27-05-2022, 07:45 AM
huge homeless encampments.
Little tent cities, under bridges, parks, railway corridors.
they go for marginal spaces that are hard to police without 'owner dissension'.
i saw one camp had about 70 tents and structures, dont know where the ablutions were, probably none.
this, and doing laundry seem to be the most challenging aspects of homelessness.
loneliness. as many as half of employed San Franciscans work from home after Covid.
the workplace was their grounding point, where they knew and were known.
while they no longer have a shitty commute, save on time and parking fees, they have lost the only human contact they had.
i saw countless solo diners in restaurants, empty bars, on the road and in church (yeah, went to church, but only because i was banned from it, wanted to see if i were persona grata by now.) no one noticed.
We think our inflation is bad, theirs is worse, and going on longer.
for the first time ever clothes, shoes, sunglasses and electronics were more expensive after calculating exchange rates.
Saw lamb at Costco, bone in leg, $113. about $45 a pound. Gas at a record level $6.70 a gallon. still under $2 a litre, but they do way more mileage than us.
the machine guns and the fucking slaughters of innocents. An elementary school while we were there, think he got about 20 people. brought the guns and ammo day after his eighteenth birthday. but cannot drink for two more years.
guns easier to get than booze.
much hand wringing and angst, ultimatums and excuses, but no change. mr mitch mc'connell house minority leader has accepted more than $20 million $ from the gun lobby in 30 years of politics. he said 'ownership rules need to be tightened'. gosh, that will fix it mitch, you amoral waste of skin, good one. meanwhile children are gunned down in their classrooms.
Taxation is throttling them. local body Property Taxes, (same as our council rates) run at about 2-5% the value of the property per year, depending on location etc. Explosions in property prices have left folks in multimillion dollar properties, with tax bills like the retired FIL sitting in 3 million dollar homes with $60k property tax p/a. Scary.
things might seem a bit bleak down here at times, but we are head and shoulders above the yanks for quality of life.
Little tent cities, under bridges, parks, railway corridors.
they go for marginal spaces that are hard to police without 'owner dissension'.
i saw one camp had about 70 tents and structures, dont know where the ablutions were, probably none.
this, and doing laundry seem to be the most challenging aspects of homelessness.
loneliness. as many as half of employed San Franciscans work from home after Covid.
the workplace was their grounding point, where they knew and were known.
while they no longer have a shitty commute, save on time and parking fees, they have lost the only human contact they had.
i saw countless solo diners in restaurants, empty bars, on the road and in church (yeah, went to church, but only because i was banned from it, wanted to see if i were persona grata by now.) no one noticed.
We think our inflation is bad, theirs is worse, and going on longer.
for the first time ever clothes, shoes, sunglasses and electronics were more expensive after calculating exchange rates.
Saw lamb at Costco, bone in leg, $113. about $45 a pound. Gas at a record level $6.70 a gallon. still under $2 a litre, but they do way more mileage than us.
the machine guns and the fucking slaughters of innocents. An elementary school while we were there, think he got about 20 people. brought the guns and ammo day after his eighteenth birthday. but cannot drink for two more years.
guns easier to get than booze.
much hand wringing and angst, ultimatums and excuses, but no change. mr mitch mc'connell house minority leader has accepted more than $20 million $ from the gun lobby in 30 years of politics. he said 'ownership rules need to be tightened'. gosh, that will fix it mitch, you amoral waste of skin, good one. meanwhile children are gunned down in their classrooms.
Taxation is throttling them. local body Property Taxes, (same as our council rates) run at about 2-5% the value of the property per year, depending on location etc. Explosions in property prices have left folks in multimillion dollar properties, with tax bills like the retired FIL sitting in 3 million dollar homes with $60k property tax p/a. Scary.
things might seem a bit bleak down here at times, but we are head and shoulders above the yanks for quality of life.
So if you disappear out of view You know I will never say goodbye