16 ms·

Amsterdam supermarket offers free groceries, life coach to struggling families

186 points by zerof1l 4y ago

shdon 4y ago
Dang, gotta find out how to donate to this.
- tinco 4y ago
  You can donate here: https://studiezalen.com/doneren/ https://studiezalen.com/doneren/ They have raised 250.000 to fund this supermarket. Beyond the fact that a notable newspaper reported on it (Parool) I can't vouch for it other than that link really is their donation page.
- kvdveer 4y ago
  Here you go: https://studiezalen.com/doneren/ https://studiezalen.com/doneren/. That's the donation page for the organization that's making this happen. They focus primarily on education, and found out that undernourishment or the threat thereof is really detrimental for education. That's why they started this project. Alternatively you could move to Amsterdam or Zaandam and pay your taxes. This kind of organization lives off government subsidies, donations are just an extra. Last year their total income was 2.1 million euros, although they do not specify how much of that is from donations. Here's their annual financial report (extended report available through their contact form): https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/publicatiestukken-SZ-2021-website.pdf https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/publicati... Here's their annual non-financial report (i.e. formal newsletter): https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Jaarverslag-2021-final.-1.pdf https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Jaarversl... All of these are in Dutch.
  - shdon 4y ago
    Living in the south of the country (near Breda), I wouldn't be caught dead in Amsterdam and I despise the city. But this is certainly a worthy cause, so I'll gladly donate.
AdrianB1 4y ago
This looks like a combination of supermarket and charity; both are great, but does the combination make sense? A regular supermarket is a for-profit legal entity, a charity usually has tax-exemption, how can one manage the legal complications of mixing it?
- luckylion 4y ago
  What's the complication? Their supermarket seems to be "shop normal items, sit down for a session with a social worker instead of paying", so they don't have a commercial interest. Seems like a good approach to get people the items they need and also reaching them with social work and understanding their needs and what problems they might need help with.
  - ambrose2 4y ago
    So where is the money coming from? Can they sustain the program? Who decides the cutoff? Do they get tax exemptions to write off the losses?
    - kvdveer 4y ago
      > So where is the money coming from? Municipal subsidies, private and corporate donations. I assume a municipal social worker decides who gets in and who does not. This is a really common approach in the Netherlands, which has been going on for decades for other projects. I can't remember any news articles mentioning significant problems with this approach. This looks to me like an extended "voedselbank" which involves social work. I don't see anything truly novel or problematic with this approach.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      > So where is the money coming from? Donations, apparently, likely both monetary and products. > Who decides the cutoff? They mentioned in the article that they're not a food bank, and they don't need proof of poverty. Since they connect the "shopping" to working with one of their life coaches (I don't know how often or how long you need to talk to them), I guess that's a deterrent against random rich people getting their diapers there. Or maybe they do, because they also want to talk to someone about their life, in which case I suppose they're also the target audience. I have no clue about the sustainability or tax exemptions. It sounds like the supermarket is a way to get more people in the community in contact with their social workers. Outreach programs aren't that rare, the combination with a supermarket is, but it doesn't strike me as that odd.
clnq 4y ago
I wonder how effective life coaching is to people in poverty. The condition seems to have a risk of just humiliating those who are poor. Do they have the scale to do this for 80 families or more, or is it more of a rush job with the usual life advice those who are rich patronizingly give to those in poverty?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Manfred 4y ago
  These coaches are usually people who come from the same families and neighborhoods that face these kinds of problems. Help with navigating government programs and simple tips and tricks with finances can make a huge difference.
  - hnhamdani 4y ago
    I think this is more of the case. I used to live around the described neighborhood. It was an area with a notorious reputation as 'ghetto' where certain ethnic of immigrants live. I personally have no problem other than the casual nuisance and I have positive experience overall during my stay over there for a couple of years. The founder of the supermarket/umbrella foundation seems to have the similar background as the people live in the area. Thus, I think he has insight on what the community needs and how to help them.
- jvm___ 4y ago
  Have you tried not being poor? Life coach is dependent on the opportunities available to that family, otherwise the life coach might just be left with cutting the only entertainment or treat food the people buy to alleviate some of their daily stress.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Life coaching could mean things like, here's how to open a bank account, here's how to navigate all the low income programs offered by the government, here's how to enroll in community college or a trade school, here's a local code bootcamp, here are the local food pantrys and their hours, here is a low cost daycare option, etc. All the things middle class people take for granted because its either irrelevant to them, or their parents who already understand these systems help them figure it all out.
rbanffy 4y ago
It's a nice reminder that everybody wins when nobody loses. Life isn't a zero sum game.
- ljf 4y ago
  So many people seem to forget that - helping those with the least, helps us all. From a purely mercenary point of view, it helps build you more customers and more skilled workers.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    Poverty is costly, and if your region has a social safety net that includes healthcare, thus resolving poverty will save tax payers in the long run. But from the mercenary point of view, I think reducing poverty is worth it from a security and quality of life point of view. If public spaces are dangerous that is no good for people and poverty also degrades peoples quality of life, examples like not having to step over homeless people outside your front door don't really have dollar values, but they make people happier.
    - vasco 4y ago
      > examples like not having to step over homeless people outside your front door don't really have dollar values Not trying to be crass but that's literally reflected in the real estate prices. Homes in areas with lots of homelessness and related crime in the area will have lower prices than equivalent homes somewhere else. It does have a dollar value.
      - newsclues 4y ago
        Sure, everything has a dollar value if you drill down far enough. But it's not extra money in your pocket if you don't sell your property.
      - pipodeclown 4y ago
        Sure... You could also reframe it as the cost of building a big gate around your low homelessness neighborhood to keep the homeless out and to have security personelle to boot them out of the neighberhoud if they do get in...
jmyeet 4y ago
It is nice to see things like this but we shouldn't forget that we can't charity our way our of systemic problems. Example: the recent MrBeast video where he restored sight to 1000 people [1]. Really, this should make you angry at a system that allows people to be virtually blind when fixing it is so cheap. It makes no sense from an economic standpoint. People who can see can be way more productive (let alone all the personal benefits of course). But we don't do that. Why? To protect private health care profits. There is absolutely enough food and shelther available on this planet for every man, woman and child to have a roof over their heads and enough to eat. It is a choice to deny it to them. Why? So a handful of people can become obscenely wealthy. That's it. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2ifmkGGus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2ifmkGGus
- xyzelement 4y ago
  There's a chicken and the egg problem here. The reason our country/world has so many resources, is because people with a commercial interest worked had to develop/build it. Like, our medicine is amazing because there historically has been so much money in it, which attracted talent and research dollars. So it's easy to look at that and say "oh wow we have so much, how can we not be giving it away for free" but that misses the point that with that mindset, we wouldn't have built what we have to begin with. People often fail to understand that it's a balance.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    I don’t actually know if we have stuff because of commercial motivations. The guys who discovered insulin didn’t do so out of commercial desire. Neither did the people who figured out vaccinations. There are inventors who make money off of their inventions, but they are often poor salespeople and are mostly tinkerers.
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      These are fair points but they are individual rather than systematic. Was in the hospital with my mom a few weeks ago, in NYC. The amount of equipment, procedure, etc she received was orders of magnitude beyond that which she would have gotten in the USSR where she grew up, and most places today. For every piece of equipment, mobile bed, ekg, sensor, sample etc - here's a company that makes that stuff, efficiently and at scale. They are driven by the fact that hospitals buy this stuff, which is in part driven by the patients and insurance ability to pay. Money makes this stuff go round. And yes a homeless person walking into the ER gets a benefit out of all this stuff for free - but only because everyone else pays for them. If nobody paid for it, it wouldn't exist.
jiggywiggy 4y ago
Somehow the forced coaching feels patronizing.
- kvdveer 4y ago
  There already is the 'voedselbank', which does roughly the same thing without the life coach. People can choose what will help them best.
  - jiggywiggy 4y ago
    Not really sure why the fact that other services exist make this service less patronizing. Basic assumption is, we know you need coaching, you probably won't take it, so we will bribe you with basic necessities. It might work or might not, but it's patronizing for sure.
    - alright_scowl 4y ago
      I think the basic assumption is "you need help, and we are willing to help you". I guess it all comes down to what "life coaching" means in this context. If we are talking about some sort of social assistants that will understand what ails the people in need and help them find a way around their issues (e.g.: navigate state bureaucracy, acquiring some basic qualification, find help with rehabilitation, etc) I see no downside. Instead of seeing this as patronizing, I actually see it as quite humane.
      - akira2501 4y ago
        It's presumptive that any problem you might have could possibly be solved by a state paid "life coach." I'm sure there's a segment of the population that could use this, but likewise, I'm sure there's a segment of the population that's facing unique enough circumstances that a "life coach" would come off as a slap in the face.
dandanua 4y ago
Meanwhile, in Russia some supermarkets use locks on garbage cans, so that poor won't gather around in the search for outdated food.
- euroderf 4y ago
  Meanwhile, some American stores were pouring motor oil over discarded food to prevent foraging, until exposure and a public outcry.
  - is_true 4y ago
    Wow. That's bad in so many levels. One thing is to avoid other people to get the food but that method also pollutes a lot of water.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      My advice here is to be skeptical of outlandish claims on the Internet.
      - troupe 4y ago
        I think the health department in several places has put bleach on food that people were trying to distribute to the homeless. The logic was that the food wasn't prepared to commercial standards. https://nypost.com/2018/11/12/health-department-poured-bleach-on-food-meant-for-the-homeless/ https://nypost.com/2018/11/12/health-department-poured-bleac...
        rootusrootus 4y ago
        Thanks for the link. That article is a bit one-sided and from a questionable news source, so I looked for a bit more nuance and found some here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/13/kansas-city-health-officials-pour-bleach-food-made-homeless-warning-volunteers-stop/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/13/kansas-city... At least it's not motor oil. They seemed to have a kinda-sorta-plausible excuse for the bleach, but it sounds like they've made an internal decision that it was an overreaction and they stopped doing it. But I kinda see their point, too -- random people making food and handing it out sounds noble, but it probably should have some oversight too. Arguably that would have been the better response from the health department. I don't think the charity in this case did a particularly good job themselves of handling the situation. Hopefully everyone learned something and five years later it's no longer a problem.
JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
Change my mind: The Netherlands are in the top percentile of every quality of life metric except for weather. From pensions, to drugs, to sex work, to engineering they are always at the frontier. No big tech but that's more a function of 'working to live' vs. 'living to work' than outright inability to mint unicorns.
- ddorian43 4y ago
  Programmer wages are pretty low compared to cost of living.
  - chaoz_ 4y ago
    Rent is not cheap, but if you are okay with 1 hour commute you can live in the Hague, Leiden or Utrecht. Less tourists also. Btw, there are large companies in AMS (Booking, Amazon, Meta, Uber) and some financial shops. It's not comparable with US, but definitely in top3 in EMEA region.
    - ddorian43 4y ago
      > Btw, there are large companies in AMS (Booking, Amazon, Meta, Uber) and some financial shops. It's not comparable with US, but definitely in top3 in EMEA region. Yes, only those big companies pay "ok" wages. To all others thinking "but free healthcare/whatever/etc", then why don't these companies pay enough (compared to USA,England) for remote where you only pay in gross?
      - asdff 4y ago
        "but free healthcare" is ridiculous too. I don't think people understand how cheap healthcare now is in the U.S.. I know people on ACA plans that cover health, dental, and vision, copays in line with what I pay, for about $75 a month (I think this is silver tier). Chances are you are taking a much bigger salary hit working in europe than $75 a month. I guess you can save on education, but that savings probably starts looking smaller too when you consider in state tuition rates, community college credit prices, or the fact most private colleges dish out full ride financial aid packages like candy to anyone making below a certain threshold.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
osener 4y ago
Better source: https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2023/01/a-fresh-approach-free-supermarket-offers-poorer-families-help-and-dignity/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2023/01/a-fresh-approach-f...
madsbuch 4y ago
Related to this: I started reading the Dutch author Rutger Bregman who iterates the point that poor people are just that: Poor. What they need is usually not help but money. If one believes that this is a well intended effort that, however, is nothing more that a publicity stunt. This appears to be a private initiative, and the only potential harm done here is iterating a point that is wrong (if one puts themselves in the Rousseau camp).
- luckylion 4y ago
  I'm not sure that's true unless you account for different reasons for poverty. My neighbor is classified as poor, at least judging his official income. He's long-term unemployed by choice because he doesn't like working and has three children he'd have to pay alimony for if he had an income. So he instead does not work, get's ~60% of average net income (part of that isn't in cash, but paying for housing, health insurance etc), has lots of free time, and the state pays the alimony for him. He's poor. Sure, doubling welfare payments would make him have more than the average citizen, but it wouldn't address the reason he's poor: because he doesn't want to work. If he worked, he'd have more money, but the calculation is simple: get 500 Euros + 77sqm flat + utilities + health insurance for 0 hours / year, or get 2500 Euros, pay everything yourself (including alimony) and have 300-400 Euros more a month for 1600 hours / year.
  - madsbuch 4y ago
    This is completely aligned with the initial point. Do you think a life coach would benefit him? It is clearly not because he is stupid. He just made some life decisions that you do not agree with.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      Pretty much everyone that is poor and isn't a first generation immigrant who has arrived in the last two years is poor because of "some life decisions". And some of them a life coach could help. Some are doing their best and really just need a little bit of help to get on their feet, and giving them that help without much hassle is the best you can do. And others are simply lazy, and giving them more money to be lazy is a waste of money. I'm not saying that some poverty can be sustainably alleviated by cash. But some cannot. Claims about poverty should consider that not all poverty is the same (and most poverty in Western countries (maybe minus the US) is relative, not absolute).
cushychicken 4y ago
I have a ton of admiration for Dutch society and their social safety net. They do a great job culturally of remembering to treat everyone in a very humane manner. I wish America was more like them in that regard.
- mr90210 4y ago
  It’s ok to wish, but don’t you forget that the Dutch government has to solve problems for only 17 million people whereas the American government has 333 million people to take care. Yes, America can learn from The Netherlands and other countries that are doing well, but it’s also reasonable to acknowledge how hard the American problem is.
  - Retric 4y ago
    I don’t get this argument. Government scales with population size just fine.
    - ryandrake 4y ago
      Exactly. Pennsylvania has 13M people. Why can’t Pennsylvania do this?
      - kortilla 4y ago
        The freedom of movement between states in the US makes this a challenge. States with better social safety nets end up attracting the low-income residents from other states.
        l33t233372 4y ago
        There is free movement between countries in Europe. I suppose there are generally some language barriers, but to me the situation seems fundamentally the same.
        4y ago
INTPenis 4y ago
In Malmö, Sweden, they started a special store for people who can prove that their income is below a certain threshold. These people get a membership to the store and are granted access to goods that are much cheaper.
kazinator 4y ago
Things that wouldn't work in America, #47.

186 points by zerof1l 4y ago

shdon 4y ago

Dang, gotta find out how to donate to this.

tinco 4y ago
You can donate here: https://studiezalen.com/doneren/ https://studiezalen.com/doneren/ They have raised 250.000 to fund this supermarket. Beyond the fact that a notable newspaper reported on it (Parool) I can't vouch for it other than that link really is their donation page.
kvdveer 4y ago
Here you go: https://studiezalen.com/doneren/ https://studiezalen.com/doneren/. That's the donation page for the organization that's making this happen. They focus primarily on education, and found out that undernourishment or the threat thereof is really detrimental for education. That's why they started this project. Alternatively you could move to Amsterdam or Zaandam and pay your taxes. This kind of organization lives off government subsidies, donations are just an extra. Last year their total income was 2.1 million euros, although they do not specify how much of that is from donations. Here's their annual financial report (extended report available through their contact form): https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/publicatiestukken-SZ-2021-website.pdf https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/publicati... Here's their annual non-financial report (i.e. formal newsletter): https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Jaarverslag-2021-final.-1.pdf https://studiezalen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Jaarversl... All of these are in Dutch.
- shdon 4y ago
  Living in the south of the country (near Breda), I wouldn't be caught dead in Amsterdam and I despise the city. But this is certainly a worthy cause, so I'll gladly donate.

AdrianB1 4y ago

This looks like a combination of supermarket and charity; both are great, but does the combination make sense? A regular supermarket is a for-profit legal entity, a charity usually has tax-exemption, how can one manage the legal complications of mixing it?

luckylion 4y ago
What's the complication? Their supermarket seems to be "shop normal items, sit down for a session with a social worker instead of paying", so they don't have a commercial interest. Seems like a good approach to get people the items they need and also reaching them with social work and understanding their needs and what problems they might need help with.
- ambrose2 4y ago
  So where is the money coming from? Can they sustain the program? Who decides the cutoff? Do they get tax exemptions to write off the losses?
  - kvdveer 4y ago
    > So where is the money coming from? Municipal subsidies, private and corporate donations. I assume a municipal social worker decides who gets in and who does not. This is a really common approach in the Netherlands, which has been going on for decades for other projects. I can't remember any news articles mentioning significant problems with this approach. This looks to me like an extended "voedselbank" which involves social work. I don't see anything truly novel or problematic with this approach.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    > So where is the money coming from? Donations, apparently, likely both monetary and products. > Who decides the cutoff? They mentioned in the article that they're not a food bank, and they don't need proof of poverty. Since they connect the "shopping" to working with one of their life coaches (I don't know how often or how long you need to talk to them), I guess that's a deterrent against random rich people getting their diapers there. Or maybe they do, because they also want to talk to someone about their life, in which case I suppose they're also the target audience. I have no clue about the sustainability or tax exemptions. It sounds like the supermarket is a way to get more people in the community in contact with their social workers. Outreach programs aren't that rare, the combination with a supermarket is, but it doesn't strike me as that odd.

clnq 4y ago

I wonder how effective life coaching is to people in poverty. The condition seems to have a risk of just humiliating those who are poor. Do they have the scale to do this for 80 families or more, or is it more of a rush job with the usual life advice those who are rich patronizingly give to those in poverty?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Manfred 4y ago
These coaches are usually people who come from the same families and neighborhoods that face these kinds of problems. Help with navigating government programs and simple tips and tricks with finances can make a huge difference.
- hnhamdani 4y ago
  I think this is more of the case. I used to live around the described neighborhood. It was an area with a notorious reputation as 'ghetto' where certain ethnic of immigrants live. I personally have no problem other than the casual nuisance and I have positive experience overall during my stay over there for a couple of years. The founder of the supermarket/umbrella foundation seems to have the similar background as the people live in the area. Thus, I think he has insight on what the community needs and how to help them.
jvm___ 4y ago
Have you tried not being poor? Life coach is dependent on the opportunities available to that family, otherwise the life coach might just be left with cutting the only entertainment or treat food the people buy to alleviate some of their daily stress.
- asdff 4y ago
  Life coaching could mean things like, here's how to open a bank account, here's how to navigate all the low income programs offered by the government, here's how to enroll in community college or a trade school, here's a local code bootcamp, here are the local food pantrys and their hours, here is a low cost daycare option, etc. All the things middle class people take for granted because its either irrelevant to them, or their parents who already understand these systems help them figure it all out.

rbanffy 4y ago

It's a nice reminder that everybody wins when nobody loses. Life isn't a zero sum game.

ljf 4y ago
So many people seem to forget that - helping those with the least, helps us all. From a purely mercenary point of view, it helps build you more customers and more skilled workers.
- newsclues 4y ago
  Poverty is costly, and if your region has a social safety net that includes healthcare, thus resolving poverty will save tax payers in the long run. But from the mercenary point of view, I think reducing poverty is worth it from a security and quality of life point of view. If public spaces are dangerous that is no good for people and poverty also degrades peoples quality of life, examples like not having to step over homeless people outside your front door don't really have dollar values, but they make people happier.
  - vasco 4y ago
    > examples like not having to step over homeless people outside your front door don't really have dollar values Not trying to be crass but that's literally reflected in the real estate prices. Homes in areas with lots of homelessness and related crime in the area will have lower prices than equivalent homes somewhere else. It does have a dollar value.
    - newsclues 4y ago
      Sure, everything has a dollar value if you drill down far enough. But it's not extra money in your pocket if you don't sell your property.
    - pipodeclown 4y ago
      Sure... You could also reframe it as the cost of building a big gate around your low homelessness neighborhood to keep the homeless out and to have security personelle to boot them out of the neighberhoud if they do get in...

jmyeet 4y ago

It is nice to see things like this but we shouldn't forget that we can't charity our way our of systemic problems. Example: the recent MrBeast video where he restored sight to 1000 people [1]. Really, this should make you angry at a system that allows people to be virtually blind when fixing it is so cheap. It makes no sense from an economic standpoint. People who can see can be way more productive (let alone all the personal benefits of course). But we don't do that. Why? To protect private health care profits. There is absolutely enough food and shelther available on this planet for every man, woman and child to have a roof over their heads and enough to eat. It is a choice to deny it to them. Why? So a handful of people can become obscenely wealthy. That's it. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2ifmkGGus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2ifmkGGus

xyzelement 4y ago
There's a chicken and the egg problem here. The reason our country/world has so many resources, is because people with a commercial interest worked had to develop/build it. Like, our medicine is amazing because there historically has been so much money in it, which attracted talent and research dollars. So it's easy to look at that and say "oh wow we have so much, how can we not be giving it away for free" but that misses the point that with that mindset, we wouldn't have built what we have to begin with. People often fail to understand that it's a balance.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I don’t actually know if we have stuff because of commercial motivations. The guys who discovered insulin didn’t do so out of commercial desire. Neither did the people who figured out vaccinations. There are inventors who make money off of their inventions, but they are often poor salespeople and are mostly tinkerers.
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    These are fair points but they are individual rather than systematic. Was in the hospital with my mom a few weeks ago, in NYC. The amount of equipment, procedure, etc she received was orders of magnitude beyond that which she would have gotten in the USSR where she grew up, and most places today. For every piece of equipment, mobile bed, ekg, sensor, sample etc - here's a company that makes that stuff, efficiently and at scale. They are driven by the fact that hospitals buy this stuff, which is in part driven by the patients and insurance ability to pay. Money makes this stuff go round. And yes a homeless person walking into the ER gets a benefit out of all this stuff for free - but only because everyone else pays for them. If nobody paid for it, it wouldn't exist.

jiggywiggy 4y ago

Somehow the forced coaching feels patronizing.

kvdveer 4y ago
There already is the 'voedselbank', which does roughly the same thing without the life coach. People can choose what will help them best.
- jiggywiggy 4y ago
  Not really sure why the fact that other services exist make this service less patronizing. Basic assumption is, we know you need coaching, you probably won't take it, so we will bribe you with basic necessities. It might work or might not, but it's patronizing for sure.
  - alright_scowl 4y ago
    I think the basic assumption is "you need help, and we are willing to help you". I guess it all comes down to what "life coaching" means in this context. If we are talking about some sort of social assistants that will understand what ails the people in need and help them find a way around their issues (e.g.: navigate state bureaucracy, acquiring some basic qualification, find help with rehabilitation, etc) I see no downside. Instead of seeing this as patronizing, I actually see it as quite humane.
    - akira2501 4y ago
      It's presumptive that any problem you might have could possibly be solved by a state paid "life coach." I'm sure there's a segment of the population that could use this, but likewise, I'm sure there's a segment of the population that's facing unique enough circumstances that a "life coach" would come off as a slap in the face.

dandanua 4y ago

Meanwhile, in Russia some supermarkets use locks on garbage cans, so that poor won't gather around in the search for outdated food.

euroderf 4y ago
Meanwhile, some American stores were pouring motor oil over discarded food to prevent foraging, until exposure and a public outcry.
- is_true 4y ago
  Wow. That's bad in so many levels. One thing is to avoid other people to get the food but that method also pollutes a lot of water.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    My advice here is to be skeptical of outlandish claims on the Internet.
    - troupe 4y ago
      I think the health department in several places has put bleach on food that people were trying to distribute to the homeless. The logic was that the food wasn't prepared to commercial standards. https://nypost.com/2018/11/12/health-department-poured-bleach-on-food-meant-for-the-homeless/ https://nypost.com/2018/11/12/health-department-poured-bleac...
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        Thanks for the link. That article is a bit one-sided and from a questionable news source, so I looked for a bit more nuance and found some here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/13/kansas-city-health-officials-pour-bleach-food-made-homeless-warning-volunteers-stop/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/13/kansas-city... At least it's not motor oil. They seemed to have a kinda-sorta-plausible excuse for the bleach, but it sounds like they've made an internal decision that it was an overreaction and they stopped doing it. But I kinda see their point, too -- random people making food and handing it out sounds noble, but it probably should have some oversight too. Arguably that would have been the better response from the health department. I don't think the charity in this case did a particularly good job themselves of handling the situation. Hopefully everyone learned something and five years later it's no longer a problem.

JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago

Change my mind: The Netherlands are in the top percentile of every quality of life metric except for weather. From pensions, to drugs, to sex work, to engineering they are always at the frontier. No big tech but that's more a function of 'working to live' vs. 'living to work' than outright inability to mint unicorns.

ddorian43 4y ago
Programmer wages are pretty low compared to cost of living.
- chaoz_ 4y ago
  Rent is not cheap, but if you are okay with 1 hour commute you can live in the Hague, Leiden or Utrecht. Less tourists also. Btw, there are large companies in AMS (Booking, Amazon, Meta, Uber) and some financial shops. It's not comparable with US, but definitely in top3 in EMEA region.
  - ddorian43 4y ago
    > Btw, there are large companies in AMS (Booking, Amazon, Meta, Uber) and some financial shops. It's not comparable with US, but definitely in top3 in EMEA region. Yes, only those big companies pay "ok" wages. To all others thinking "but free healthcare/whatever/etc", then why don't these companies pay enough (compared to USA,England) for remote where you only pay in gross?
    - asdff 4y ago
      "but free healthcare" is ridiculous too. I don't think people understand how cheap healthcare now is in the U.S.. I know people on ACA plans that cover health, dental, and vision, copays in line with what I pay, for about $75 a month (I think this is silver tier). Chances are you are taking a much bigger salary hit working in europe than $75 a month. I guess you can save on education, but that savings probably starts looking smaller too when you consider in state tuition rates, community college credit prices, or the fact most private colleges dish out full ride financial aid packages like candy to anyone making below a certain threshold.

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osener 4y ago

Better source: https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2023/01/a-fresh-approach-free-supermarket-offers-poorer-families-help-and-dignity/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2023/01/a-fresh-approach-f...

madsbuch 4y ago

Related to this: I started reading the Dutch author Rutger Bregman who iterates the point that poor people are just that: Poor. What they need is usually not help but money. If one believes that this is a well intended effort that, however, is nothing more that a publicity stunt. This appears to be a private initiative, and the only potential harm done here is iterating a point that is wrong (if one puts themselves in the Rousseau camp).

luckylion 4y ago
I'm not sure that's true unless you account for different reasons for poverty. My neighbor is classified as poor, at least judging his official income. He's long-term unemployed by choice because he doesn't like working and has three children he'd have to pay alimony for if he had an income. So he instead does not work, get's ~60% of average net income (part of that isn't in cash, but paying for housing, health insurance etc), has lots of free time, and the state pays the alimony for him. He's poor. Sure, doubling welfare payments would make him have more than the average citizen, but it wouldn't address the reason he's poor: because he doesn't want to work. If he worked, he'd have more money, but the calculation is simple: get 500 Euros + 77sqm flat + utilities + health insurance for 0 hours / year, or get 2500 Euros, pay everything yourself (including alimony) and have 300-400 Euros more a month for 1600 hours / year.
- madsbuch 4y ago
  This is completely aligned with the initial point. Do you think a life coach would benefit him? It is clearly not because he is stupid. He just made some life decisions that you do not agree with.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Pretty much everyone that is poor and isn't a first generation immigrant who has arrived in the last two years is poor because of "some life decisions". And some of them a life coach could help. Some are doing their best and really just need a little bit of help to get on their feet, and giving them that help without much hassle is the best you can do. And others are simply lazy, and giving them more money to be lazy is a waste of money. I'm not saying that some poverty can be sustainably alleviated by cash. But some cannot. Claims about poverty should consider that not all poverty is the same (and most poverty in Western countries (maybe minus the US) is relative, not absolute).

cushychicken 4y ago

I have a ton of admiration for Dutch society and their social safety net. They do a great job culturally of remembering to treat everyone in a very humane manner. I wish America was more like them in that regard.

mr90210 4y ago
It’s ok to wish, but don’t you forget that the Dutch government has to solve problems for only 17 million people whereas the American government has 333 million people to take care. Yes, America can learn from The Netherlands and other countries that are doing well, but it’s also reasonable to acknowledge how hard the American problem is.
- Retric 4y ago
  I don’t get this argument. Government scales with population size just fine.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    Exactly. Pennsylvania has 13M people. Why can’t Pennsylvania do this?
    - kortilla 4y ago
      The freedom of movement between states in the US makes this a challenge. States with better social safety nets end up attracting the low-income residents from other states.
      - l33t233372 4y ago
        There is free movement between countries in Europe. I suppose there are generally some language barriers, but to me the situation seems fundamentally the same.
        4y ago

INTPenis 4y ago

In Malmö, Sweden, they started a special store for people who can prove that their income is below a certain threshold. These people get a membership to the store and are granted access to goods that are much cheaper.

kazinator 4y ago

Things that wouldn't work in America, #47.