While I found your study very informative it was missing a population that is not mentioned in most studies.  Young people who are between the ages of 17 and 25 are a chronically underserved population.  This group stretches over all ethnicites, represents a high number of incarcerations; often leaving a one parent family on welfare.  With the workforce crunch squeezing tighter every day, there are few emancipated young people in this group that can depend on the prospect of keeping their jobs over a super qualified adult who also needs it. 
I am hoping that the Obama administration takes advantage of this ready to work force and helps to create alternative energy institutes that put many young people on a fast track to a bright future.

THE SOLUTION TO OUR WIDENING POVERTY/RICHES GAP – By David Chester The greatest social problem that we are experiencing today is the growing difference between the poor and the rich. This is not a new problem and for that reason we have learned to accept it. But we do this at a terrible cost in separation (and the associated feelings of anger, depression and helplessness), between the people who have jobs that provide stable incomes with comfortable homes and those who don't and can't. As a serious person whose charitable thoughts extend beyond his donating power, the writer refuses to accept this situation. And he should probably be labeled as slightly crazy, considering what he is going to explain below. This is because there really is a practical solution to this problem.  It doesn't appear that our government has made much progress in easing this injustice, although it can’t be denied that many changes have recently taken place. Current figures of unemployment exceed 6% and the growing numbers of families below the "poverty line" imply that things are getting worse. (Its bad enough that 20% of our school children are reported as going to their classes hungry, without taking with them sufficient food).  Let us recognize that this is a national problem of macroeconomic proportions, and the approach to it must be by understanding how our economy works in the technical sense, without politics being involved. Due to what seems to be a complex situation, our macroeconomic system is a subject about which few people can speak with conviction. However, there is a rational way of thinking about it, and to really understand my explanation of how our macro-economy operates is simultaneously to (joyfully) discover the solution to our problem of joblessness. Possibly due to doubts about the theory that follows, you may need some time to digest it, before the coin drops. But there is hope and an answer is to be found out there!   The writer’s quest for this answer is coldly logical and extremely basic. It begins by examining the difference between micro- and macroeconomics. We are most familiar with microeconomics, which is on a family or company level. The decisions are made without taking into account how they affect the community at large. Indeed there is no need to do so, when our needs are of a personal or local nature. However, what is good for the individual is very different to what is good for the whole country.  Macroeconomics on the other hand, takes into account the "big picture" and is able to examine how national policies affect the average of the whole population. Because it deals with this average it cannot envisage how single families, firms or even small sectors of the population are affected. It is insensitive as to whether there are lots of slightly impoverished people or a smaller number of very poor ones. This is because after including the richer ones, their average is the same in both cases. However, when everyone is doing badly, a macroeconomic approach is able to show that something is wrong. Also it can illustrate how the different macro-economic functions of society are combined. This is the means that we shall be using, to understand what is actually happening in the U.S. (and elsewhere too). Most people (including the writer) have difficulty in determining whether a particular aspect of the subject is a micro- or macro- one. This dilemma explains why the experts are unable to agree, for they are always mixing up these two conceptions. As an example, from a microeconomic aspect personal taxation is regarded as a bad thing and we would cheerfully manage a lot better without it. However as responsible citizens who can also appreciate taxation from a national macroeconomic viewpoint, we know that it is necessary. In fact from this position, the more tax that is collected the better (provided that we don't have to pay it ourselves!). Below the explanation uses only macroeconomic concepts, and it shows that what we actually have is a simple situation, when of necessity it is examined from sufficiently great a distance. The writer should explain why he wrote "simple" here. Scientists and engineers have found that they can describe a large population (of molecules, say) by their averages. In a sealed jar containing a specific quantity of gas, the average pressure, density and temperature are related and can be found without having to trace the rapid movements of any of the millions of molecules within. By calculation we can determine whether there will be an explosion or implosion when the seal is broken. The quantity of gas and its average properties have been reduced to a simple concept and we can decide what will happen without regard to the individual molecule. The same situation applies when the macroeconomic properties of the whole national population are considered and what was previously thought to be very complicated now becomes relatively simple, provided that it is the average that is being examined. Within the macroeconomic system, to produce goods and services the managers bring together three different kinds of basic elements or factors of production. These are commonly known as the land, labor and capital. (There are some economists who claim that an additional factor is technology, but since this can be purchased as a service it really falls within the above classifications as either capital or labor.) The returns paid for use of these factors are called the ground-rents, wages and interest (or dividend), respectively. These costs are covered during the simultaneous employment of the factors of production. When one of these three elements is in short supply, the product becomes more expensive due to the increased return payment being made for its use.  Initially in a "new" country, there is an abundance of land but the pioneers are limited in their productive capacity by the scarcely of their numbers. Everybody works hard, but if one farmer needs to dig up a tree-root or to shift a heavy rock, he needs the assistance of many others. So the first limitation is in labor and anybody having a few slaves for hire is a king.  A little village springs up. There are now sufficient people to perform the more difficult kinds of farming activities. However there is only one tractor and a few plows and straggly draft-animals, which are needed in half a dozen places at once during the plowing and planting season. The tractor owner is now the one who gets rich, due to the heavy demand for his services. So the current limitation is in capital. Until the farmers are able to produce sufficient goods and to be able to exchange part of them for more powerful tools and better equipment, the community will remain relatively poor. Employment is not a problem in this society, anyone who is not busy in the fields or in raising domestic animals, is building himself a better house, enclosing a larger paddock or improving on his working gear. The community grows into a small town. There is no longer a problem of insufficient manpower or equipment. The problem is one of finding suitable space for the newly established farms and businesses. All the choice locations have already been taken. The agricultural produce from the latest farmers is grown on outlying land and it has to be brought a considerable distance to the central markets. Consequently these goods are more costly to supply. Those who can produce them more cheaply on conveniently located central lands, soon discover that without loss they can adjust their prices slightly below those of the "marginal farmers". The pioneers can now enjoy the surplus income (over actual cost) in a raised standard of living, whilst the poorer farmers located on the fringes of the community barely scrape by. After manufactured goods become available and commerce has developed, the land that lays closest to the factories, shops, offices and homes, is able to command for its owners some amazingly high ground-rents for the same reason. Central sites allow for greater labor specialization, higher efficiency and lower total unit costs.  The most productive land is central to the town and it has the greatest value. The land-owners are now able to speculate in this valuable resource. They would rather wait for a new highway or rail-road to be planned and for the potential usefulness that this confers on their originally acquired fields, than put this land to the plow. When they rent it out as small parcels for commercial use, they can demand a total income that is hundreds if not thousands of times more in goods-value than what was grown by the pioneers on sites of equal size and fertility. They can do this without performing a stroke of work and without employing a single laborer, although some will make a token gesture to use their land in a more socially-justifiable way. Eventually and inevitably the land is sold at amazingly high prices for use in manufacture, commerce or residence. Due to land speculation, as sites become available their prices are inflated, regardless of whether they are sold, leased or rented. This is our situation today. The most productive and valuable parts of our land are held by monopolists who speculate in them, driving up the cost of the produce (be it food or manufactured goods), of residence and even of travel. Our gift from nature (or inheritance from God, depending on how you see it), has become vitally important, due to the increases in population density and the municipal development that goes with it. From the selfish point of view of the monopolistic landowner, it is better to hold the land out of use. He can borrow from the banks, which will gladly help him to buy some more of the outlying land, because it is certain to rise greatly in value. When he sells this land he will collect more money than a past generation of farmers could have possibly earned.   Much of the development land is in the hands of the local authorities who obviously don't pay tax to themselves. The town planners and lawyers are the first to inform the banks where a new suburb is projected. Then the banks can speculate by lending money for the development of this land. When it is sold, much of the true value will be passed "under the table" before the contract is handed over for signature. The selfish non-use and speculation of this huge resource, the value of which is continuing growing, due to public investment within the community, provides the monopolists of our land with an income that in effect is taken from the ground-rents. This misdirection of rent is the cause of the high prices and relative low demand of our consumer goods. The landlessness of the hired worker coupled with the low demand for his efforts create a lack of available jobs, which then result in our current unemployment and poverty. Before the ground-rent became significant and people held back on the use of land, there was never any unemployment.  The obvious answer to this problem of improperly used ground-rent (some of which the land owner/user does not even know about, since in effect he pays it to himself), is to collect a proportion of it as a tax for public use. After all, much of the ground-rent (in the form of interest) should be due to public investment in the streets, sewers, transport systems and emergency services in the first place. Therefore it is socially just and fitting to take this gain for public use. The effect of taxing most material items is to suppress them, but you can't do this with the land, because it is there anyway. The effect of introducing even a small amount of land-value tax would be to cause many of the speculators to sell land to people who will use it properly and who are able and willing to pay the community for the privilege, particularly if other taxes can be reduced.
The writer has been studying macroeconomics for many years. Some of his research has been into the effect of various taxation methods on the equilibrium of these generalized social systems. Unlike most other models of the system, the one he uses separates the micro- from the macroeconomics properties and uses only the latter. The previous example about income-tax can be extended. An increase in this tax will enable the government to employ more people and to provide better social services, education, etc. (particularly to the poorer sector, whose need for them is greatest). It can do this without changing the average national income (because the same total sum of money is involved, whilst being distributed differently). But of more significance, using a simple model based on common-sense assumptions, and by some numerical analysis that a high-school student could follow, this writer has found that a tax on land-values will quickly stimulate the system 50% more than when the same added tax burden is laid on personal income.  The introduction of a modest amount of land-value taxation will enable us to morally and justly pull ourselves out of the economic quagmire, in which we have been floundering for many years. This is a sorely felt need by all those land-less souls who are without work and lack the opportunity to earn enough to survive without having either to beg, lie or steal.         TAX TAKINGS AND NOT MAKINGS. [The writer is a retired engineer who has specialized in the simulation of dynamic systems of many different kinds including in economics.] He may be contacted by e-mail at: chesterdh@hotmail.com ]         

Here in Austin, TX, we are implementing a program we call the Martin Luther King Youth Empowerment Services (MLK YES) Project.  MLK YES is a collaborative project of churches, service agencies, and the Austin Police Department.  APD, under Chief Art Acevedo, is determined to establish a new national standard for healthy and productive police-community relationships.

MLK YES targets young persons 18-25, and aims to bring this population into contact with existing social service providers by first creating safe and attractive "socialization" spaces where young people can congregate for fun and fellowship.  Though churches are involved, we are interested in non-church settings.  Though we are open to young persons of all conditions, one of our primary goals is to help young persons who are in or on the edge of poverty to become meaningfully engaged with society.
The socialization spaces are an end in themselves, because young people need safe places to congregate, but also are a means to get young people in contact with existing service providers in our community, who have a lot to offer young people, but are not trusted by the population they need to serve, and therefore need places to build relationships.

I am excited that you have started this poverty in America blog.  I was wanting to do something like this with the http://www.povertyandhunger.org site that I started, but I do not have the knowledge or skills to make it this professional looking and informative.

I believe that more and more families are going to fall into poverty in the coming months, and they do not have a clue how to survive without a steady paycheck.  I hope that you can give them some ideas on how to survive the shock, guilt, and hopelessness that they feel when they find themselves thrown into poverty due to circumstances beyond their control.

The fact that people commit crimes and are incarcerated is a symptom of poverty, not a cause.  
 

The solution to poverty won't come from a PhD or confusing Sociology talk it will come from common sense learned from observing the issue from the outside looking in, and the inside looking out.  It is this simple... a person is born and placed in their first category according to race and gender. Our society is winner and loser based, we learn this from the first day of school, sports and other social activities compound this.  As we goto school people are sorted into more categories, stoners, preps, nerds, geeks, jocks etc. By the time you hit Jr High there are huge gaps between these different categories of people and some of the higher status people pick on and prey on people less fortunate and others jump on their band wagon and ridicule people, the divide widens. People who are poor and parents can't afford the designer jeans etc. get picked on and humiliated, people who are different get picked on, people who do not fit in the "winner category" get picked on and slowly become beat down and tired until despair and hopelessness set in and the hole becomes so deep that very few can climb out, some of these people even choose to kill others and themselves.

Then when High School is over we throw the beaten down less fortunate people into housing run by drug dealers, prostitution, and gangs.  The gangs finishing raising these people and they become a statistic for more violence and crime.

I submit that if you took 1000 kids from all different races and classes and raised them as equals (no difference) the result would be 100% success, excluding people with "bad wiring", there are people in this world that have no conscience and something is wrong within their mind. These people are simply damaged goods, and become thieves, rapists, molesters, and deviants without influence.

The bottom line is our Society is creating poverty, until we all realize this, change how others are treated, and level the playing field this will never change no matter how much we talk about it.

In have been in the trenches and here is what I learned.
Every human being must develop life skills to be successful in society, but to develop these skills permanently people must have basic needs met. Maslow lays out his hierarchy of needs. 1) Physiological needs (hunger, thirst) 2) Safety Needs (security, protection) 3) Social Needs (belonging, love) 4) Esteem Needs (recognition, status) once an individual has met all these then self actuation is possible. Create a program with an environment that contains within it these 4 basic needs and the individuals’ basic life skills, personal social growth, and self worth will increase.  I have developed a duplicable model "Neighborhood Guild" program based on results of a successful pilot project with A'TOLL Inc. Over 2 million dollars in successful grants were directed to A'TOLL projects in 4 rural Oregon communities from 1992-2000. Our model ran successfully for 11 years. Sheltering people from outside abuse/manipulation and providing the required 4 basic needs enabled them to develop permanent life skills. If we do this on a larger scale the result would be less crime, fewer homeless people, and a reduction in drug use. 

I propose every major City have a "Neighborhood Guild" teaching life skills, and a "Housing Diversion" program imposing penalties for people committing severe housing violations.

We all know the value of educating and investing in our youth, now we need to invest in the children of our country who grew up and never quite developed the life skills to become responsible citizens. It is time to correct a flaw in our social system that has allowed homelessness and a “lower class” of people to exist within the most powerful Country on the planet.

The information I am sharing is the research gathered from our model A’TOLL Inc. plus my research afterwards. It is a final report from the Branum family on our 11 year program in answer to a speech Jimmy Carter made calling for a self sufficient, affordable, duplicable housing model.  Just to be clear I am no longer affiliated with A’TOLL Inc or any other non profit.

During the creation of this model we accidentally created something beyond what was asked and I saw change.org as an opportunity to finally get this information to the people.

My life has never felt like my own it has led me from place to place showing me answer after answer to housing issues from every angle, developer, manager, tenant, building inspector. It is far easier to claim a cure for something like cancer or aids, which is easily provable.  No one will believe there can be a solution for homelessness, and they would be partly correct since there is no complete solution, no one can force another person to change. But the basic theory of my model is sound and I have seen that it works.

I will share a few things I have learned.
Question: Why do large housing complexes in large cities like New York and Chicago and other large cities become slums?

Answer: Because there is a flaw in landlord tenant law. Landlord tenant law works fine in regular housing but in affordable housing it empowers deviance.

We restored the North Bend Hotel and opened it up to very low income tenants, in the first year we were faced with ending our project.  Predators including prostitutes, drug dealers, and family members came immediately to prey on the people.

Our solution?  We served everyone in the building a 30 day notice informing them that we were changing to a membership entity and gave everyone the option of staying if they wanted. This removed landlord tenant law and allowed us to close the doors to the public and control access. 

The results were immediate and astonishing, for the first time in these people's lives they could keep out the people who preyed on them and it wasn't their fault!  We had family members screaming at us, "your locking people up like a prison" the truth was they were mad they couldn't have access to the people they had been preying on for years.  Of course this wasn't true people were allowed to have guests but who and when was controlled.

This led to our greatest discovery and one I didn't understand until I took Sociology in College.  By closing the doors to the negative influence we accidentally created an environment that contained within it the 4 needs Maslow laid out peoples lives began to change and the changes that happened in this environment were permanent.  Counselors and family members began to notice the change.

Now let me share with you an almost identical 60 unit building housing low income people run by landlord tenant law.
People’s friends and relatives run around causing problems, burning and melting signs, painting graffiti, pounding on doors at 3 am, screaming, fighting, arguing, at all hours of the day and night, I even saw a man executed. Family, friends, drug dealers, prostitutes, and gang members control these buildings and there is nothing anyone can do or say to stop this behavior, landlord tenant law prevents this.

Right after A’TOLL I managed a 60 unit apartment building in Oroville for 5 years where all the conditions I described to you above were commonplace, when I first came there it was chaos, some crazy man with wild hair and eyes ran past me in the hall and threw a mirror out the third story window to the sidewalk below, the building was completely out of control. I was barely able to keep it functioning and the moment I left the gangs and drug dealers took the building back over and it reverted back to a complete slum I was shocked and disgusted enough and that experience is partly why I have written all of this.

Imagine placing a teenager just getting out of high school, a homeless person, a person with a developmental disability, or simply a person with weak life skills into each of these buildings.

Now imagine placing them into a building deliberately designed with the criteria I have laid out, insert a counselor recommending appropriate classes for each individual. Provide training, college classes like psychology (personal and social growth), personal finance, AA, NA whatever is needed.  Find each person a job they like and build their life skills. 

If you have self worth and gratification in your life and job you probably don’t abuse drugs or make other bad decisions that jeopardize what you have, can you imagine anyone who has gained all of this going backwards?  Well it could happen, but I am betting not very often.

I have watched hundreds of people from all of the above categories be placed in the housing I managed under landlord tenant law in Oroville and unfortunately almost none of them were able to hold their own in that environment, I can't even imaging how it is in those huge buildings in New York and L.A.

Most people don't know what life is like in these buildings unless they have seen it with their own eyes. Prostitutes, drug dealers, and abusive family members prey on the weakest in our society to further their own means and people who are barely able to control their lives are manipulated and used until their lives are shattered and destroyed.  This is producing more drug dealers and gang members, gangs offer a false sense of belonging and security and without interference it quickly becomes their lifestyle.

There will always be evil, and crime in this world but it is crucial that we stop allowing these predators access to the people who are vulnerable to their influence.

I believe this to be the best and only solution to a huge social/housing problem happening in these buildings. We must allow people to develop their life skills to a level where they have the ability to say no and fend these people off. If we do not do this the result will be another wave of gang members, drug dealers, prostitutes and victims, and the cycle continues...

I am in no way proposing a government run program, taking government money comes with strings, government control, and becomes a mess when red tape, special interest groups, and lobbyist’s get involved. 

Our 11-year pilot project used only money from private foundations. We learned that a partnership between a non-profit and a for-profit entity is essential. This program must utilize a non profit, bottom-line management operating system that is married to a privately owned building in the hands of an entity that is dedicated to the longevity of the program and the interest of the people. This program must be able to operate independently of social reactionaries. Binding the for-profit and non-profit entities with a fixed, indefinite, irrevocable lease creates a stable training tool that blends nicely into our existing social structure.

I am going to talk briefly about the operating system we developed out of necessity, we call it "bottom line management" and the basic operation of it is very similar to a college dorm.

These huge high-rise buildings are hardware, and like a computer they are only as good as the operating system running them and right now these high-rise apartment buildings in large cities are running on DOS v1

College dormitories have a surprising operating system, very polished and effective for running a large multiunit environment with shared common areas. The advantage of a college dorm operating system is landlord tenant law has been adjusted for them and anyone not capable of following house rules will need to explore other housing options, 30 day notices are not issued and physical removal for violence other crimes is almost immediate.  The difference between this and our model is our building will not be open to the public; guests must be invited by a member, approved by staff, and are subject to the house rules. Dormitories do this also, but only after dark.

Question: You are not building a dorm how can you bypass landlord tenant law?

Answer: Instead of housing and then training people, people pay for their membership, training is started, and then housing is assigned as a benefit of your membership. Every member pays the exact same amount. Our attorney found no law preventing this and Oregon legal services position was they would not take any cases against A’TOLL Inc because they represent us and it would be a conflict of interest.

I actually have 2 very similar models, the first we named "Neighborhood Guilds" this is a voluntary membership with different levels of progression within it. Here is some background about guilds.
The history of guilds is an interesting subject.  In the early 1800’s The Settlement House movement started in England. It provided a model, which became the foundation for all social helping agencies that exist today. Stanton Coit founded Americas first Settlement house In New York City in the late 1800’s, It was at first named “The Neighborhood Guild” and was later renamed The University Settlement.  In 1886 Jane Addams founded a second settlement house, The Hull House in Chicago. These settlements taught adult education and English language classes, organized job clubs, offered after school recreation, initiated public health services, and advocated for improved housing for the poor and working class. There were many other settlement houses formed, a lot of them still exist today under The United Neighborhood Centers of America (UNCA) which currently has 195 neighborhood centers in 57 cities and 22 states.

The second model I named "Housing Diversion" and this program, like others bearing the name diversion, would be imposed by a judge for extreme housing violations.

There must be a penalty for extreme housing violations.

Question: Is Housing Diversion only for extreme housing violations?

Answer: No, there is another huge housing problem causing homelessness that could be addressed by a less intensive “Housing Diversion” program.

Problem: When a tenant skips out on rent, can’t pay rent and has to be evicted. The landlord will file in court against them.  This action is called an unlawful detainer filing (The owner sues the tenant for unlawfully detaining the unit’s ability to make money) this tool is used to physically remove someone and once signed by a judge it puts a black mark on the tenants performance profile for 10 years and can be extended to 20 if pursued. This mark is public record and it cannot be removed even after paying the debt in full.  As a result that tenant is very unlikely to find a landlord who will take the risk of renting to them. Almost all credit checks include a search for unlawful detainers now and the landlord is quickly informed of not only financial problems but also evictions the individual has had. 

There is however a space for comments where the completion of a housing diversion program could be noted.  I have spoken to several landlords who have stated they would give a second chance and rent to an individual who has successfully completed housing diversion.Just to be clear I am not proposing all high-rise apartment buildings be run like this, my "Idea" Is to have 1 "Neighborhood Guild" and 1 "Housing Diversion" program in each major City to train/develop Life Skills.

As I stated earlier landlord tenant law works fine under normal conditions.

Our buildings were named Neighborhood Guilds, so a Guild in New York would be named "New York Neighborhood Guild" 

I appologize this isn't writen well, I have tried rewriting it a hundred times and I could rewrite it another hundred times and not be happy, but I think it reveals a major problem in our Social System that no one has seen or no one wants to see.

@ Lynda - thanks for the feedback.  I did not highlight individual adult poverty rates, which would include the age group you describe.  Your point is well taken.  I hope you saw the comment from Landon below about the work his group is doing with these at-risk young adults.

@Scott - thanks for the compliment!  Glad to be here!

@Bonnie - good point, though I never said incarceration was a cause.  In fact, re-reading my post, it seems well described as symptomatic of poverty, or living in poor urban neighborhoods.  This post is about "controversies" or particular issues in domestic poverty, not the causes of it. 

@David - what's the difference b/w my research as a PhD and your own research that you site in your own post?  Why is "confusing sociology talk" mutually exclusive from really getting out there and working on issues of poverty, or with people living in poverty?  (Or being part of an extended family living in poverty, as is my case.)

I appreciate your input here and your work but your initial comment is alienating.

Leigh you are right, I apologize.

I have gone through alot emotionaly and personally writing all of this and did not mean to alienate anyone. It will indeed take all of us to make this world better and  it will take people with PhD's to make it work.

What I meant to say is that having a PhD or Sociology degree won't help you see all of the problems, and me not having a PhD hurts my effectiveness and communication. I was unable to edit my post after I wrote it.

I am having a hard time sharing and talking without tripping over my emotions and have considered not posting because of that, but my need to share my research keeps making me do it anyways.  I do mean well and think my research should be seen even if my emotional stability is in question.

I am doing the best I can, thank you for not throwing me under the bus :)

My post seems to be a Blog stopper, and the reason is that it is almost impossible, on such a complicated problem, to 1) identify any key underlying problem. 2) Articulate the problem well enough for people to understand. 3) Offer a viable solution and course of action.

I think I have done these 3 things and I challenge and welcome anyone to offer a better plan of action, doing nothing is not an option.

I heard President Elect Obama say today that he will embrace any idea, no matter where or who it comes from, as long as it is proven and he believes it is viable.  

Well here it is, take the best and the brightest and either prove me wrong or listen to what I am saying and take action. It doesn't have to be the action I am proposing, but I have never in my life heard or seen anything with more potential for change than what I am proposing.

So someone please do one of the following. 1)prove me wrong. 2) Identify a larger problem in Domestic Poverty and offer a solution to it.  3)Listen to me and take action.

If you drive your car under the influence, potentially harming or killing others, you receive a DUI and must take a diversion class to get your license back. 

The same should apply to people who commit crimes such as domestic violence, dealing drugs, prostitution, or allowing gang activities within their residence. Allowing a residence to be run in a manner that is harmful or deadly to society and others should trigger housing diversion after incarceration, if they are imprisoned.

More reality, gangs send in young men and women to secure a residence in a building or neighborhood, the person seems nice, proper, and polite and they have no unlawful detainers or bad credit, but soon after they move in gang members move in also and operate from their residence.  Can’t you just evict them?  Yes but that takes a 30 day notice and 15 days for the unlawful detainer to physically remove.  During this time the gangs and violent individuals terrorize you and the building or area and often times the owner and manager are more afraid for their lives than removing the individuals.

Also it is fairly common for women, on welfare or other support programs, which have a residence, to have their residence and lives controlled by gang members and are told if they resist or tell anyone they will be killed.  They live in constant fear.

I never hear anyone talk about these things, this is reality on the streets and the information doesn’t seem to make it to the people trying to fix the problems.

I am attempting to show some reality and problems going on that very few people ever see or hear about.  I have sat down with a few young women, who have their residence run by gang members, and they have told me this information as they cry uncontrollably and beg me not to say anything to the authorities for fear they and their children will be killed.

We should take one of the large slum buildings, in a city like New York or Chicago, lock the door to unauthorized people, place an armed guard at the door, install a very high tech camera system in the common areas, and create a safe Neighborhood Guild.

We should then take another identical building and create a similar but more controlled Housing Diversion program where Judges can sentence people, committing extreme violators, to live and be rehabilitated in a controlled environment with the result of failure being incarceration.

I know the results we would see by these 2 programs will show without a doubt that every major City needs to have these programs available.

How do we fill this Neighborhood Guild?

That won’t be a problem it will fill because of low “membership dues” not rent, and people will come running for shelter once they figure out what’s going on.

I overheard a member of the once North Bend Neighborhood Guild talking to his drug dealer friend, the dealer stated that he wanted to move into the Guild, the member immediately informed him that he would not survive in the Guild because of the rules.  The word was out on the street and the Guild was respected by most and avoided by career criminals.

I have been thinking and envisioning how a Neighborhood Guild would function on a larger scale than I built, I see it becoming a neutral zone, a safe area where people can be sheltered from their out of controll life and re-organize, re-prioritize, and gain the skills and confidence to turn life around.
 

A very wise person just pointed out to me that what I have designed/created is not a solution to poverty or homelessness but a tool that can be used to affect/contain the problem.  I would have to agree with that assessment.

Hello David,

It is a JOY to read your writings here.  I am a kindred spirit living in Washington State.  I'm a 56 yer old mother, grandmother and an ever increasing social revolutionary but also an evolutionaryist if there is such a word.  In other words, I see a larger picture of how many of our social ills have developed like you do.  You could see the outcome of the fracturization of family and community years ago and how it would influence today's American society.  Now that we are living in the result of what an out of whack balance can do in a democracy, we must help each other to correct the balance.  Obama sees it and has been immersed in it during his years as a community organizer.  I thank him for not forgetting and  for having the guts to include us all in an outreach program like there has never been in our history.  Now it is up to us to contribute.  David, I wish you were closer so we could really work together on this.  Perhaps you can help me get started with some of your great insight. 
My name for it is "The Village" model for obvious reasons.  The features, the reasons, the objectives are so similar to your  own Neighborhood Guild it astonishes me!  I have added a couple of other components to it.  After the stablizing act of creating a safe, structured and nurturing place to live, I have added the feature that makes it blend into the administration's call to action in putting America to work.  Training in alternative energy fields today is what training in IT was a generation ago.  It is imperative in my opinion that young bright minds (homelessness is not an excuse here) be trained and put into service building green, retrofitting our cars and buildings, creating new engergy farms and grids with wind and solar power.  These are all things that can be cultivated on a community college level.  My oldest son who is 27 is a very bright kid who became bored in high school and left it just short of graduating.  We lived in a small town where his job offers were slim in the first place but he pretty much settled for a min. wage job at a local deli until he got an opportunity to test his wings.  A wind energy company came to town and he hired onto the crew.  Today he is in Texas building wind machines and has become an inspector.  He loves the work.  My two other  sons are trying to get jobs in the field as well.  This can be a BOONE (yes I meant that) for our isolated young people like my son who just needed an opportunity to shine. 
Just so this does not get as long as a book here, I will stop to let you ask specific questions and make comments. 
I hope others also jump in here as well of course!  This is great energy folks!
Fearlessly
Lynda

Part TWO of this example came when my son found out that after he pulled up stakes and moved accross the country to work at the new job site, he had no where to live!  These sites are isolated and depend upon local resources for housing.  As it turned out, he had to stay in van the first two weeks, then he was moved to a one room shack, then he finally was offered a trailer when one came available at a super inflated price. 
And so the component of mobility and self containment came to light here.  Each person would not live in an apartment, they would move into an RV, or a 5th wheel.  This does limit the size of a family who would be eligible but then to be mobile, you would have to be able to go from job to job.  Having children that are school age would not work well. 
Being able to go from job site to job site is important for continued education and also because it is a great advantage to be flexible as jobs become completed and others open up.
In the first part of this model I talked about stablization.  For those that had been living in cars and tents, an RV that had been retrofitted with safe and efficient materials, outfitted with propane running engines and solar panels would be welcome I would think.  This would be a personal choice at intake by the way.  If a person chose to take part in this particular career path, then they could put a portion of their "rent" toward the purchase of this mobile unit or evenchoose to donate or sell it back to the Village when they no longer need it.  Another component of the training would be in the retrofitting of the RV to begin with. 
Not everyone would lend themselves to this area and other job training opportunities would of course be available.  But everyone needs a home and when you're homeless being able to move about to any job opportunity is a welcome feature. 

Lynda,

I am very happy to hear from you, thank you for you comments and support.  I would be happy to share with you any and all research I have gathered.  I have spent 19 years of my life searching for these answers and unfortunatly my health and well being insist that I not physically go any further than just consulting now. I have gathered all of the answers I sought, I have shown them to be true by physically creating "Neighborhood Guilds", and now I have been able to share that information with the people, much to the dismay of this blog's author I am sure.  I needed closure or I would eat myself up inside and never have peace in my life again.

I did the very best I could and I hope it will be enough because I have nothing left to offer except the knowledge and wisdom I have gained, and a bit of an attitude and confusion. Even if it is not recognized now I think someday someone, who is in a position to do something with it, will understand what I have said and use it to help others.  If not I have done my absolute best and I have no regrets.

I know I'm coming into this discussion late, but how our society deals with the disabled and particularly with the mentally ill plays a rather major role in the problem of poverty.  For example, if you're a childless adult of any age, you can't get access to medical assistance until you're poor enough to qualify for Medically Needy Medicaid or disabled enough to be on SSI or SSDI.  This alone pushes many of the disabled into poverty, very abject poverty because of the delusionally out of touch way we continue to figure poverty and necessary expenses all because they need help with their medical care to survive - and if the members of this group could get medical care sooner, at least some (perhaps many) could work.

The mentally ill face more drastic problems.  I've witnessed this my whole life.  Mental illness is rampant in my family.  There is the strong discrimination and stigma against mental illness that keeps many from getting appropriate treatment even when it's clearly, desperately necessary - all because they fear what people might say and what family and/or employers (or even landlords) might do.  The stigma and discrimination gives the mentally ill problems with finding (and keeping) employment, housing and relationships.  It's also likely to be a reason why Public Mental Health is so badly underfunded in many areas, non-existent in others, and flat out incompetent and/or unethical/unprofessional in many of the areas where it does exist no matter how well it's funded.    Plus, because so many - whether by choice or because they don't yet realize they're mentally ill - aren't in treatment, many end up in prison from crimes committed in episodes or due to substance abuse habits developed in attempts to self medicate.

Making the problems of the disabled, and again this can particularly be a problem for the mentally ill, is that they are often victim of stuff like domestic violence or financial fraud.  Which makes it even harder for us to get out of poverty no matter how badly we want to do so - and because we're poor AND disabled, we're often viewed by resources with an eye of suspicion especially if our disability list includes a mental illness.

All that said, one thing that has to be stopped for more people to escape poverty, is for the "assistance" programs to quit punishing those that try to better their situations.  I understand that costs must be cut and all that, but really is it necessary to immediately cut "benefits" by as much as (or more than) the recipient made by working?  Is it fair to so quickly cut off or make them "buy into" survival necessities like medical assistance?  If the goal is to get people out of poverty, how people trying to make an exit are treated could seriously use some work.

Obama is President and the new whitehouse.gov website is up *cheer*I see Obama and Biden are addressing the housing/social problem going on.

Establish 20 Promise Neighborhoods: Obama and Biden will create 20 Promise Neighborhoods in areas that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement in cities across the nation. The Promise Neighborhoods will be modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone, which provides an entire neighborhood with a full network of services from birth to college, including early childhood education, youth violence prevention efforts, and after-school activities.
I would like to thank them for making this information available to me so quickly.
I have reviewed Harlem Children’s Zone; I know these 20 Promise Neighborhoods will do great. There are too many people that need help though and this intensive of a program costs money; I think add Neighborhood Guilds as a staging area, smaller version of the parent neighborhood that offers immediate access “time out” from life. Did I mention that these Neighborhood Guilds are self subsistent and cost the taxpayer and government nothing?

Don’t forget Housing Diversion! There needs to be a penalty for operating a residence in a manner harmful to the community. 

Don’t forget the people living in Hotel/Motels because they have unlawful detainers on their records and no one will rent to them; housing diversion to clear their housing record is just as needed as DUI diversion or their family suffers along with them.
So good to communicate my ideas, I promise to slow down its just that this is the first opportunity, in my lifetime, that I have ever had access to our leaders and the community, I guess for me it was like a glass of water in the desert that someone was going to take away any moment. Now I realize that the water isn’t going anywhere.
Thank you team Obama!

Ok I googled subsistent and it doesn't mean what I thought.  Self sufficient with no government money is what I meant.  Once the building is purchased the membership fees would pay for the expenses since making a profit will not be necessary.    

A lot of the people I personally know (yeah, I know, this is not at all a representative or scientific sample) who live in hotels/motels are there because of a history of legal troubles (usually drug related sentencing and typically just USERS not DEALERS, dealers somehow manage to get housing...) and/or because they're disabled and trapped in that Twilight Zone gap between poor enough with the right qualifications to get housing aid and having enough income to afford housing that's not a hotel/motel or other slum housing (like the nasty crackhead and roach infested place where I live that requires complaints to the Housing Authority to get repairs made).  Very often, these are the disabled childless families that are seemingly disposable based on how our nation chooses to provide assistance with such a strong preference for those with children even if the adults are able-bodied. 

No offense intended to the families with children, but there's a reason why the disabled are so often seen going without food, basic necessities, access to healthcare and sometimes either with no housing or with really BAD housing.  It's because in "cost cutting" or "fraud control" measures everything was set up in ways that make it almost impossible for the childless to get help even when disabled until they've been long out of work and can prove they're going to stay that way along with that they're totally impoverished - no income to lift them or their family above 100% of poverty (a delusional enough figure) and less than $2000 in assets.  Which means many of the disabled childless have technically experienced at least a period of homelessness even if it wasn't on the streets.

I'm trying not to be snarky, but after a while, this fight gets old.  And I've just been told by my state that they've decided my husband and I are now "two families of one" for medical assistance. 

The major problem here is that the people creating law and programs have no idea what's really going on in these buildings. I have never heard any real life reports of what's actually going on in these neighborhoods/buildings except statistics and very limited accounts of individual experiences. As a developer, manager, and tenant I have lived among impoverished people, communities and buildings all my life. I think developing a working model that performed well in these environments for 7 years gives me a unique perspective that no one has been able to offer or show to date.  I have given an account of what’s really going on and no one really knows what to say or even wants to acknowledge what I am saying is real.  Aside from my personal drama and attitude, which I tried to minimize but you would have also if you lived the life I have, I have hit the nail right on the head and shown the truth and a realistic solution.  You can play out what I have experienced and learned a thousand times and the reality will be the same. HCZ will need to modify their model and when they do they will run into all of the problems I have already experienced and spelled out for you in my report.  But by all means ignore the dramatic messed up person that has already learned these lessons, but do so at your peril and the peril of our communities and society.

I have sent my model and freely offer all of it to the Obama administration and HCZ; I require no profit, I am doing well personally. I feel I should be listened too and taken seriously, my life has shown me these things for a reason and we should use that information moving forward, it may be the difference between HCZ being moderately successful and being very successful. HCZ does have it right; it just doesn’t pencil out and needs to be adjusted to handle the problem on a much larger scale.

This is how the future must be to make a real difference...
1) Promise Neighborhoods strategicaly placed throughout the United States.
2) A self-subsistent Neighborhood Guild in every major City of the United States branched off from the Promise Neighborhoods.
3) A Housing Diversion Program in every major City to prosecute people who choose to operate their residence in a manner detrimental to the community and to also provide redemption from housing violations.

These things done right would change our Country on a large scale.

Being a disable Veteran, I feel that the posters here have overlooked 2 things. 

The first is any veteran with a non service conned disability is pay less then any other group on disability payment in the whole country, there by are some of the poorest people alive.

If any one is forced to live on just what the government pays they are in for a hard live anyway.

Thanks government I love living on the streets with my  85% disability rate you have given me.