4 ms·

I'd add the general lack of a social safety net, at least compared to Europe. All those people can actually become homeless.

SmellTheGlove 5y ago
Sorry, I edited in that bit just now. But yeah, I agree with you. Hell, I work in tech and do okay, and yet the thought crosses my mind that things could go off the rails quickly. If I get sick, even my relatively good insurance means lots of out of pocket costs. Plus I can't work then, so I'll live on a fraction of my income since I have decent disability coverage. I'll be able to keep a roof over my head, but probably not a lot beyond that, which negatively affects my family - particularly my child, given skyrocketing education costs. It's a weird place when you think about it. And yet most days I accept this as normal.
- necrotic_comp 5y ago
  yep - I second this. There's definitely a lurking thought about what'd happen if you're sick they find something or what happens if your landlord decides he doesn't want to rent your apartment any more, and now you have to move to a new neighborhood that's 30 minutes further away from work and less safe, or, god forbid if I had kids, in a worse district, etc. etc. I've been working at a high level for 15 years now and I feel like I'm just barely making it out of the swamp. I have no psychological safety because a single bad decision or an incident of bad luck could completely derail my life.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > And yet most days I accept this as normal. That is not a symptom, but the problem. People can normalize anything. You could normalize living like a medieval peasant - many people did. Smart people know they can just keep doing something and eventually others will accept it to a degree. You deserve better.
throwkeep 5y ago
Don't most US cities have social services that provide shelter, food and other assistance? [How nice that this is getting downvoted. It's a legit question. I have family members who are social workers and know these services exist, and it seems like it's most cities, but don't know for sure, hence the question mark.]
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Its hard enough to convince a friend to take unemployment checks, let alone go to a shelter or pull out a food-stamp debit card. There's a toxic culture in the USA that looks down upon welfare. For those people, welfare doesn't exist, even if they find themselves in that environment. And since they've convinced themselves that they'll never take welfare, they expect others to follow by their own rules. This culture leads to a particular anti-welfare voting pattern.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    You say that, but as someone from bright red Louisiana, you will find that the loudest anti-welfare ranters are the same people who are first in line for every government handout after a natural disaster.
    - throwkeep 5y ago
      The loudest "anti" voices tend to be those who engage in the very thing they advocate against. It's so common there must be a term in psychology for it.
      - quintushoratius 5y ago
        There is. It's called "projection." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
- reidjs 5y ago
  True, but in many ways I am more afraid of living in a shelter than on the street, or more realistically, in my car. In your car at least you have some sense of ownership, safety, and personal space. In a shelter you are potentially surrounded by mentally ill unstable drug addicts. It makes sense that many people refuse to use shelters. This is coming from someone who has never lived in a shelter, so I may be wrong, but it's definitely my fear and a source of motivation when working not-great jobs.
foobarian 5y ago
Is anyone really that surprised? The United States were built exactly by the folks who wanted to opt out of the overbearing, coddling European system, and it shows.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  But that European system was built long after the US became independent?
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Yeah. The truth is literally the exact opposite of what they said - early puritan settlers left for America specifically because they wanted to be controlling and overbearing and the European states they set off from were less and less welcoming to this kind of thing.
    - foobarian 5y ago
      Perhaps. I contend that the main waves of immigration in the 18-20th centuries consisted of opportunists well above average.
  - ajmadesc 5y ago
    But Americans aren't educated outside of stem > And it shows
    - viro 5y ago
      what's the homeless rate in Sweden ? Netherlands? France? I'll leave out Germany since thats a little unfair.
  - foobarian 5y ago
    There is more to it than the post-war social-democratic systems in Western Europe. Going back centuries there was never a way to up and move to an uncontrolled space and start anew like on the American continent. The entire European continent was under tight control by whatever authority there was whether church or feudal, with restrictions on movement, residence, and labor.
viro 5y ago
You might want to look up the homeless rates in the EU...
- dougmwne 5y ago
  I just did and it seems generally lower than the USA in quite a few countries. When you look state by state and country by country it becomes clear it's highly localized to certain urban areas. Plus there seems to be a difference in reporting (Germany for instance counts hundreds of thousands of asylum seeking refugees).

SmellTheGlove 5y ago

Sorry, I edited in that bit just now. But yeah, I agree with you. Hell, I work in tech and do okay, and yet the thought crosses my mind that things could go off the rails quickly. If I get sick, even my relatively good insurance means lots of out of pocket costs. Plus I can't work then, so I'll live on a fraction of my income since I have decent disability coverage. I'll be able to keep a roof over my head, but probably not a lot beyond that, which negatively affects my family - particularly my child, given skyrocketing education costs. It's a weird place when you think about it. And yet most days I accept this as normal.

necrotic_comp 5y ago
yep - I second this. There's definitely a lurking thought about what'd happen if you're sick they find something or what happens if your landlord decides he doesn't want to rent your apartment any more, and now you have to move to a new neighborhood that's 30 minutes further away from work and less safe, or, god forbid if I had kids, in a worse district, etc. etc. I've been working at a high level for 15 years now and I feel like I'm just barely making it out of the swamp. I have no psychological safety because a single bad decision or an incident of bad luck could completely derail my life.
wolverine876 5y ago
> And yet most days I accept this as normal. That is not a symptom, but the problem. People can normalize anything. You could normalize living like a medieval peasant - many people did. Smart people know they can just keep doing something and eventually others will accept it to a degree. You deserve better.

throwkeep 5y ago

Don't most US cities have social services that provide shelter, food and other assistance? [How nice that this is getting downvoted. It's a legit question. I have family members who are social workers and know these services exist, and it seems like it's most cities, but don't know for sure, hence the question mark.]

dragontamer 5y ago
Its hard enough to convince a friend to take unemployment checks, let alone go to a shelter or pull out a food-stamp debit card. There's a toxic culture in the USA that looks down upon welfare. For those people, welfare doesn't exist, even if they find themselves in that environment. And since they've convinced themselves that they'll never take welfare, they expect others to follow by their own rules. This culture leads to a particular anti-welfare voting pattern.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  You say that, but as someone from bright red Louisiana, you will find that the loudest anti-welfare ranters are the same people who are first in line for every government handout after a natural disaster.
  - throwkeep 5y ago
    The loudest "anti" voices tend to be those who engage in the very thing they advocate against. It's so common there must be a term in psychology for it.
    - quintushoratius 5y ago
      There is. It's called "projection." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
reidjs 5y ago
True, but in many ways I am more afraid of living in a shelter than on the street, or more realistically, in my car. In your car at least you have some sense of ownership, safety, and personal space. In a shelter you are potentially surrounded by mentally ill unstable drug addicts. It makes sense that many people refuse to use shelters. This is coming from someone who has never lived in a shelter, so I may be wrong, but it's definitely my fear and a source of motivation when working not-great jobs.

foobarian 5y ago

Is anyone really that surprised? The United States were built exactly by the folks who wanted to opt out of the overbearing, coddling European system, and it shows.

lordnacho 5y ago
But that European system was built long after the US became independent?
- gambiting 5y ago
  Yeah. The truth is literally the exact opposite of what they said - early puritan settlers left for America specifically because they wanted to be controlling and overbearing and the European states they set off from were less and less welcoming to this kind of thing.
  - foobarian 5y ago
    Perhaps. I contend that the main waves of immigration in the 18-20th centuries consisted of opportunists well above average.
- ajmadesc 5y ago
  But Americans aren't educated outside of stem > And it shows
  - viro 5y ago
    what's the homeless rate in Sweden ? Netherlands? France? I'll leave out Germany since thats a little unfair.
- foobarian 5y ago
  There is more to it than the post-war social-democratic systems in Western Europe. Going back centuries there was never a way to up and move to an uncontrolled space and start anew like on the American continent. The entire European continent was under tight control by whatever authority there was whether church or feudal, with restrictions on movement, residence, and labor.

viro 5y ago

You might want to look up the homeless rates in the EU...

dougmwne 5y ago
I just did and it seems generally lower than the USA in quite a few countries. When you look state by state and country by country it becomes clear it's highly localized to certain urban areas. Plus there seems to be a difference in reporting (Germany for instance counts hundreds of thousands of asylum seeking refugees).