blog written by a woman who had metastatic breast cancer. Due to HIPAA and Phil's reluctance to ask his family for assistance, we were helpless in helping him battle his disease. He was brave, determined, combative and very angry. He'd already had a stroke (retinal occlusion) and had a number of health problems which he chose to ignore. After his death I found a letter written by a cousin suggesting that he not try going through this alone, to accept help. He disregarded her, too. The mistakes I've seen were compounded by a very small thing yesterday when we received a sympathy card from the doctor he trusted most and told us never to question her advice. His name was wrong in the card! Doctors, too, are helpless if a patient is noncompliant. And he definitely was. But he had amazing faith in her, not withstanding.

Lessons Learned Checklist:

1. Expect mistakes from your health provider;

2. Ask critical questions at every visit. Take a written list of questions in order of priority. If you get home and realize something is not clear, contact your doctor again;

3. Get a friend or family member to serve as your advocate;

4. Communication between doctors is absolutely critical. If a Radiology report indicates possible metastatic disease or something equally alarming make sure you get a definitive diagnosis. Rule out the worst-case scenarios. Make sure the doctors involved have talked;

5. If you aren’t confident about the doctor’s diagnosis, ask your doctor to review your records with colleagues to see what might have been missed;

6. Get a second opinion;

7. Choose doctors who take time and listen. Ask for a copy of the doctor’s notes to ensure your issues are documented properly. This also ensures the doctor heard what you said;

8. Ask specialists to take a “fresh look” at your case;

9. Make use of hospital patient advocate resources without delay.

Drain the swamp

As socialists try to make us feel guilty for “ignoring” the poor, sick, prisoners, immigrants while quoting Bible verses--think on this.

"The Committee on the Budget in the Senate identified 83 overlapping federal welfare programs that together represented the single largest budget item in 2011 — more than the nation spends on Social Security, Medicare, or national defense. The total amount spent on these 83 federal welfare programs amounts to roughly $1.03 trillion. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the amount expended on just 10 of the largest of these programs has increased by 378 percent over the last 30 years. “

That's why a good job is the best program for the poor and low income, not another government program to fatten the bureaucracy. The Trump economy has done more for minorities and poor than guilt and smears the left can throw.

 https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-%20Welfare%20Spending%20The%20Largest%20Item%20In%20The%20Federal%20Budget.pdf

Democrat party values

I do wonder about the values of the Democrats. They say Republicans are awful, vicious, and uncaring for wanting to undo Obamacare, the only federal social plan that didn't get a single Republican vote. The social safety net is ca. 70% of the federal budget and it's bi-partisan--about $60,000 for a family of 4. The 123 wealth transfer programs support huge bureaucracies (part of the deep state) and if Trump suggests streamlining (as did Obama and Bush) the media call it taking a hatchet to the safety net, starving people and putting them on the street.

But what is worse than forcing the poor to buy a product which makes millions for the wealthy investors and face a fine and jail if they don't buy it? What is worse than destroying the health and safety network of millions just so everyone can have a form of Medicaid? Strange values indeed. All yammered by the media to mislead and get Democrats another term in office.

The Democrats' idea of helping the poor is to take as much from you in the form of taxes--income, excise, death, phone, gasoline, sales, pass through (in over under around and through), VAT, etc. then pass it back to you in grants to your states, your educational institutions, your non-profits, your interstates, your transportation bailouts and subsidies, even your churches, all with handsome salaries along the way.

The #1 way to reduce childhood poverty in the U.S.A. is marriage, and not the reinvented kind. With married parents, a child has only about 8% chance of being raised in poverty. A better house, or a better education doesn't do it. Lunch programs from USDA distributed by church volunteers doesn't make a dent. Social justice workshops and summits at your church don't either, except maybe to tamp down a little liberal guilt if the Bible falls open to Matthew 25. You can address guns, cuts in food stamps for illegals, hunger, obesity or education. Where is your concern about marriage, the number one solution?

The Christmas appeals for more safety net programs

 

 

As we transition to a Trump presidency, we'll see the anti-Trump rhetoric increase. Watch particularly for louder cries for anything with a safety net mission for the poor and low income. Despite their expansion over 60 years and 123 wealth transfer programs all of which have been bi-partisan (except Obamacare), you'll be told it is President Trump and the GOP who are the haters and stingy. So find a report published in 2015 or 2016, the height of the Obama reign with the recession over for 7 years, and keep it handy--just so you know that we are always told the programs are a failing, therefore they need to expand. 

 

"There are 42 million people in this country — 13 million of them children and over 5 million of them seniors — living in households struggling with hunger. This problem would be far, far worse if not for the nation’s very effective anti-hunger programs." (WhyHunger.org "School Breakfast at Half a Century," 2016) Every report says something similar. This time of year I am inundated with appeals from non-profits and parachurch groups to "end hunger," and "end homelessness." Often the organizations compete and work against each other.

 

The school breakfast program (about which the report discusses) has grown from about 80,000 in the first year of operation in 1966 to 14,900,000 last year. The total number of meals served annually in the program has climbed from just under 40 million in 1969 to more than 2.3 billion in 2015. If for some reason all the jobs programs of the coming administration were successful and every single mom or out of work dad had an above poverty level job, and every elderly person were reunited with family, there would be millions of government workers (housing, food, transportation, education, social work, academic researchers, etc.) out of a job, and it would start all over.

America's safety net and Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman, who hasn't been right about anything in the last two decades, claims without any evidence, the white working class is due for a rude awakening when the safety net is shredded under President Trump and a Republican Congress. I guess he thinks blacks, Asians, and Hispanics are either too rich or too poor to be included in his bullying of the working class--some members of which earn more than college grads who are paying off their loans.

Speaking of jobs, how does Krugman keep his? If he paid attention, he'd realize that the so called "safety net" has always been bi-partisan but has 80 overlapping programs causing graft and waste. (Obamacare which mandated purchase of insurance or jail and a fine was supported just by Democrats, and not even all of them.) Krugman should know that a job is always better than a government program. And Donald Trump has promised Americans they can keep their jobs. Perhaps it will be an empty promise like "keep your insurance," or "you can keep your doctor," but he's made a good start by promising tax relief to encourage American companies to come home.

The left keeps pouncing on "the white working class" which they've made synonymous with white supremacists even though exit polls show Trump only got about 1% more of the white vote than Romney did, whom the left portrayed as a rich elitist appealing only to the wealthy. Trump picked up the traditional Democrat stronghold in the so-called "rust belt" (ugly name, blue wall is better) which got no relief in 8 years of Obama whom they voted for--TWICE. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton lost a lot of the most liberal Democrats to spoiler Jill Stein. Plus, people don't like being called racist, homophobic and deplorable just because they want a good job. All the left promises is a bigger safety net, higher minimum wage, and retraining. That doesn't pay the mortgage or the college tuition for the kids.

 A lot of the so called "safety net" programs benefit the middle class most. Welfare benefits going to single parents with incomes less than half of the poverty level have decreased by 35 percent over the 1983 to 2004 period, whereas benefits to single parents making almost twice the poverty level have increased by 80 percent. 

“America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.” Nickolas Kristof.

 https://medium.com/2015-index-of-culture-and-opportunity/total-welfare-spending-63802c3b021b#.oh96ujy43

 http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2012/05/examining-the-means-tested-welfare-state