Homeless Couple Gets A Home On Christmas Eve, Thanks To ‘Occupy’ Group

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/27/3104771/occupy-madison-homeless/#

For all of those who think that Occupy movement "failed" because it didn't crush global capitalism within 6 months, or because the media stopped reporting on it.

This kind of thing is happening all over the place.

funny, my friend in London, ON who's big into the Occupy thing was involved in a very similar local project.

wonder how many folks the Tea Party has helped?

So now we're gonna get threads every time some local church hands out some soup cans? This is gonna be worse than the standard soup kitchen stories that plague local news coverage this time of year.

actually, it's about the continued effect and success of an international grassroots movement.

do try to get past your disdain for the poor on occasion.

But in this case it's okay to Rick and company because it's those smelly leftists doing it and not the religious freaks.

“It’s a co-op mixed with Habitat for Humanity mixed with eco-village as the long-term goal.”

I think all the leftists on this board would orgasm after reading that......

Spare me the sanctimony. If you think there isn't overlap between Tea Partiers and charitable Christian folk, you're kidding yourself more than usual. I'm not even a Christian and I concede to their good works.

Not quite; Habitat is faith-based, so we have at least a few members who would feel obligated to look down on them.

then try sparing the condescension first.

I don't give a fuck what you concede to someone else doing. What have you done?

Cute little house:



As for the soup can complaint, this is a bit different from those stories, which just report on something that's been going on for decades. This is an actual new idea for addressing the affordable housing problem. One big reason that there is a problem at all is that zoning and finance favor larger dwelling units, even though such units are not universally suitable. The tiny housing movement seeks to bring back the shack as a viable option. It's a libertarian approach to resolving a social ill, and definitely worthy for discussion.

Hey, it's a start.
A tiny little seed.
They have a long way to go before it's a redwood.

And a redwood is what they need to blast away the failure.

Well today I fed cattle, and I'm about to start working on the winery again. Before year's end I'll pay my substantial property taxes.

And since for years we've heard that we need government to help people, that's me doing my part. You're welcome local schools, now crank out some wage slaves!

Evernog has something big up his butt, but I wonder if he has any actual thoughts on ways to solve housing and homeless issues without involving the evil gub'ment. Looks like these folks in Wisconsin have figured some things out.

That is interesting. It seems like as a society, we have stratified living in small houses (as opposed to small apartments, which are more accepted) into two classes: either you're trendy as fuck, pouring tens of thousands of dollars into converting a schoolbus or a railroad car into a cute little model home for people to ooh and ah at on Huffington Post, or you're presumed to be living in a horrible state of degradation. There doesn't seem to be as much room for "it's small and it's not trendy, but it's clean, it's warm, it's in good shape, and it's enough."

Because humans are animals being guided by obsolete survival impulses that have no proper corollary in a modern society, except meaningless petty bullshit.

That's doubtful. Habitat isn't like the Salvation Army, a group that uses "charity" as a front for missionary work. Habitat's a nominally christian organization that makes no religious demands of the people it helps. Habitat for Humanity is run by christians who proclaim their christian identity as part of their mission, but the actual practice of the organization is secular. They don't promote christianity beyond whatever promotion is gained by associating it with actual good deeds.

I don't live in an over regulated, over zoned urban utopia. I've seen a couple houses as small as that go up lately. I know of very nice houses next to dilapidated trailers. Gentrification doesn't have to be centrally planned and top down, some areas never regulated against the poor to begin with.

If you insist on a pissing match, rural America is the greatest example of socialism this country has to offer. How viable would those shacks be without programs like the TVA? Still, as you point out, much regulation in this country has been passed to benefit the wealthy John Gault at the expense of the little guy. Zoning and real estate finance are but two examples among hundreds.

At least John Galt invented his magic steel.
Most of today's rich assholes are bookies right out of "trading places".

Its you who insists, i merely commented that such zoning is virtually non existent where i live. Build a mcmansion, build a tar paper shack, theres not much your neighbor can do about it.

If you wanna get ankles in here and have a lil urban circle jerk, be my guest, i havent zoned against it.

Underzoning is just as much a problem as is overzoning. And you still haven't addressed the point that a whole lot of that rural housing, regardless of zoning, simply couldn't exist without significant federal and state subsidies. Imagine if you had no phone, no mail, no internet, and no highways; how'd you like living where you do then?

So @evernog, when I say that zoning is bad, that's an urban circle jerk? What does it mean when you say it?

ankles?

Yes, rural states are subsidized. Have we calculated the dollar amount of the tons upon tons of resources that have been and will continue to be extracted from those areas? Im betting that we're getting the short end on that deal.

Actually, much of what they did in "Trading Places" was legal (at that time), while much of what the guys did that ran our economy into the ground was not.

If they didn't see jail time, it was legal.

Laws that willfully go unenforced are toilet paper.

Using someone else's actions as a tool to brow beat those who don't subscribe to your beliefs?

Turkey would make the most devout of Baptists proud.

True about apartments! If you cram your family into a tiny Upper West Side apartment that costs you thousands per month and your nearest neighbor is three feet away, you're sophisticated.
Cram your family into a cabin that's paid for years ago and your nearest neighbor is three miles away you're a hillbilly/hick. Society can suck 96 square feet of my dick.

People in nyc are buying RVs and living in them, rather than renting apartments, according to some news reports.

So, to summarize....

Rick-

Flow-:azure: :bick:

Personally, I break it down by how much of it actually gets spent on needy people and how much of it gets eaten up by overhead and other expenses. Most churches are just terrible at charity with only a tiny single digit of "charitable donations" ever actually going to people in need while the church steals the rest of it for itself. I guess you have to keep those so called godly men in their giant houses with brand new Cadillac SUVs though.