Indifference to working-class suffering will kill tens of thousands

Winter Is Coming for the American working-class.
Even if you don't care about the working poor, their suffering is going to affect you. In some ways it already has. Despite the CDC eviction moratorium, evictions have continued during the pandemic. This is led to hundreds of thousands of people being infected with Covid.

Expiring state eviction bans have led to hundreds of thousands of additional coronavirus cases, new research finds, raising alarm about what will happen when the national eviction moratorium lapses next month.
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The researchers, from the University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University and Wake Forest University School of Law, found that lifting state moratoriums and allowing eviction proceedings to continue caused as many as 433,700 excess cases of Covid-19 and 10,700 additional deaths in the U.S. between March and September.

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If the CDC’s eviction ban isn’t extended until 2021, experts say, many new cases are likely to emerge from people being forced out of their houses and apartments.

“This is a time where it’s not an overstatement to say that for many people, eviction can lead to death,” said Helen Matthews, communications manager at City Life Vita Urbana, a nonprofit in Boston.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that making people homeless during the pandemic is a public health nightmare. Yet the eviction moratorium did not mean free rent. All that unpaid rent is build up to $36 billion.
So how many people are about to be evicted? How many people will be homeless on our streets in the coming months?
It depends on who you ask, but it will be in the tens of millions. Let that sink in for a moment. Tens of millions of Americans are about to lose their place of residence. The government has no plans to do anything about it.

One study says 19 million Americans will be evicted in the next two months. That's the conservative estimate.
Another study says 40 million Americans will lose their homes this winter. These are numbers that will destabilize American society and the American political system.
The end of the moratorium comes at the same time as the end of stimulus money.

UI, stimulus, and welfare combined, after spiking to an annual rate of $3.88 trillion in April, fell to $1.04 trillion in October

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39 million Americans don’t have enough to eat right now, and people are waiting in line for hours at food banks all over the nation just for some Thanksgiving handouts.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 12 percent of all Americans did not have enough food to eat between October 28th and November 9th.

Let's like clear about something. Politicians, the media, and of course the wealthy couldn't care less about the suffering of the working class.
However, they do care about getting sick and dying. So what's going to happen is that working class are going to be crushed, and only then, when the Covid cases spiked to unimaginable levels, will the ruling elites have an epiphany. That epiphany is you really are your brother's keeper.

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The amount of money it takes to keep the working class afloat is so relatively small it's nuts, yet my bank kept trying to push me to "borrow" (actually it's a grant, as in free money) a PPP loan, which I didn't do. The business owners I know who did take PPP money squandered it on any and everything, basically the govt covering any and all costs. I'm talking six figures,, for free. People built additions on their houses, built in swimming pools.

On the flip side I hear people blaming the shut downs as a war on the poor for not letting them work. And the work is often fairly dangerous, a lot of it restaurants, bars, retail. Business America, the people who make the donations to campaigns, don't want any shutdowns at all. They want to keep selling dinners, airline tickets, ski vacations, etc.

Pay people to stay home until infection numbers shrink to near nothing. It doesn't cost much.

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28 users have voted.

I am turning down eviction and foreclosure cases.
I will earn retainers doing something less murderous.

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28 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@on the cusp ...but what if you tried taking such cases and devising some sneaky way to set yourself up to lose? Is that ever feasible?

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9 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

@The Liberal Moonbat I can still represent the renters and buyers.
Thing is, they are the clients that can't afford an attorney.
sigh...

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15 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

mimi's picture

@on the cusp

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4 users have voted.

@mimi It is a balancing act, since I am financially responsible for 4 or 5 people. At least the free legal services firms have evictions and foreclosures as their current emphasis, people have somewhere to go for help.
There are thousands upon thousands of solo practitioners who are living hand to mouth, working from their vehicle. They can't pay office rent or pay staff.
I understand dentists are taking a hit, so it is running throughout the professions.

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17 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

mimi's picture

@on the cusp
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Don't worry about the sharks, they have their minority status problems too.
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Smile

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12 users have voted.

@on the cusp

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13 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

And what we will have left will be Taco Bell, and a bunch of homeless people staring into empty buildings while the cops stand by ready to crack their skulls.

But fergerdssake don't use that evil word SOSHULIZM!

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10161249417727524&set=pcb.1016124942...

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25 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus that cool Mom and Pop grocery stores that sold barbecue, or Mom and Pop stores that sold sandwiches, were closed permanently on my 2 hour drive to a cabin at Toledo Bend. What is left is the typical franchise drive through crap.
This is a very obvious change in the landscape.
Not good.

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22 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Cassiodorus Most restaurants appear to be hanging in there around where I live, thank Goodness.

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7 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

@Cassiodorus the independent cafes are open, with appropriate precautions and sanitizing, and the fast food chains are open for take out only, because they don't want to pay staff to sanitize. I may never eat in a chain again

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10 users have voted.

Mary Bennett

Homelessness is life threatening. So is starvation. Did grocery shopping today. Lots of empty shelves. Paper products almost gone and selling for outrageous prices. Apparently a lot of our processed food comes from China. We send raw materials, they send finished goods. Just like electronics, toilet paper and all else since Bill Clinton gave them most favored nation status.

I read a lot of apocalyptic fiction in the '50s and '60s. Most focused on Nuclear war and population. None suggested the USA would voluntarily turn itself into a third world colony just to make more billions for billionaires. It's OK for China. They can just send "mercy missions" to "restore order" like the 18th Century Brits after the Great Starvation leads to the Great Dying and the cities all become fireballs, not from the nukes we expected when I was a kid but from rioters. The Chinese only need enough Americans to work the farms and mines and forests as peasant labor. The billionaires will have debunked to Europe and South America.

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16 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Lily O Lady's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

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5 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

...Once again, we are looking at Holocaust numbers - if not worse.

This is just one more reason why "the Victim Olympics" are so intellectually and morally revolting.

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13 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

travelerxxx's picture

For those in the Houston area (Harris County, Texas), there is a site where you can follow the number of eviction cases. There are various filters for the data.

Harris County Evictions Dashboard

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10 users have voted.

@travelerxxx is free legal service in Harris County. If they are like Lone Star Legal Services, which serves several counties near Harris, they are completely swamped and turning people away.
Those stats you posted made me gag.

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7 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

mimi's picture

"Let then die, let them die, let them die" to the tune of "Let it snow, let
it snow, let it snow" ...

Facing eviction, facing joblessness, facing violence, facing hunger, facing cold any time. It has to hit you personally to know what it feels like.

"I am dreaming of a white dead Christmas"

Stay warm, stay healthy and stay well fed, gjohnsit. Never give up. We need you here.
Peace and Love to you.

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17 users have voted.

@mimi However, I've got a couple close friends who on the brink of bankruptcy.
And now I'm stuck in that dilemma of how much can I afford to loan them before it impacts my well-being.

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14 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@gjohnsit
I ended up telling him he should give what he thinks they would give if he were in the situation who was in need of support.

Which might not have been a good advice, because he knows already what he would get if he needed it, i.e nothing.

So, he struggles along. And so we all will do.

La vie est la lutte my Cameroonian niece told me. She got it, and very early in life.
la vie est la lute 79bea49c1aa4828fb9d18888f82b42e9.jpg

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Heh, Angie Merkeli sez "Wir schaffen das". Of course she is wrong, but it is nice to believe it for a short moment, isn"t it?

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6 users have voted.

@mimi Its not a loan, it's a gift. Because hard times might be here to stay.
I just talked to one of those friends this morning. She threw up four times last night because she was so stressed out for not having rent money tomorrow.
So how much money can I afford to give away?

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12 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@gjohnsit
he gave it to the homeless he walks by every day and that is a gift to them and in return a gift to himself. I loathe all the evictions which will come in the next months. I just don"t want to express myself about it. It's just beyond what this site should endure from me.

When have you (not you gjohnsit personally) but you in general have invited a homeless to sleep in your home or apartment and offer him food and music?

I believe that happens not often.

Stay well and healthy.

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6 users have voted.

@mimi

When have you (not you gjohnsit personally) but you in general have invited a homeless to sleep in your home or apartment and offer him food and music?

My roommate started receiving mail for a local homeless guy (so we function as a PO Box) and buying food for his dog. I wasn't told anything about it. I just figured it out one day.

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mimi's picture

@gjohnsit
I admire all your stamina you have to continue writing and searching the news and data.

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5 users have voted.

@gjohnsit at TOP.
I think a better way to help is to purchase a gift card for them at Walmart. Don't give me grief about the damn Waltons! It is just that a recipient of the card can buy a can of oil for their vehicle, light bulbs, a pair of jeans, or some fresh food with that card. Whatever they most need on the card budget. And the prices are low there, and I set aside my principles about despised billionaires for the benefit of someone in dire circumstance who has no ability to stand on principle.

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9 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@gjohnsit
I financed a rebuilt engine for my daughter's truck. Hey, most of my family is a thousand miles away and depends on that truck. The rebuilt engine with five year Ford warranty seemed to be the best way to go.
Now, it's dentistry, specifically oral surgery. Obamacare doesn't doesn't cover dentistry and the free dentist made such a mess of things that her health is in danger from a raging infection. What can I do? Got to support my family. She had choices and opportunities when she was young, but at 50 they disappear. And your body starts to fail. C'est La vie

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11 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Lookout's picture

Plenty of money to wage war and create suffering abroad, but not enough to take care of the peasants at home. I keep hearing the US is a neofeudalist country...in classic feudal times they took care of the serfs...perhaps that the neo part.

Sure is a sad state you present gjohnsit. Thanks for informing us.

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22 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
bad form. it was like killing all the livestock. wasteful. The serfs were part of the working animals like oxen and mules. It was considered barbaric to kill them too. IIRC, it wasn't until WW II that Total War was invented by "civilized" countries. The Japanese atrocities in China. The London Blitz. "Total War" Dresden et al.

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12 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

@The Voice In the Wilderness But what happens the livestock? It get slaughtered.
Serfs were often used as target practice depending on the war. The Mongols for instance, simply killed everybody. Same thing happened to the cities that were sacked in 30 years war.
But what most often happened, is that the Army took all the food and left all the serfs to starve

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12 users have voted.

@Lookout serfs couldn't be fired or evicted. Feudalism was, in theory at least, a system of reciprocal obligation. It was also very efficient. If you were a fletcher and the baron needed arrows, you would be set to making arrows, and assigned living quarters and fed and clothed. You might be hanged for making bad arrows, but you wouldn't be dispossessed because someone else was better looking, or more fun or someone's relative.

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Mary Bennett

Lookout's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness @Nastarana

...but this neofeudal system throws working people under the bus to maximize profit. Totally unsustainable...but here we are.

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15 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

RantingRooster's picture

I mean the basic premise for life in America is based on a simple "choice" as "they say".
You have the choice(s) are, beg, borrow, steal, inherit or work. Ah FREEDOM!

You have no "right" to work, but only the privilege of offering a master your labor in exchange for units of measure, ie money, which, has to be used to buy everything needed for human existence. One must "purchase" their existence. Pay or die.

When one considers America's 1st constitution, only white property owner's could vote, black people were consider 3/4 human and well, native Americans were just "savages".

The lack of humanity in American society today; there is a direct line starting from our original constitution that lays bare the "foundation" for it. "Slave owner mentality".

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote