• ZeroCool@feddit.ch
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    11 months ago

    As homelessness continues to grow, so does the number of those living in their vehicles.

    🇺🇸 🦅 The American Dream 🦅 🇺🇸

  • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    As someone who lived full time in a fifth wheel voluntarily with my family, living mobile in a tiny home, RV, or camper van can be pretty awesome. However, many of these people aren’t doing it by choice and that should never be the case.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        I did it for a few weeks when I was in college, waiting for my first cheque from my p/t job … in a '69 VW Beetle, in a cold Canadian winter.

        It sucked.

    • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Having a tiny camper that isn’t going to break, a decent supply of food and money, and a YouTube channel all about your “Van Life” is a lot different than sleeping in the back of your car because you have no way to escape America.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I lived in a Geo Metro for about a month, then it got towed and I was sleeping on the street. Having a car to go into is so far above and beyond have no place at all to go into.

      • TimmyDeanSausage @lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I all the time wish we would just fix our damn country instead of letting the wealthy run it into the ground for their own gain.

          • TimmyDeanSausage @lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Fuck that. This country (assuming you mean America) was founded on freedom for working class people. Religious freedom is often cited as the main reason, but it was really a broader freedom from authoritarian control administered by the aristocracy. We have been in a perpetual class war since the beginning, and the wealthy have been winning since the late 70’s, but that doesn’t mean they will always win. Gen X and everyone following are done with the current system. Worst case scenario, things change when the last of the boomers die off.

            • MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              I’d like to believe that, I really do…

              Don’t forget the power of breads and circuses, or nowadays Hollywood and McDonald’s. As long as there’s no famine and/or economic crisis, I’m afraid any quick and real change may never happen.

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    They must be really happy about how amazing the economy is doing.

  • JoShmoe
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    11 months ago

    This has been going on for nearly a decade already. Probably two decades now

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Families sleepin’ in their cars out in the Southwest

    No job, no home, no peace, no rest, no rest

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Are there rules about keeping all your crap within the confines of your vehicle (at night | on weekdays | during street sweeping) at all?

    I find the sea of detritus present in these camps - seemingly right after the first resident shows up - is a huge factor in the public seeing them as risky and dangerous.

    Every single media story on homeless campers is jammed with shot after lingering shot showing a carpet of junk covering everything; and while it’s neat to set up some deck chairs in front of the Winnebago, I’d love to see some process or policy that keeps everyone’s shit either bottled up in their hard tents periodically or moved toward the sorter and recycler.

    It’d help promote the “campers are just people and not the rubbish of society” idea that we know in our brains but need to also feel in our hearts.

    • recapitated@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I can imagine being homeless, under the worst stress and despair I’ve ever experienced, and not having any mental budget left for caring about whether or not my object is on the inside or the outside of my tiny metal box that doesn’t let my lie all the way down at night.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Nothing can help promote the idea that the campers are real people if the media doesn’t want to show it. Showing sloven bums making a mess of everything around them because they don’t want to get a real job is great for ratings. Don’t matter if it doesn’t represent reality.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        It definitely represents reality in a lot of cases.

        I’ve been homeless before and never had a trash cloud. Those with trash clouds are still homeless. It’s not a random occurrence.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          If half of the homeless/campers are trashy, the media will only show 5 seconds of footage of trash before going back the a bunch of news anchors repeating empty wisdom. They wont show the clean ones and they wont talk about what depression does. The coverage just exists to reassure their viewers have it good.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I’d wait to see if an official process is necessary. People self govern pretty well when they need to. If there’s a problem person other people can deal with them.

  • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    our minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour some make less than that but housing and food and vehicle ownership has skyrocketed as has communication costs

    biden has been against empowering workers and strengthening workers rights such as the rail workers he told not to protest and ask for higher wages and more time off then the news came out after about expanding rail industry came out

    and now that biden let abortion become illegal on his watch and education is the toilet there will be more warm bodies to fill the low wage positions at the chip factories or at the rail yards or elsewhere that is needed

    and without the promised police reforms biden has ensured there will be enforcers to keep the peace in all this like waking people up in vehicles no matter where it is parked

    MURICA by GOD!

    • tory@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Never was a fan of blaming the entire dumpster fire on the leader of the executive branch any more than I believe we should blame that leader for things like gas prices.

      What exactly do we expect the leader of the executive branch to do when the leadership of the judicial branch invalidates a law written by the legislative branch many years ago when it was able to agree on such things.

      How much power are we willing to cede to a single person (the president) as a result of our legislative branch being completely unable to function? The legislative branch creates laws, the judicial branch rules on if those laws are constitutional and the executive has a veto and controls the armed forces and foreign policy (among honestly, maybe too many other things). I feel like rewatching schoolhouse rock might be fun. Let’s do that, huh?

    • TimmyDeanSausage @lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      As someone who has helped organize a union and is a strong advocate of unions in general, I was very upset with the way Biden handled the railway workers fight. However, I continued to follow that story and it turned out Biden’s administration had a plan for that. They ended up getting the railway workers most of what they were asking for in the end while averting a railway shutdown in the process.

      As @tory said, Biden didn’t let the Supreme Court rule on roe v. wade the way they did. It’s two separate entities… Which is a very basic fact when it comes to how the government works. No offense, but if you don’t know that you really don’t have any business commenting on politics at all. You’re speaking with the confidence of a head chef when you can barely put together some scrambled eggs.

    • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      North Carolina has had $7.25 as the minimum wage since 2008. It was like $5.15 when I got my first job at 16 (though I was paid $5.25) in the early '90s. Pretty funny when the recent temp Speaker of the House McHenry said he only makes $174,000 a year and that’s not enough. A recent article said most reps have two residences (one in DC and one in their home state, but still). $174,000 isn’t enough and Congress still bitches about raising the minim wage to $15, which is around $30K a year.