Friday, September 2, 2011
HBO documentary on Homeless
We watched "Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County" a documentary from HBO. Click here for a trailer and info. All the families had been homeless and now worked. Making $9-15/hour just isn't enough to live. There weren't getting financial aid payments. The kids all went to this school that had 65 kids in 3 rooms doing K-8. The food was donated and the families did get a couple meals a week from a soup kitchen. They live in these cheap Motels around Disneyland that are part working families and part criminal poor. All of them had the goal to get some boost up and get an apartment and all of them are a paycheck away from being homeless again. At the end, the school was hit with a California budget cut and lost two teachers which may have left two. The people all seemed to mean well and be trying hard with no real hope of getting anywhere. For how many people is this the American dream?
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You know, this is a meme that has been popping up out of Obama's mouth lately. "Just trying to get by." Can you tell me when that became the American Dream? Isn't the Horatio Alger story that dream? We can all work hard and be prosperous... or so I thought.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff is tragic. My Ron Paul ranting and raving aside, no one has a plan for these people. Not one politician I've heard - okay, that's not entirely true. Rick Perry said something about Soylent Green... and Bachman wants to "pray the poor away!"
Some candidates seem to be suggesting that the poor are not important and to cut any help programs. They're not job creators! So many new jobs are not for living wages. I noticed on Bill Gates' foundation site that one country they are helping for starvation is China. They invest here and have starvation at home (big time from past things that I've heard). Maybe the free trade agreement should be modified so that surcharges will be imposed if goods are made from labor that does not get a living wage. Do we want to fight to compete with sweat shops or should we become more insular. If anyone could, it's us.
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