Homeless in America

[Ferre]

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/p...Y&pageId=1.1.1

Good going. Must make people really proud to see their police force work so hard. All for the safety of the people, of course.

[South]

That's always a sad thing to see. New York came under a lot of fire when cleaning up the homeless problem, but in the end, it was accepted as a terrible but nessesary thing.

Amsterdam is a welfare state. More than half of all your housing is government housing, right? We could impose a one time special option sales tax to move American homeless over to you. You guys are experts at helping homeless. I think I read an article where ice cream sellers give homeless coats to advertise ice cream flavors. Exploitation or or kind heartedness? You be the judge.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by South

More than half of all your housing is government housing, right?

Wrong. more than half of the housing in Amsterdam is privately owned and the 'government housing' you mention does not exist.

What we do have is building cooperations, I'm a member of one of those. The principle is simple. A bunch of people form a cooperation, they all put money in the cooperation and build houses in which they live, they partly own the house that they live in but keep paying a very small amount of money for maintenance and the building of new houses.

To give you an example, I pay 270 euros/month for a house that would cost me min. 800 euros if I had to pay morgage, and 1000 euros rent if it would be rented out.

Most people who live in similar space in my town pay a lot more than I do. Instead of paying morgage to a bank, we spend that money ourselves and use it for our own benefits.

Not everyone can become a member of those coorporations, for obvious reasons, one has to be a long time resident of the city, have a solid income and there's a waiting list of avarage 8 years now.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by South

You guys are experts at helping homeless. I think I read an article where ice cream sellers give homeless coats to advertise ice cream flavors. Exploitation or or kind heartedness? You be the judge.

Where did you read that? First thing I hear about it. And the only homeless people in my country are those who want to be homeless, our constitution demands that every person has the right to an income and a home, all that homeless people need to do is go to the nearest social security office and get housing and money. We do have homeless people, but those are mostly illegal immigrants who can not apply for regulations, and a few alcoholics and junks, but even these people are helped when they want to.

[South]

Just going by this

Netherlands is a welfare state where rents are controlled by the national government and more than half of the housing is public housing. Virtually all homeless people in Amsterdam are unemployed and receive some sort of social security benefit. Direct comparisons of the results of American and Dutch studies on homelessness are impossible, mainly because the estimates are uncertain. Because of the Dutch welfare system, Amsterdam has a smaller proportion of homeless people than New York City, although more people are homeless in Amsterdam today than 15 years ago.

That's from the year 2000 by Yohan Sleegers M.A. for the American Psyciatrics Association

[South]

Originally Posted by Ferre

Where did you read that? First thing I hear about it. And the only homeless people in my country are those who want to be homeless, our constitution demands that every person has the right to an income and a home, all that homeless people need to do is go to the nearest social security office and get housing and money. We do have homeless people, but those are mostly illegal immigrants who can not apply for regulations, and a few alcoholics and junks, but even these people are helped when they want to.

It's for a US company, but for Amsterdam homeless. It's not started yet, just being talked about.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...362500,00.html

[SEOclown]

Haha...^^^ caught...cant even bring an original view has to steal someone elses, ah at least i got a chuckle.

how did you know it was Yohan? You read that before?

[South]

Originally Posted by SEOclown

Haha...^^^ caught...cant even bring an original view has to steal someone elses, ah at least i got a chuckle.

how did you know it was Yohan? You read that before?

Huh? I'm just quoting the source. What are you talking about?

[SEOclown]

My bad i need sleep, later.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by South

That's from the year 2000 by Yohan Sleegers M.A. for the American Psyciatrics Association

There is no such thing as 'public housing' Our government does not own houses that they rent out, they are not in the housing business. The nearest thing to 'public houses' is the example I gave you. Indeed, Homeless people can get into a priority list to get a house via a coorporation when they are in need.

Rents are only controlled in the sense that we have a legally set 'roof' for prices per quare meter for rent, this to prevent sharks (project developers) to over-price housing. They have done that in the past and it made it hard for people to find affordable housing in cities, which resulted in too many empty houses in the cities while there were many people looking for a place to live.

For the same reason, squatting houses is legal down here, when a house is empty for more than a year without it being used for anything, people have the right to squat those houses and use them for living.

You should know that the Netherlands is one of the most dense populated areas in the world (per aquare meter), leaving housing space empty is not considered a social thing to do down here. We do not have much space to build, a huge part of our country is artificially made by humans, we can not affort to just waste it.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by South

It's for a US company, but for Amsterdam homeless. It's not started yet, just being talked about.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...362500,00.html

That article is 3 years old and it never happened, this sort of thing would not work in our culture. BTW, funny that you said " Exploitation or kind heartedness? You be the judge". while that idea came from some stupid American company and was only mentioned in a foreign newspaper (For publicity purposes, no doubt)., I never heard of it down here.

I better ask you, as a fellow American; Exploitation or kind heartedness? You be the judge.

[Nick]

Cleaning up the homeless is essential. Tent cities are dirty places to live. It is for the safety of people.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by Nick

Cleaning up the homeless is essential. Tent cities are dirty places to live. It is for the safety of people.

Yeah right. And what about giving them an alternative eh? Like some place to put their tents up? Too much trouble? Too little space in America?

Most homeless people are not homeless by choice you know, they usually had some real bad luck in their lives.

I bet you still live with your mom and dad, it shows reading this remark.

[Brian]

I'll make a point to never move to St. Pete.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Ferre

Yeah right. And what about giving them an alternative eh? Like some place to put their tents up? Too much trouble? Too little space in America?

Most homeless people are not homeless by choice you know, they usually had some real bad luck in their lives.

I bet you still live with your mom and dad, it shows reading this remark.

Bad luck? Are you serious? I know plenty of people that have "bad luck" in their lives and have been resilient. Many people are homeless because of disabilities and there are places for them to get help. Living in tents is not the answer and is definitely not the safest place to live.

I bet you still live with your mom and dad, it shows reading this remark.

Actually no Mr. Wise one. Once again, you think you are all knowing and are wrong.

[Bestmiler]

Yeah I don't know what you're talking about Ferre. You contradicted yourself when you said that ppl are homeless by choice because of bad luck??? which one is it? This could have happened anywhere.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by Bestmiler

Yeah I don't know what you're talking about Ferre. You contradicted yourself when you said that ppl are homeless by choice because of bad luck??? which one is it? This could have happened anywhere.

Dude, how do I contradict myself eh? Me think you need a new pair of glasses.

Or maybe you should learn how to read English, it's not so hard you know, even a Dutchie like me can do that.

Originally Posted by Ferre

Most homeless people are not homeless by choice you know, they usually had some real bad luck in their lives.

[zcoder]

Ferre,