Michael

I've never thought that Americans were big offshore tax evaders. In fact, US individuals are currently probably not in the top 25 in relation to GDP. It's always made Americans uncomfortable to tax evade offshore due to the worldwide reporting of income and FBAR reporting even when living abroad. There is always going to be some of that happening but for an American to stash billions of dollars offshore in a tax haven is risky business and with FATCA, it's even much more risky.

A few hundred billion dollars stashed offshore may seem like a small problem compared to the size of the GDP of the US to many people but that's not the point. For every dollar that someone tax evades, that means that someone else will have to pick up the bill and usually that is the middle class taxpayer. Some try to argue that the top 1% pay 39% of the taxes but that isn't true. They pay 39% of the federal income tax but less than 25% of the total tax bill (federal, state, and local) which is about their equal share in relation to their income but they are the ones that have all the money. For a middle class person to pay 25% of their income in taxes (federal, state, sales, property, gas tax, car registration, import duty, etc.), that's a big deal for someone making $50,000 per year.

It's not just tax evasion but often laws stretch the middle class pocketbook with the way tax laws are written by and for the powerful and wealthy to allow for tax avoidance.

Also as the way that most American brains seem to work, I believe most of us would get frustrated and feel unfairly treated if American expatriates were living outside the country most of their lives without any tax obligation to the US and when they got old, sick, or impoverished, returned to the US and were able to access free health and social services. In many European countries, people react as if all those services are free and no one ever has to pay the bill but the tax burden always falls on the middle class.

The way tax laws are written, it'll probably not bankrupt the system but just make the tax burden greater on the middle class or cut benefits to the needy. That appears to be the republican strategy to bankrupt the Medicare trust fund so the government can issue all retires a check for 1/2 the amount that it currently costs to cover a retiree and say it has to happen since Medicare is bankrupt instead of fixing Medicare by getting rid of the subsidies to insurance companies, other waste in the system, change it to be make it more efficient, or enacting regulations to control costs.

Steve_

Look we have the same problem in Canada and that Supreme Court ruling doesn't apply here. Try walking through the eastside of Vancouver one of the days.

There is definitely less social assistance on both sides of the border, but anyway purely subjectively, yes homeless people seem more plentiful and noticeable in the US and Canada than anywhere I've been in western Europe.

Steve_

Someone said earlier in the thread that the idea that homeless people are often mentally ill is a myth, I disagree, I used to work in a town in the UK with one of the highest rates of homelessness in the UK and a lot of these people were obviously mentally ill and self-medicating.

I always assumed there were more homeless people in the US because of the differences in the healthcare systems, but since moving to Canada it appears that homeless people tend to end up in places where there are lots of other homeless people, maybe because of the availability of drugs. Go to Red Deer, you don't see any homeless people, go to downtown Calgary and you do. You can travel all over the Fraser Valley and not see any, but in Abbottsford and the east-end of Vancouver there are loads of them.

Perhaps in the US they do qualify for Medicaid etc. but I think in western European countries they're more proactive about sorting it out. Phoenix for example has committed to getting all homeless veterans into shelter, and they have.

Michael

According the Jsmith, Canada also changed it's laws in the 1980s and 1990s making it very difficult to institutionalize people with mental problems in Canada and the homeless on the streets started to appear. I remember being in Toronto in the 1970s on a 6 month assignment and I didn't notice any homeless on the streets.

When it gets cold in San Francisco, there are usually patrols scouring the city trying to convince the homeless to come to shelters.

Where they congregate appears to be what local ordinances allow. In LA it appears that the city will tolerate them setting up tents and sleeping gear about 2 blocks south of downtown commonly referred to as "Skid Row". In downtown San Jose, the city is pretty strict and will only allow them to setup tents and sleeping gear under the overpasses that cross the Guadalupe river which is well away from where most people go. However when 11 pm comes around, a few appear to be allowed at certain spots within the downtown area to sleep but never two in one spot. They can also be in the parks during the day but if more than a few get together, the police make then scatter.

Many of the veterans on the streets have PSTD and substance abuse problems. As long as they have substance abuse problems, most shelters won't accept them for long periods of time and usually they have to go to a half way house for long term housing. The shelters aren't setup to deal with substance abuse or the severely mentally ill over a long period of time. Knowing AZ, I suspect the police may have harassed them and they left the state.

thinbrit

I think it is just more visible, at least here in Texas. In Blighty you have to cram 10,000 'chav' families in to a 1/4 mile area with high rise flats, but here in rural Texas that would be 10,000 acres of double wides...

robert91266

I see more poverty here but mostly I notice alot of people here think nothing of spending what money they do have on fast food and restaurants

Michael

LBJ's Great Society programs of the 1960s tried that only to build high rises for the poor that turned in gang infested, crime infested, drug infested, and run down buildings very quickly. Most have been torn down since then since they became so bad.

Federal law now requires communities to integrate the poor into the community if the community wants federal funding for the projects. Each community has the right as to how they are going to do that but it is no longer acceptable for communities to build high rise buildings for the poor in low income areas and expect to get federal funding for the project.

Pulaski

The exact same thing happened in the UK at the same time, in London and the largest provincial cities: Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, and Newcastle, with exactly the same short term and ultimate results.

Michael

This is the current program. It's small in comparison to LBJ's programs but appears to be much more effective for the projects that have been developed.

HOPE VI - Public and Indian Housing - HUD

Hope for Elderly Independence (Hope IV) - HUD

The way it works is a that a complex that gets HUD funding has to rent or sale a certain percentage of units below market value to middle and low income families. This is not Section 8 housing (welfare) which is a totally different program. From my understanding, San Jose requires all new developments over a certain size to be part of Hope IV, implement Hope IV concepts, or pay the city a significant amount of money so that the city can pay to develop low cost housing projects in good areas of the city. The city of San Jose had an exception for a few years to revitalize the downtown area and developers received approvals for 23 high rise condos but only 4 were built or under construction when the great recession hit. A half dozen mid rise condos were also built at that time. The city has extended the exception and several new high rises are currently under construction in the downtown area.

Beginning in the early 1990s, HOPE VI was an effort by the federal government to revitalize the nation’s most distressed public housing projects with new mixed-income developments. Federal funds were leveraged to help create new partnerships among federal and local governments, the private sector, community organizations, and residents in order to catalyze the redevelopment process. Over 400 grants and nearly $6 billion later, the program has yielded a collection of unique neighborhoods and helped reenergize the surrounding urban environments, often reducing crime and providing a more social environment.

HOPE VI projects that Calthorpe Associates has developed plans for include:

• Carver Homes (Atlanta, GA: 1999)
• Chestnut Court (Oakland, CA: 1998)
• Curtis Park (Denver, CO: 1999)
• Easter Hill (Richmond, CA: 2000)
• Harrison Homes (Peoria, IL: 2001)
• Henry Horner Neighborhood (Chicago, IL: 1994)
• Churchill Neighborhood (Holyoke, MA: 1995)
• Mandela Gateway (Oakland, CA: 1999)
• North End (Newport, RI: 1997)
• Oak Street (Coatesville, PA: 19
• Park Avenue (Denver, CO: 2002)
• Roosevelt Square, formerly ABLA Homes (Chicago, IL: 2004)

HOPE VI Projects | Calthorpe Associates

This 999-unit complex was located in southeast Atlanta, west of South Atlanta and east of Joyland and High Point. It was replaced by The Villages at Carver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demolished_public_housing_projects_in_Atlanta

Bob

Seeing "hot rooms" or "hot days", where homeless people can come in out of the cold to warm up for a couple hours before having to leave...rather than just being a shelter to stay the night.

I'd never seen that before moving to MA.

Plenty of homeless people around, just not always apparent or noticeable. The school our kid goes to is the designated primary school for homeless kids in the county and they get bus'ed in and out but I never even knew about it till the missus got on the school board.

Plenty of folks living in family shelters in the area, mostly abuse shelters.

joto

When we first came over here, we were in an apartment in a decent town, but about 2 miles from Lawrence, MA. What a dive. There were a lot of 3 storey multi-family buildings in the area, that looked like they would fall down if you pushed them. A lot of dodgy people hanging around crappy looking stores with cheaper booze advert posters plastered over the whole outside of the store. Never been back to that area in years, so not sure if it's much the same, or if it might have improved a little.

Hotscot

In Texas V. California, Results, Not Intentions, Matter Most - Investors.com

WriterChick

I'll tell ya one thing...

When I moved from NYC to London, I certainly noticed that EXTREME WEALTH was significantly 'more apparent' here... :-/

Michael

Anyone can generate statistics to prove a point. Personally I tend to accept government statistics more than a web site that has a conservative or a liberal point of view. First you should take in the differences between the states where Texas was not hit as hard as California by the great recession because of the shale oil boom which started in 2008 and created a lot of minimum wage jobs to support the workers in the oil and gas industry. After taking that in to consideration, the official Texas unemployment rate is 5.1% compared to 7.3% in California and even with that, the official poverty rate in California is 16.8% compared to 17.5% in Texas.

On top of that, Texas has the highest rate of any state without health insurance.

Poverty Rates By State - 2013

Local Area Unemployment Statistics Home Page

Officially Texas has lower unemployment rate but has higher poverty rate plus an extremely poor safety net.

Hotscot

Not what I was doing.
I simply felt the article was of interest in the ongoing discussion.