Comments on: The Heat is On for People Struggling with Extreme Poverty http://www.povertyinsights.org/2012/07/02/the-heat-is-on-for-people-struggling-with-extreme-poverty/ A nationwide dialogue about housing, poverty, and homelessness Sat, 08 Jun 2013 16:26:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Renaehere http://www.povertyinsights.org/2012/07/02/the-heat-is-on-for-people-struggling-with-extreme-poverty/comment-page-1/#comment-62 Renaehere Fri, 27 Jul 2012 08:21:05 +0000 http://www.povertyinsights.org/?p=4289#comment-62 The thing is there are a whole lot of vacant houses in America, some of them are owned by banks determined to get their pound of flesh from people who had jobs when they took out the loan – before the inevitable implosion of the housing market bubble took out the rest of the economy but that, in my uneducated opinion, is what happens when people who have WAY more than enough are focused on accumulating more than WAY more than enough, and are willing to trample down people who do not have nearly enough, to get WAY WAY more than enough. Mean while there is plenty of work in this country and plenty of resources in this country, and there is no real good excuse for half the country being in poverty. we can turn empty retail , and industrial spaces into low income housing. We can plant trees in cities to cool the heat sinks, and we can plant back yard gardens, nurture them with compost made from household waste to ease hunger and the pressures on urban waste management, and we can lift the restrictions that prohibit the home owners, and renters for selling produce grown in their own back yards, and goods made in their own home, instead of looking to the government to fix the problem of homelessness we should be demanding the government get out of the way and allow citizens to find a creative solution to the problems.

]]> By: lost in her eyes http://www.povertyinsights.org/2012/07/02/the-heat-is-on-for-people-struggling-with-extreme-poverty/comment-page-1/#comment-40 lost in her eyes Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:51:46 +0000 http://www.povertyinsights.org/?p=4289#comment-40 One major problem I have during periods of extreme heat is common among both the homeless and those housed but too poor to afford A/C. Both the abandoned shed I usually sleep in and the older, under-ventilated and often overcrowded brick rowhouses that make up a large part of the housing of those living at or below the poverty line here in Baltimore Md. are basically heat sinks that soak up and hold, (often for days after the heat wave ends) the heat until they resemble a sauna. This can make it impossible to sleep, again often for days.

This lack of sleep affects people in ways ranging from direct to indirect, the obvious health and safety dangers of a cumulative lack of sleep to ending up as targets or victims of other's anger, frustration, & rage brought on by the same.

As for the cooling centers while they do help and can save lives, they can also become a powder keg of collected frustration and aggravation, ready to explode at the merest slight, real or imagined, as soon as people get back out in the heat

]]>