Beedubya

I am so shocked by this little BBC clip. I know there is poverty everywhere in the world, but OMG children eating rats as they have no food, it's unbelievable

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/fr...00/9695217.stm

roaringmouse

Here's an accompanying article for that Panorama program.

Beedubya

Thank you for that, the reason I find it unbelievable is because it IS the USA not a 3rd world country.

From the article:

"The stark reality is that many of them are people who very recently lived comfortable middle-class lives.

For them, the economic downturn came too fast and many have been forced to trade their middle-class homes for lives in shelters, motels and at the far extreme, tented encampments."

I can't even imagine having that kind of worry of losing a roof over my head.

gillyd65

Welcome to the land of the free - who are they trying to kid. Noticed also that the school was in Las Vegas, just how much money is taken in that place in one day!

Mummy in the foothills

No would believe me that this stuff is going on.
Tents encampments along the underpasses of the freeways (where it's dry in winter and shaded from the 100f weather in summer) are becoming bigger and more common here.
I have worked with families who lived like this way before the downturn, now there are just a whole lot more of them.
As a foster parent I had kids over the weekend so the parents could pack and move, one family was living in a shed with a dirt floor, and winter was coming it was turning to mud. I had the baby for a few days while they got help from the county to move to something better. Others were moving to shelters.
I did a visit with an amputee who was being evicted, they were there evicting him while I was dressing his stump. The sheriff was on the phone getting him into the mens homeless shelter and then loaded him the back of the patrol car and took him there once I was done.
It's all quite disgusting.
Yet people still want to move here like the streets are paved with gold.
Sadly many of Ds's school friends have been evicted and had to move. Dd has lost quite a few kids from her class for the same thing. Most stem from job loss.
We have noticed an awful lot of families living in trailers in the driveways of family members. It used to be the county came by and served notice that you can't stay on the property in the trailer more than a couple of weeks, now they don't come by and we've had some near us living like that for a year or more.

Beedubya

Hurry up and come home Pauline!! Yes it's not perfect here, but bloody hell it's got to be better than the above!!

chris955

Let's be fair, how can the country afford to feed its needy AND spend BILLIONS on weapons to invade countries with oil ? Even when we were there in '96 the gulf between the haves and the have nots was enormous. It's disgusting. As has already been said the UK might not be perfect but it is a lot closer in my eyes.

Sally Redux

I was very naive before I came here, didn't realize the level of poverty and the fact that most people just don't care if it's not happening to them.

Lorry1

That's disgusting!
Is there no benefits in the States if you are out of work?

And of course if you have no job, you have no healthcare!

How can a 1st World Country treat it's citizens like that?

Mummy in the foothills

You get unemployment based on what you have paid in.
Most adults do not get state based medical but usually children will be covered here it's Medi-Cal for children and the disabled only.
Welfare can take months to start giving anything along with food stamps, one wrong piece of information or missing birth certificate from your application can be a rejection that takes many weeks for them to let you know, they then close cases and you have to start from scratch. Overworked Social workers don't return calls, or tell you what is happening, or tell you what they need from you, then close cases willy nilly.
Most landlords don't want to wait till it's all sorted. Once you have no address and no home phone for them to contact you you fall off the records and between the cracks.
Also the qualifying can get tricky for welfare all kinds of odd rules.

Mummy in the foothills

You know what I sometimes feel guilty that we can move home and there are so many here who can't do anything or go anywhere. It makes me all teary

Englishmum

It seems that even if one is entitled to benefits, claimants have to jump through hoops to actually get anything. In the link below, see the reply (5th one down from PeggyC - she recommends hiring a lawyer to help in making a 'need based' social security claim - and says it can take up to 2 years for a decision!)

http://forum.maplewoodonline.com/vc/...ocial-security

It makes me so proud to be British - we expats are so lucky that we do have that safety net back home in case we would otherwise face destitution in our adopted countries.

sallysimmons

Just wow. I live in a part of America that is oblivious to these kinds of problems and it's always a shock to hear just how hard it is for some people. I would happily pay higher taxes if it would alleviate some of this misery and yet that's never going to happen because the right wing won't allow it. You make donations, but it's not enough unless everyone is paying more.

The one thing I truly don't understand about the rich is why they can't see that it would be better for them if everyone was OK. If ordinary people have money, they spend it on things that make rich people richer. If they don't have any money, everyone eventually suffers. If the 1% don't want to help people because it's the right thing to do, surely they can help people because ultimately it's better for their wallets?

BristolUK

This is a puzzle to me here too. We've experienced and heard many wonderful things about generosity and people helping others out in this province.

But then you hear of a failure of the government to look after its poor and even not so poor but financially ruined by the cost of medicines for example and nobody seems to give a damn.

It makes no sense.

bandrui

This situation is not only heart-breaking, it is outrageous. The USA likes to portray its superpower image around the world and I am very happy that Panorama aired this doc to show how it really is.
The problem of lack of food and affordable housing is a travesty in itself but when you add the emotional and mental trauma that these people suffer it becomes unbearable.
This is what the Occupy movement has been trying to draw attention to while Wall Street laughs and tosses out Macdonalds applications.
How can this happen? Well in a top-heavy system the power and the money are with the corporations who then use their wealth for political influence. It seems to me that if the masses begin to realise that every time they buy something from a corporation who imports cheap goods from China et al where human rights mean very little, or participating in a prescription drug based society when the drugs are not really necessary, are supporting a dysfunctional system.
I dream of a world in which people begin to realise what is going on and do something, not only for themselves, but for all those whose jobs have gone offshore and who live in devastating conditions.
I don't like to see Obama blamed for all of this though. Realistically any president has limited power and this problem has been a long time in the making.

MITF, you have been doing some wonderful work. I so admire you for that. Sometimes I just feel plain helpless, but I try to help in little ways: by not buying goods made in China, not using prescription drugs unless absolutely necessary, and the last time I was in a big box store... well I can't remember.

p.s. Canada is not too much better. Harper just returned from a trade mission to China and neglected to mention anything about their Veto of the resolution to stop the slaughter in Syria. We may have health care but we participate in the whole sordid mess... USA North.