A piece I recently wrote about a homeless family sparked a flood of angry comments coming to me via multiple routes, which argued what the people "should" have done to prevent their current hardship. Since my natural inclination is to appreciate different perspectives and empathize with individual struggles, I can understand clearly how it provides comfort to pass judgment on the homeless. If you believe there are things someone should have or could have done differently, then that means it could never happen to you.
In my conversations with homeless individuals and families over the past months, I've repeatedly heard reference to the "snowball effect." I've found few who could pinpoint the cause of their homelessness to one single thing. More often it's described as a downward slide that builds momentum, quickly becoming harder and harder to stop.
That's why in the piece about Wilkins and Emma I compared it to falling off a cliff: "Wealth buys passage on toll roads a safe distance from the edge, but
poverty's foot path runs along the craggy and unstable lip of a gaping
precipice. Emma and her family hit a few ledges on the way down, blown
by winds of misfortune every time they began to regain stable footing."
In the story of any homeless person, maybe one of the underlying causes can be an irresponsible choice, the development of an addiction, the inheritance of mental illness, an accident, an illness, or one of the varied forms of bad luck. But in most cases, the most common contributing factor is simply poverty.
I don't feel the need to address at any serious length some of the judgements about Emma and Wilkins: that they shouldn't have had a child (should she have had an abortion?), that she always should have been working (she was also working as a roofer when they became pregnant, and childcare costs nearly as much as a minimum-wage job would pay), that they shouldn't have driven to Montana (you don't know the family reasons for the trip), that public transportation is always a viable option (it's not), that they should have lived closer to work (not possible when job sites change constantly), that he should have gotten a higher-paying job with better benefits (because they grow on trees?). For some people it seems easier to pass judgment than to feel compassion. I have an appointment later today to interview a newly homeless mother of four in Minneapolis. I only know the barest outline of her story at this point, though no matter what her situation, under the circumstances I expect to hear from people that she shouldn't have had so many children.
I can understand someone concluding that Emma and Wilkins should have had car insurance -- with that, they would readily agree, though that doesn't mean they could have afforded car insurance any more than the small fortune in fines they received as a result of not having it. Emma acknowledged in a statement I quoted that they had made mistakes in their past. As I've heard from so many homeless, once that snowball starts rolling, it's difficult to prevent the boulder it quickly becomes.
The state of Washington should absolutely require drivers to have car insurance, but I don't believe the system of penalties in place for those unable to afford its purchase contribute to the bigger picture of a healthy society. When property taxes are down, is that what
we're going to do to fill government coffers?
If someone doesn't have money for car insurance, is it to our
benefit to fine them $450? Is it to our benefit to
double it to $900 if they can't come up with $450 within 15 days? Is it
to our benefit to eventually imprison them for 30 days, at a cost to taxpayers of
$65 per day, if their license is suspended, they have to drive to work, and still can't come up with that $900?
This set up reminds me of a comment made by Robert Daneri, whose family of six experienced four months of homelessness until very recently. As Robert puts it: "Policy affecting the homeless is made by the wealthy and implemented
by the middle class, but neither understand the life of the poor."
Taxpayers
can end up footing a larger bill in order to punish an individual because
he/she couldn't afford the fine imposed in the first place. What productive end
does that serve? And think of the outward ripple affect of that
trend -- those who lose the only minimum wage job they have because they
get caught in the loop, those whose families end up homeless as a
result. How does that process boost our nation's productivity?
Rather than slamming someone with an unaffordable fine because they can't afford car insurance in the first place, a more practical system could be arranged fairly easily. I wouldn't suggest the government should get into the car insurance business, but what if rather than targeting uninsured drivers as a source of revenue, the fine imposed would be a reasonable monthly payment financing the purchase of that insurance? That $450 could cover a six-month premium under some circumstances, though the government would have to establish arrangements with one of the insurance companies that don't charge higher rates for those living in poorer neighborhoods.
So I ask my readers, do you think something like I've outlined above would be more judicious and of greater overall benefit to the productivity of our nation than a system that leads to what I referred to as a debtor's prison in the story of Wilkins and Emma? If not, please feel free to offer another suggestion for an arrangement that would not punish the poor.
(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
"I have an appointment later today to interview a newly homeless mother of four in Minneapolis. I only know the barest outline of her story at this point, though no matter what her situation, under the circumstances I expect to hear from people that she shouldn't have had so many children."
She shouldn't have. I'm sure she really wanted to have four kids, and we should really, really respect her desire, but, unfortunately, we shouldn't always get what we want, especially if we can't afford it.
"That they shouldn't have had a child (should she have had an abortion?"
Yes. Then take one last car trip to CVS and drop 12.50 on a box of condoms.
"She shouldn't have. I'm sure she really wanted to have four kids, and we should really, really respect her desire, but, unfortunately, we shouldn't always get what we want, especially if we can't afford it."
- Really, you know that she wanted to have four kids? None of them were a result of rape, incest, poor relationship conditions, inability to acquire birth control or contraceptives, or a number of reasons women become pregnant, not necessarily of their own unrelenting desire for motherhood or a child. I don't think 'we should really, really respect [the] desire' to have children when the parents can't afford it, that's irresponsible, dangerous for mother, father and child, and not a step in the right direction out of poverty, however; pregnancy very often cannot be avoided, or predicted, no matter what contraceptive efforts are exhausted, and financial situations often change.
"Yes. Then take one last car trip to CVS and drop 12.50 on a box of condoms."
- Do you know how much an abortion costs? Or how terrible it makes you feel; physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? In many states it is extremely difficult to get an abortion, that's to say if that women is even comfortable with the idea of an abortion - it is a very personal choice. And if you even have $12.50 and have to get to work and back (gas or bus pass), eat and feed your children something hopefully nourishing (unfortunately not usually the case because of our other imposed systems), I don't think a box of condoms is worth that opportunity cost.
Don't think that your own way of life can substitute for anyone else's; everyone is in a very different situation in multiple varying ways.
What I really really want is for you to have been aborted just before writing this comment.
But then who'd pay your welfare?
The thing is she may have had those 4 kids BEFORE things went bad.
That's the problem with assuming things about people on the edges of American society...a whole lot of them were normal, middle class folks with a nice house and jobs.
Maybe this mother once lived in a very nice neighborhood, 4 kids, 2 cars and a husband. Then he left her. Then he stopped paying child support and he is self employed or moved out of state. Then she lost the house because she could not afford the house payments. Then she got sick and lost whatever job she had and with no close family or friends she and her children found themselves homeless.
In this country it is very easy to go from middle class normal to homeless in a year. It only takes a few bad things happening to you.
That's why, as I have gotten older, I never say never and I try never to judge how or why a person is where they are.
All I think of is "there but for the grace of good".....
The problem with your pieces is not that you characterize Wilkins and Emma as being in a unfortunate position (it is obvious that they are), but that you implied in your first piece, and stated out right in this one, that it was 'the system' that failed them more than anything else. But the bottom line is that - more than any convoluted, overly harsh system of regulations and penalties - it was irresponsible decisions that led to their situation.
It is entirely possible to work with courts to reschedule court dates (this can take as little as a phone call!), and it is also possible to work with prosecutors and judges to develop plans to pay fines and penalties over time. Instead they completely ignored *MULTIPLE* notices, court dates, hearings, etc. Adults should realize that ignoring things doesn't make them go away.
There are also several comments left on the original article that suggest things that a reasonable and responsible person would do that these two did not.
Should we have compassion or sympathy for Wilkins and Emma? Of course. But having compassion and sympathy doesn't mean absolving them of responsibility in their plight.
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On having fines/jail for driving without insurance, how else do you enforce the law? Wouldn't it, as a driver, make more sense to just drive without insurance until caught under the system you propose (use the fine money to pay for insurance for the offending party)?
If you want to change the system, maybe proof of insurance should be required at the point of vehicle registration or licensing? I think that would probably make things overall worse, but I'm not sure how else to solve this (if it is even a problem in the first place, and of that I am not entirely convinced)
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Finally, you say that the most common thing homeless people have in common is poverty. Not to be rude, but isn't this obvious? One of the first and primary things that people spend money on is shelter; it would stand to reason that those without shelter are those without money. What does this connection add to anything?
Your whats wrong with America.
Poor grammar is also afflicting America.
Charles, you are misinformed and, perhaps, delusional, if you think it is 'entirely possible' to reschedule court dates with a simple phone call. I am an attorney, although I no longer practice. For most matters, it is not possible to get a court date rescheduled without retaining an attorney to make that phone call. In some jurisdictions, fines related to traffic (and driving without insurance would fall in this category), you can appear before an untrained clerical person who probably got his job because of connections and because he is white, male and middle class and now is in his late fifties, has no college but has worked his way up the ranks and now he sits in judgement all day long of people who come to him because they can't afford to pay their fines all at once and they petition him for a payment plan. I have appeared before such a schmoo when I was unemployed, destitute and unable to pay some traffic fine and then the fine got doubled because I didn't have the cash and guess what, even when the fine was doubled, I was still unemployed, still starving for food and rent money, and still couldn't pay the fine so I went to appear before the guy for a payment plan and he said I could have two more weeks. I asked for another arrangement, explained my economics, with proof of my very small income and he said tough luck. So then I spent an entire day in a courtroom waiting for a district court judge to ask for help and when she finally talked to me, knowing even that I was an attorney, she said she couldn't give me a special plan, that I had to see the administrative hearing schmoo who had no legal training and absolutely no sympathy.
There are lots of ways to enforce the law beyond assessing fines. It makes no more sense to double fines for someone whose fine was doubled because they couldn't pay the first one then it made sense to throw people in debtors' prison until they paid their debts. Community service to work off fines? Counseling? Probation?
I have seen lots of poor people get into trouble, their whole lives skittered out of control, over a fine that snowballed and snowballed. If you get picked up once for driving without insurance, you have a big fine, plus you still have to come up with insurance money and if you get stopped again before you come up with the cash -- and maybe you have continued to drive without insurance to, um, EARN the cash to pay the doubled fine. . . and you get stopped again, you get a bigger penalty . . and gosh golly soon you can't pay your rent.
Charles, you sound like a heartless prick.
I don't understand why destitute people can't be assigned to work off their fines, especially if they are unemployed. Pay them minimum wage and after several weeks the fine would be paid. Yes, I know, some people will scream "Slavery!" but the 13th amendment does allow for "compulsory labor" as punishment for legal judgment. And surely it makes more sense than to put them in jail, which costs the taxpayers a lot more than a work program would, and does not solve the underlying problem at all.
I was shocked at how far they fell, and how fast they fell.
Unfortunately, I don't really see how the proposed system is any better, since it takes the bite out of driving w/o insurance, making it better to drive without insurance until caught. While you would pay for the next 6 mo. of ins., you would have free-rode over the last how many months.
Although, IIRC, states like Virginia recently upped speeding fines to 1K to fill budget gaps. Stuff like that is flat-out wrong, excessive, and was clearly meant to increase revenues.
I guess the lesson that I will take from this is to never let my cushion fall below a certain amount.
Also, hard to say, but an abortion would have prevented many of their problems, and should their situation turn worse, many of the child's problems as well. The pro-life movement targets people on the edge the most -- with a ban on state funding and campaigns to deny access to abortion. Wealthy women can find ways around these roadblocks, but not the poor, who really do need abortion the most.
Unfortunatly the many comments posted here reflect the great icory tower many americans live in. Charging the yes indeed it surely is possible to change court dates and work things out with prosecutors to vie for a better court date, more understanding, and why yes compassion from a court?. Ridiculous.
Another reader oozes the opionion that abortion would have allievated this couple or any couple from thier current plight. Eugenics ?; the policies which have been crafted by the wealthy ( Mandatory jail sentences, debt inducing fees, higher taxes on the poor, ad infinitum) have aided in the development of such utter poverty, and ultimatly the cause of emma and wilkins plight. In no other developed country does such marginalization of the poor occur.
Welcome to the age of zero empathy, and zero responsibilty because we are all partly responsible for the inhumane treatment of the poor and vulnerable..
uh, yeah, that was me advocating the abortion. How was that eugenics? Do you even know the definition of eugenics?
My point is that the pro-life movement arguably made this couple's plight worse. The pro-life movement targets people on the edge with little money or education.
how many of you fucking heartless bastards who look down on the homeless have ever had to struggle in life? Don't you assholes know how close we all are right now to falling off a cliff? Despite what the right wing says, if the government hadn't intervened, we would be in another Great Depression right now. But things still suck, and millions of people have been caught up in it. Show some goddamn sympathy, because the next person without a job, without health insurance, without a house, might be you.
Thank you for this piece. As a doctor working in a clinic which is located within a homeless shelter, my patients have taught me a tremendous amount about what it really means to be poor and homeless in America. It's important to me to understand the situation, rather than making assumptions. Despite a hectic clinic schedule, I try to carve out a few minutes with new patients to simply ask them, "What happened in your life that you came to be living here?" and just listen to their stories.
The most important thing I have learned from my homeless patients is that most of them are really not so different from me and my family. It has really reinforced for me that many, many of us are just one life-catastrophe away from homelessness. My patients' stories also serve as "mythbusters" for many erroneous assumptions that many Americans make about homeless people: First of all, a surprising number of my homeless patients are older, in their 50s and 60s, and are homeless for the first time in their lives. The majority of my homeless patients worked for most of their adult lives; common occupational backgrounds include nursing, construction, carpentry, and then a lot of folks who just worked a series of minimum-wage jobs their whole adult lives. In most cases, they experienced a catastrophic event of some type in their lives, and then from there it was the "snowball effect" that so many have described already. Many of my patients relate that they developed serious illness or sustained a serious injury which made them unable to work for a time; most of them didn't have health insurance at the time because finances were already tight and they couldn't afford it. So they were faced with the double-bind of medical bills that they couldn't afford, but also being unable to work (at least temporarily) secondary to their medical condition. Most didn't have the types of jobs that offer paid medical leave or hold your position for you. And from there things would start to snowball, and the end result was that they lost their housing. The other thing that many of my homeless patients have in common is poor social support: when they got sick or lost their housing, they didn't have a safety net of friends and family who could help them out or take them in while they got back on their feet, so they literally had nowhere to go but the street or their cars. Or in some cases, they did have family who would have helped if they could, but they were so poor themselves that there was nothing they could do.
Other patients have suffered different catastrophes. Death of a spouse or child, serious illness of a family member, loss of a job. At least 3 of my female patients became homeless after an abusive partner kicked them out of the home and broke up with them. In each case, the initiating event touched off a chain of events in an already-precarious social and financial situation, ultimately leading to the person now sitting in front of me. Most of the time, after hearing all these stories, I go home pondering, what would I do if I were in that situation, if I literally had nowhere to go? Would I have the wherewithal to find an alternative to sleeping on the street?
Many in the general public assume that homeless people aren't making any effort to get back on their feet. In my experience with my patients, most of them are trying desperately to do so. But my patients find it nearly impossible to get a job if they can't list an address. At the organization I work for, we provide mailboxes and voicemail for our clients who are in our employment program, so they can list a phone number and address on their job applications. Even so, local businesses have started to recognize the address and by extension they know that the applicant is homeless. It's pretty hard to get back on your feet if no one will even hire you so that you can earn the money for a security deposit.
Yes, some of my homeless patients have drug or alcohol problems, or have been incarcerated in the past. But that's not all of them. It's not even most of them. And even in the cases of chronic homelessness, long-term substance dependence, and/or prior incarceration, there are innumerable antecedent events which helped create those life circumstances; those social ills are a separate discussion and are beyond the scope of my comments here.
I'd like to close by emphasizing again how often I'm struck by how much I have in common with my homeless patients, and how close most of us actually are to that situation. My own family serves as a good example. I was raised by a single parent who just barely made ends meet. By sheer luck and the blessings of the universe, I was able to attend college and medical school on full scholarships and realize my dream of becoming a doctor. Meanwhile, my mother has developed a serious chronic illness and has been unable to work consistently for the past several years. At one point, her health improved enough that she was able to work, but because of the economy and her older age, she couldn't find a job in her field. So she took a minimum-wage retail job, just to have some income and get health insurance--but the minimum-wage job entailed a lot more strenuous physical activity, which caused faster deterioration of her health status. And when she couldn't work that job anymore, she lost her health insurance again. Last year, things got really tight and my mother was a couple months away from losing her home, by my calculations. Because I am lucky enough to have a good job with a steady income, and the practical wherewithal to help problem-solve, we averted such a disaster. But given my experiences with my patients, I momentarily panicked. I actually envisioned what could happen if she lost her house to foreclosure. My 60-year-old mother, who worked for 40 years, would have no place to sleep but her car. "Don't worry," my friends tried to reassure me. "Your mother will never be on the streets, you would never let that happen to her. She could come live with you until she got back on her feet." That was exactly what terrified me: I was the main thing standing between my mother and homelessness. What if things were different? What if I didn't have a steady income? What if I had chosen a different career, and like some of my college friends, had been laid off in this economy? What if I lived in an apartment and my landlord wouldn't permit an additional tenant? What if my mother didn't have a child to support her at all? Well, then I think she would probably be in the same situations as my own patients.
Most recently, we had another scare. My mother sustained a head injury and had to go to the emergency room to be evaluated. When she called me to tell me, the first thing she mentioned was not the pain or the possiblity of bleeding in her brain: it was that she doesn't have health insurance. She was terrified, not that she was seriously injured, but that she knew she couldn't pay the hospital bill. My heart broke for her and I wanted to cry, but I swallowed hard and told her, "Don't worry about that, Mom. We'll work things out. I'll find a way to pay for it." But once again, what would we have done if I didn't have the ability to help her out? The bills from a hospital stay are enough to send someone into bankruptcy (in fact, medical debt is one of the most common reasons for personal bankruptcy filings in America).
The bottom line: So many of us are just one catastrophic event away from snowballing into homelessness; as a corollary, for the most part homeless folks are just like you and me. We must show compassion for these individuals. After all, there but for the grace of God go I.
What I have to wonder about homeless people is where are their friends and family? If an emergency happened to me, I could easily count half a dozen people who would take me in. And likewise there are a number of people in my life I would take in at need, in fact I have done this before. Some people of course have anger or addiction issues (or dishonesty, larceny, or lechery issues) and you can't have that under your roof, I understand. But if these homeless people really are "just like the rest of us" then where are their siblings, parents, aunts, cousins, best friends etc? Why doesn't someone offer to put a roof over their head, bail them out of jail, get their car out of impound? One of the smartest things anyone can do is make sure they have that sort of support system in case of emergency. It costs absolutely nothing except a little time to keep in touch, and a certain amount of love and care.
I agree with the point that you are making, Jon: most of us are lucky enough to have friends and family who are both WILLING and ABLE to help us out when times get tough. I also agree that there is a lesson there for all of us, that it is so important to cultivate our social support system, so that we have people to love and support us through life's big and small challenges.
I also think we must be careful not to turn this into another "should." Some of my patients do have the sort of loving support networks that you describe having in your own life, but all of those folks are financially struggling so much themselves that they just couldn't provide the type of help that was needed. As I said in my original comments, what if my mother's housing crisis had come at a time when I was laid off from my job and just barely managing to support myself, let alone anyone else? I would still have tried to help, but may have fallen short of the extent of help that she needed. Or what if, despite my intelligence, I had not been lucky enough to get scholarships which paid for the education that helped lift me out of poverty? Perhaps I would be working in some retail or service job, slightly above minimum wage, raising a child, going to school part-time, just barely making ends meet. If my mom had had the same life problems, but in that context, I almost certainly wouldn't have been able to help her out in the way that I actually did. I think this is what Davidson means when she says that the common denominator for all these folks is poverty. That statement may seem simple or obvious, but poverty in America is actually a complex phenomenon. Poverty is not just a lack of money; it's a complex set of sociocultural circumstances and determinants which encompass every aspect of life and affect the very opportunities that are available to you. If you've never been poor, it's hard (but not impossible) to understand just how pervasively one's socioeconomic status influences one's life. Learning about these harsh realities just requires an open mind and the willingness to consider other people's stories and experiences with empathy. Articles like Davidson's and discussions like this one are the first step to understanding the situation, so that we as a society can start to figure out how all of us can do better.
The bottom line: So many of us are just one catastrophic event away from snowballing into homelessness; as a corollary, for the most part homeless folks are just like you and me. We must show compassion for these individuals. After all, there but for the grace of God go I.
Indeed.
Never say never and all that.
I look at my life and wonder what would happen to me if my son was unable to help me if my husband passed away?
We have no close friends and our family is slung all over the country.
It scares me to think how close we are from one catastrophe to losing everything.
and how horrible must it be to be put in jail because you owe money. Here in AR they can actually put you in jail if you have a judgement against you and you have been unable to pay it.
Debtors prisons still exist in this country.
One of the problems with fines for tickets and such is that they are much harsher for someone making $40,000 then someone making $80,000.
I think fines should be based on a sliding scale. Those with more pay more because $150 is nothing to a person making 80K, but can be the difference between paying a bill or being able to drive your car to that job that allows you to pay your bills to a person making 40K or less.
We are all so close to the edge that is is just easier to sleep at night if we judge folks who have tipped over that edge then to admit that with the right set of circumstances it just might happen to us.
Is everything to be relative? Are the consequences stemming from a $40K person driving without auto insurance really less than those of an $80K person? What happens when that $40K person crashes into another $40K person and pushes *them* down the slippery slope? Was that accident any less "bad" than if it was caused by a $80K person?
'That's why in the piece about Wilkins and Emma I compared it to falling off a cliff: "Wealth buys passage on toll roads a safe distance from the edge, but poverty's foot path runs along the craggy and unstable lip of a gaping precipice.'
Wonderfully poetic, but how does one separate cause from effect? To what extent is it also or even instead "Wealth is built from decisions to take roads a safe distance from the edge, but poverty from turning towards the edge assuming someone will have built a bridge by the time you get there?"
Frankly, neither is absolutely correct, nor absolutely wrong.
When I was growing up there was an Uninsured Motorist Fund that people without insurance would pay into to drive legally (and provide bare-bones liability protection). The fee was something like 50$ a year. Why couldnlt we have something like nowadays (though obviously the fee would have to be greater)?
I am ever reminded by Christina's articles of Gus Kahn's & Raymond Egan's "Ain't We Got Fun" (1921):
"There's nothing surer: the rich get rich and the poor get children."
and
"There's nothing surer: the rich get rich and the poor get laid off."
The roots of this quote go back yet another century at least to observations by Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison.
Rather than improving, this problem is even worse. The margin is even more pronounced than ever before.
We MUST help our underprivileged. They need help UP, not pushed further DOWN.
A lot of the shoulda's are really just Monday morning quarterbacking. I'm sure that most of us have done things in our life that, with the wrong circumstances, could have resulted in us being in dire straits. The "experts" recommend having 1 year's salary in cash reserves to hold us in case we lose our job. How many have done that throughout their careers? Many of us have kids when we are young and early in our careers. We could wait until we could afford them, but we don't. We do all of the risky things that we do because we are optimists and don't expect things to go wrong. Most of us are lucky and get by with it, some aren't. I guess it is natural to ignore our luck and to look down on the unlucky, but sometimes we need to reflect on how lucky we have been and find a way to share some of that luck with those less fortunate.
Re: The "experts" recommend having 1 year's salary in cash reserves to hold us in case we lose our job.
I've seen recommendations of 3 to 6 months savings, but never a year. However for most people (even many solidly middle class people) such a reserve fund is impossible to amass unless they get a large windfall via, say, inheritance, or can count their retirement savings. Moreover multiple emergencies (job loss maybe followed by high medical bills) will rapidly deplete even a good savings nest egg. And if you have to move to get a new job, as I have twice, that also blows a hole in the bank balance.
I thought Vanessa's comments were quite interesting. In particular, the observation that the "most important thing I have learned from my homeless patients is that most of them are really not so different from me and my family." Even people in relatively comfortable settings can experience sudden turns for the worse. Through my work I have had a chance to learn details about many peoples' lives, and some of them are quite successful. The chaotic circumstances of some of those lives confirms for me what Christina and Vanessa are saying: there but for a simple twist of fate go I. So where do we go from here?
It seems as if a majority of Americans support universal health care coverage. Uninsured medical costs have to be a major (if not the single biggest) contributor to sudden poverty. Affordable housing and transportation appear to be other key issues, and those issues do not necessarily require government intervention. I can imagine viable private initiatives to help get people from shelters & camps to entry-level housing and to fulfill their most basic transportation needs (carpooling, car sharing, van transportation to public transportation hubs, etc.). Finally, some of these cases cry out for legal assistance (e.g. the veteran who had to wait 18 years for his benefits). The legal community needs to hook up with the shelters and camps to screen for people who are suffering from bureaucrtic hurdles. Maybe people like Vanessa who are on the front lines should keep a list of local attorneys and law firms willing to provide pro bono legal assistance to appropriate cases. Pro bono help is available but, just as with medical care, it is not always being delivered efficiently. Christina, that might be worth focusing on in one of your posts. Are there any developments on that front to make the delivery of pro bono assistance more efficient? Seems like we Americans always fall back on our charitable willingness to help others in times of crisis as an excuse to keep the government out of our lives, but that we don't really do a good job of following through on those concepts. Giving a couple of cans of fruit cocktail to the church just won't do the trick.
As for fines, just as an example, Germany does link significant fines (not parking tickets or minor speeding tickets) to the violator's income level. The fines are expressed in terms of number of days of earnings. Not sure how that works for the unemployed, etc., but it certainly appears fairer for working poor.
When a cascade of detrimental events occurs to a family like this, we have three possible explanations with different levels of "blameworthiness".
1. Pure statistical misfortune - an unlikely but possible stream of independent, low probability bad-luck experiences. Like rolling snake-eyes over and over. It's rare, but it's bound to happen to somebody eventually. It has nothing to do with good or bad decision making, and would even seriously injure people who did all the right things and did all they could to insure against risk. On the other hand, "the system", insofar as it fails to provide a safety-net for the truly unlucky, ban be "blamed" for their misfortune.
2. The linked-chain, or the "snowball effect"- wherein one unfortunate event of semi-low likelihood makes others more likely through some kind of aggravation of general vulnerability. You get AIDS, now you'll contract diseases, potentially fatal to you, and about which other people don't even have to worry - that kind of thing.
This is somewhat decision-independent, since it's surely not impossible to reasonably assign some responsibility to a person who made decisions to live on the edge of susceptibility if a reasonable alternative course of action which would have clearly provided a buffer of resiliency. Obviously this is different for the poor, but we tend to have less sympathy for a high-income earner, who was living far beyond his means for years and who thus could have built up significant savings with minimal sacrifice, when the loss of his job causes him duress that was easily avoidable through prudence and frugality. This seems to be a perfectly reasonable judgment to me - not some Puritanical shaming ritual.
"The system" or "society" is probably half-responsible for the suffering of these individuals.
3. Poor decision making. Look, it's a fact that there is a class of adults that, for whatever reason, are simply childishly poor decision makers. Not all of them are poor - some have significant family support, etc.. - but very few are able to be independently successful regardless of whatever talents they possess. They are consistently impulsive, self-indulgent, immature, unable to appreciate long-term consequences, overly risk-tolerant, reckless, thrill-seeking, generally irresponsible, and tend to have insouciant attitudes towards social rules and the law in general.
I know I am not the only person to have known more than a few of these people in the course of my life - several of them of high intelligence and capability, but with what used to be called (perhaps over-simplistically) "flaws of character". Sometimes they were unfortunate, but at least as often their bad circumstances were not the fault of random bad luck, the universe, or anyone or anything else and were instead the direct and easily foreseeable results of their own poor decisions. What was common in all of them, however, was the psychologically self-defensive need to ascribe all their failings and woes to explanations 1 and 2 above. Understandable, of course, but inaccurate and self-deluding. "The system" is not in any way responsible for this.
Now, the point of all this is to say that I don't see how it's justifiable to just pick one of the above explanations as an ideologically favored narrative of "why bad things happen to the poor". The "shoulda's" favor 3, the "snowballs" favor 2, and the "system-ers" favor 1.
The reality, it seems to me, is that different people fit into different categories - and that different categories may apply to various incidents or time periods within the lifetime of a single person or family. The unsupported presumption of one story over the others is what generates all this ridiculous anger at each other. It's simply not fair, without further evidence, to accuse posters of being horrible people just because they find one of the particular explanations above to be a more likely cause of a certain family's problems.
Indy's response is highly intelligent. I would paraphrase it (despite his/her use of three categories) as follows: we have BOTH types in life. We have some people who genuinely have things happen that are outside of their control and beyond what would have happened had they exercised reasonable prudence, AND we have some people who were irresponsible in their choices, for which they should and are held responsible.
What a concept! It requires that we dispense with the anecdotal approach to these matters--in which we argue almost histrionically from a particular fact situation to a general statement that reflects our underlying approach ("welfare queen!" "no, martyred saint!", in a kind of "great taste"/"less filling" choral response)--and acknowledge that one of the incredible complexities of life is that there are BOTH (to oversimplify for the purposes of illustration) crack-addicted, sociopathic losers AND genuinely good, sympathetic individuals who are behind the eight ball through no real fault of their own. AND a lot of people in between.
Frankly, if a woman who already has a DUI on her record, who has a lot of stress in her life (deriving in part from the DUI and its sequelae)and who goes out and drinks and drives, is stopped by a cop, I'd like the book slammed on her fingers. Even if she is: overwhelmed by stress (hey! maybe she "deserves" to drink!), on the verge of losing her apartment and desperately needing to drive, notwithstanding her DUI suspension, in order to keep her job. And if she manages to hit me in my car, I am going to wonder very much why society has not protected ME from HER, and assigned her needs to drink and drive a distinctly secondary position.
Let me be clear: in such an instance, all the heartrending arguments in her favor--that she needs to drive, that she "needs" to drink, that life is just overwhelming to her and we can't, just can't, deprive her of her right to drive--pale in comparison to my right not to be hit by a drunk driver. I don't particularly care, nor should I care, that her mobility will be threatened, and innumerable stresses added to her life, by requiring her to carry insurance and stay sober.
Yet, there are also many other cases in which life--as it has an unfortunate habit of doing--does lay things on us that are truly not our fault and are truly beyond our ability to cope. Sometimes, things that are our fault, where, being human, we have simply screwed up. And yes, compassion is required in such cases. It is a dangerous economic world out there, one very different from the one that we grew up with in the 50s, and we have not yet found a suitable replacement.
One more observation: the only ad hominem attacks I have found in this string are all from the group advocating "compassion":
(1) Ladd says that botwin22 "should have been aborted just before writing [his] comment".
(2) Algernon says that Charles is "what's wrong with America".
(3) Tizzielish says that Charles is "misinformed and, perhaps, delusional". She [and the screen name has many associations that are feminine, justifying my assumption, in the absence of actual knowledge of the gender of the writer] postulates, out of thin air, a "white, middle class man now in his late 50s", who gets enjoyment from intimidating and harassing those who come to him for government services. Then, not to be outdone, she calls Charles a "heartless prick".
(4) Washington--giving living proof that last is not least--wonders how many of us are "fucking heartless bastards", castigates them as "you assholes", and impliedly links them to the "right wing".
There is no comparable venom from those arguing the other side. Some snark, yes. Some opposition, yes. But I did not see a single incident of profanity or ad hominem attack. I wonder why it is that the "compassion" folks are so abusive in their language?
Because by "compassion" what they actually mean is please pay for the irresponsibility of others while not being critical of people's piss poor life choices, lest they actually have to change their behavior and stuff.
I note, Wine Country Dude, that you resent an entertaining theory about what you categorize as people purporting to represent compassion without actually addressing any of the substance of the comments that you ridicule. In doing this, you play a distracting rhetorical game of making yourself sound reasonable when you are not actually addressing any of the substance.
Admittedly, the person who suggested that the moron who advocated abortion for the poor people presented in this article, who clearly got pregnant well in advance of their homelessness, does not make a substantive comment.
But I will analyze your criticism of my comment. You criticize me for suggesting that Charles appears to be 'misinformed', even though I substantiate my assertions with my expertise as an attorney. You also cite my tentative, speculation that Charles might also be delusional as if I had authoritatively declared him to be delusional. You make no point, except to confusingly distract anyone unwise enough to be reading your reactionary distracting nonsense. Is that your idea of discourse?
And you know what, it is delusional to believe it is a simple matter of making a phone call to get a court date changed, esp. if the person is not a licensed attorney and, even if licensed, if that attorney is not known to the court personnel, the actual odds of making a 'simple phone call' to get a court date changed are nil: to suggest otherwise is delusional. To be delusional is to hold al false belief: Charles is delusional if he believes his drivel about placing a simple phone call to change a court date. I spoke a simple truth.
As to your not-very-clever deduction that 'Tizzielish' is feminine because it has all kinds of feminine associations, Tizzielish was my mother's pet name for me when I was a small child and everyone in my family still calls me that. I think Tizzielish was a character on a radio drama in the nineteen thirties and, yes, female. I agree with you,that it is a reasonale conclusion to conclude someone going by Tizzielish is female. In fact, I have always assumed it signals my female gender. So what? Do you think you deride my gender or are you trying to undermine my voice by disparagingly alluding to my feminine gender? is my being female in any way relevant to my comments about Charles?
You, Wine Country Dude,are an asshole and a prick
Tizzielish: it is rare, in my experience, to have someone with whom I disagree confirm, so completely, my observations and assessment of them.
As you too have done of her assessment of you.
"...do you think something like I've outlined above would be more judicious and of greater overall benefit to the productivity of our nation than a system that leads to what I referred to as a debtor's prison in the story of Wilkins and Emma?"
Judicious? Greater overall benefit to the productivity of our nation? I admire the optimism but cringe at the reality. This is a dog eat dog society based upon reward and punishment. If you really want to get the public at large to support any incentive to help anyone other than themselves, you've got to sell it to them.
Promise them a banana for sponsoring a homeless person and they will flock to the opportunity like flies to shit...anything to increase their own self worth.
While this may sound cynical, it is not meant to. I just think you are giving humanity far more credit than it deserves.
Supposing the end goal would be a utopia where people took care of each other just because they were human. What then?
We'd get bored as hell and nobody would have anything to write about. Until the day that we collectively begin to strive for self awareness and self control (like a community of monks), don't count on humanity to run a course any different than it has since its inception.
Vanessa, wonderfully written comment. Thank you.
Jules - just to be clear, as someone who makes roughly 80K a year (pre-tax & healthcare costs - after that's about $63K), $150 is still $150. I know what you're getting at - but the logic is flawed....I mean, at what point does someone make "enough" money that they should pay more for the SAME infraction just because they were either born lucky or work hard enough (or both)? And there's already a 'sliding scale' called "graduated income taxes" that makes up for that perceived injustice that is 'people making more money than other people'.
For the record: I don't think a person's salary is equivalent to their worth (or even their work ethic), nor do I doubt this could happen to me.
I have a wife and a single child, a 4 year old (paid off) car and a small condo in a 'working class' neighborhood (and that's being polite). I've never had a balance of more than $1500 on all our credit cards, we try to live modestly.
bottom line - $150 is still the difference between paying my gas & electric bills and not. I agree people should do all they feel morally obligated to help those in need...but volunteering someone elses time (money is time, after all) seems cheap.
Its statements like this that insult the very people you're looking to foot the bill.
As a law enforcement officer I know that these people hurt more than themselves driving with no insurance. When they have an accident and someone gets hurt or something is damaged, they can be responsible for these similar horrible events happening in someone else's life. There is car sharing, there is public transportation.
I am also a Franciscan who works with the poor on a regular basis. I know that life is not fair. It is HARD to be poor. These compounding events happen frequently to those who can afford them the least. Getting up hours early to use a public transportation system that makes stand in every conceivable type of weather is not easy. Landlords, banks, check cashing agencies, rent to own businesses and law enforcement with no compassion all contribute to the problem.
For those that work with the poor, we know that it is harder than just "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps". There are many things that contribute to make and keeping people poor. There are no easy answers.
Those of those us that are not poor, those of us who consider themselves people of God (whether it is Allah, God, Buddha, Yahweh or another deity) have to look at ourselves and step up to the plate.
Where is God?!? We are God's feet and hands. Let us do what is right.
Mother Teresa said, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
Although she is obviously younger than I, and more comfortable with some of the (albeit appropriate)adjectives that have been flung around, I must agree with Tizzielish's assessment of Wine Country Dude.