[tucson]

Senior, I enjoyed reading your last post :-) I see an honest description of your grandparents and other family members who came from Europe during yrs of hardship, as did a lot of our ancestors. It was a different time than today. But still, one can choose to either get a job, or a 2nd job, go to school to learn a new and better paying profession, start a new business OR collect welfare for rent money, food stamps, etc. NOT judgmental,


...just being honest..... :-)

[tucson]

Originally Posted by ROCKETMAN

on one of the new executive courses there is a $750,000 house and not 50 feet away a couple houses not worth $20,000 with roofs covered with blue tarps. There are usually children playing in the backyard so i know someone liver there. Poverty is very close to the villages.

Before The Villages was built, a native, (man in the insurance business)to this area told me Sumter Co. was the poorest county in Florida.

[buggyone]

Originally Posted by ROCKETMAN

on one of the new executive courses there is a $750,000 house and not 50 feet away a couple houses not worth $20,000 with roofs covered with blue tarps. There are usually children playing in the backyard so i know someone liver there. Poverty is very close to the villages.

Is that at the side that Villages abuts up to non-Villages property on the Wildwood side?

[rn1tv]

I came up with an idea that I sent to Publix corporate office which they supposedly sent to the Colony location. Many times when shopping, a store may have a 2 for 1 offer that you don't need both items. I suggested that they set up a collection bin for shoppers to drop off the BOGOs they didn't need or preferred to donate and have these items delivered to or picked up by a food pantry. I also suggested that, since this would not work for perishable items, their IT people should be able to develop a program to track these perishable BOGO items and give soup kitchens vouchers to shop for these items. I though it was a good idea but it went no where. Maybe if someone with a local soup kitchen or pantry wants to take this idea and run with it, please do. I am disabled and depend on others to do my shopping; therefore am unable to do so myself.

[buggyone]

Originally Posted by tucson

Senior, I enjoyed reading your last post :-) I see an honest description of your grandparents and other family members who came from Europe during yrs of hardship, as did a lot of our ancestors. It was a different time than today. But still, one can choose to either get a job, or a 2nd job, go to school to learn a new and better paying profession, start a new business OR collect welfare for rent money, food stamps, etc. NOT judgmental,


...just being honest..... :-)

There is no need for private or governmental assistance to families because IF they wanted to better themselves, they can do it?

[tucson]

Did you leave out the words "do they WANT" to do it??
:-)

[kittygilchrist]

Originally Posted by buggyone

There is no need for private or governmental assistance to families because IF they wanted to better themselves, they can do it?

Well I am open to suggestions for this particular family, because they are real, not hypothetical, and live in Wildwood.
Family members:
Mother/grandmother, age 63. Physically and mentally Dysfunctional.
Daughters: age 33, severe narcolepsy, learning disabled, attempting to get GED while working PT in food service, mother of two.
Age 22, in college. Recently began subsidized work at college.
Grandchildren ages about 7 and 12.

Live in3 br house. Grandmother was approved recently for SSDI.

As a social worker, it was fairly easy to tell lazy takers from the truly needy.
To say that everyone has equal opportunity bootstraps or that everyone should get free cell phones?
Neither shows a balance of wisdom...

[jbdlfan]

I think some attitudes toward poverty can be a bit off the mark. In this area, much like Appalachia, there is what is called "generational poverty." Families that have been so marred and entrenched that they don't know how to get out. I've studied this phenomenon quite a bit recently. So many things that we take for granted many of these folks have no clue how to do. Many, many of the students from my school never see the 11th grade. They are terrible readers and have been told they don't need to read to get by. The drug culture outside the bubble is a very powerful force that can't be underestimated.

[Pointer]

Originally Posted by tucson

Senior, I enjoyed reading your last post :-) I see an honest description of your grandparents and other family members who came from Europe during yrs of hardship, as did a lot of our ancestors. It was a different time than today. But still, one can choose to either get a job, or a 2nd job, go to school to learn a new and better paying profession, start a new business OR collect welfare for rent money, food stamps, etc. NOT judgmental,


...just being honest..... :-)

You just don't get it. There is a book called "nickeled and dimed in the USA". I don't remember the author, but she is collage educated but pretends she's not and tries to live on the wages of several professions. "Merry maids", waitressing, and "Wallmart" are ones I remember. Very interesting read. Also if you watch "Undercover boss" you will see people whose struggles are very real, who want to go to school but can't figure it.

The bottom line is we no longer pay a living wage and even when parents are both working two jobs they can still get behind just trying to keep up. One medical mishap is all it takes. I don't know anyone who would rather go through the humiliation of jumping through all the hoops one goes through to get wic or food stamps or welfare rather then have a livable wage paying job that allows them dignity and hope.

In the "good old days" my great grandfather fed his many tenants from his garden, took in his children's families so they would have housing and mortgaged everything rather then have to evict anyone. The local bank had made a deal with him that they wouldn't foreclose until he died.

Also in our ancestors immigrant day, you could have many people living in a two room tenement apt without getting evicted.

Life was better in some ways, for some people and worse for others, and it is the same today.

Gone are the days when you could work your way through collage, replaced by incurring large debt that there is no guarantee of a job to pay for it. We are still in a recession which may not be a depression but it's pretty darn close. Food and shelter should be attainable to everyone no matter what jobs they do.

[slipcovers]

Originally Posted by CFrance

I agree. I prefer to hear short stories of posters' pasts. Funny ones--and no soap boxes and no bragging, please!

I second, this is not Facebook....same thing...over and over.

[slipcovers]

Originally Posted by kittygilchrist

Well I am open to suggestions for this particular family, because they are real, not hypothetical, and live in Wildwood.
Family members:
Mother/grandmother, age 63. Physically and mentally Dysfunctional.
Daughters: age 33, severe narcolepsy, learning disabled, attempting to get GED while working PT in food service, mother of two.
Age 22, in college. Recently began subsidized work at college.
Grandchildren ages about 7 and 12.

Live in3 br house. Grandmother was approved recently for SSDI.

As a social worker, it was fairly easy to tell lazy takers from the truly needy.
To say that everyone has equal opportunity bootstraps or that everyone should get free cell phones?
Neither shows a balance of wisdom...

A great fundraiser is decorator house tours. Women love to show their homes. 8 or 9 different style homes...tickets $10 and maybe TV would supply one or two of their tour buses. I have been involved with them and there is always great community support and fun. Houses for Humanity is also a good one. Lots of great talent in TV, we need to help our neighbors.

[justjim]

I grew up poor but really didn't know it. I'm betting there are others who grew up much the same. After my Dad's mine closed it took the whole family working to keep the wolf away from the door.

We had a large garden we planted each year and mom canned. Mom also took in washing and ironing. Dad worked everyday but his pay was 40.00 a week. I remember thoses times and my brother and I mowed yards, carried coal and picked berries to earn money. We never got public aid because Dad and Mom were too proud. We never went out to eat but there was always enough to eat at home. Beans and more beans potatoes.

Hard work never hurt anyone. When you work to meet your needs , you quickly learn the value,of money and education. Somehow the current generation has gotten the idea that they don't need to work in order to meet their household needs. Many depend on the government to meet their basic needs while they eat, smoke, drink and make merry.

All of the various poverty programs have done much to keep people in poverty instead of out of poverty. Yes, I'm for helping people who help themselves.

[CFrance]

Pointer, Kitty, jbdfan, thank you for the other side of the story from work and personal experience. So many people lump the poor into one category--lazy and could lift themselves up if they just worked hard.

I would like to see some facts/statistics as to how many poor are lazy and how the poverty programs have kept them in poverty. I saw very little of that in the work we did in our church with the poor in Muskegon, MI. There were some trying to game the system, but nowhere near the majority that others are stating.

[llaran]

The school in Wildwood is overjoyed to get underware for elementary age, the nurse almost cried. These kids need everything.

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by tucson

But still, one can choose to either get a job, or a 2nd job, go to school to learn a new and better paying profession, start a new business OR collect welfare for rent money, food stamps, etc. NOT judgmental,...just being honest..

If only it were that easy to get out of poverty. It's not like the old days.
Of course no-one likes people who abuse the system, who could work but choose not to.
But there are people who have lost their jobs and their homes, and have families to support.
Most people who use food banks do so out of desperation, not because they are lazy.
"Going to school to learn a new profession" .. not everyone can afford to do that.
And I know people with law degrees working at menial jobs.
It's hard to start a new business when you're broke and have mouths to feed.
Not all of us were born gifted or rich or smart or with parents who set a good example.
I think that you show little sympathy for people who have fallen on hard times.
Just being honest.