Homeless Hotels

Evidently there is this program in Massachusetts to help the homeless that involves temporarily housing them in hotels, and offering "start up money" to get them into an apartment or other suitable housing  http://topics.masslive.com/tag/homeless-hotels/index.html.

The first day I ate breakfast at the hotel I am using in Massachusetts, there were two families (mother and children) in the breakfast room. They were talking about their circumstances.  One women talked about her belongings being boxed up in storage, and her daughter just that day learning how to get back to Boston (get a cab, get on a bus) so she can go back to work and hopefully rescue her job.

The other mother talked about taking the $6000 incentive to get an apartment. The first woman said not to do it until she could have a job, because the apartment rents are so high, $1400-1500, unless she has  a way to support herself, she will be homeless again in a couple of months.

I suspect both of these women want to work. They both talked about wanting to be self-reliant. If either of these women is not qualified for work that is much above minimum wage, which was $8/hour in Massachusetts, but was recently raised to $10.50/hour in April 2014, the prospects are not good.  If my math is correct, at $8/hour, it takes 175 hours/month to earn enough just to pay rent.  At four weeks a month, that is 44 hours/week.  Most minimum wage jobs are less than 35 hours/week, to avoid paying benefits.  Do the math. How can someone on minimum wage be expected to be financially independent?  I know I am making some assumptions that may not be correct.  But get real.

But, if all of your income goes into housing, how do you buy food? Get medicine and see the doctor? Buy clothing? Have transportation? I think there is something wrong with this picture.  I am not sure what the problem is, but living wages and job readiness training seem to be two things that can help.  And, I think job readiness training should be paid at minimum wage (not $8/ hour but at least $10.50) At $10.50/hour, someone could pay rent working 35 hours per week, if the rent is $1400 per month. But again, they would have nothing left for all the other expenses of life.

It used to be, if someone worked hard, did a good job, was thrifty, and planned well, they might get ahead. Not anymore.  The deck is stacked against the low wage earner.  It is very frightening to me that we cannot help folks in that category to improve themselves.

I think our economy is in a hole. I think there is an ever widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the middle class are becoming poorer and poorer. I resent that honest, hard work does not allow people to live independent and economically safe lives. I am not a great thinker, and I do not have an answer.  Just prayer.

Gasoline Prices

I usually just buy gasoline at Wal-Mart or Bolton's (a local corporation) because they tend to be the lowest or close to lowest price in town.  But I am learning that I need to pay better attention to that.

I drove to the northeast part of the county today. As I went through the town of Idalou, I was amazed at the gasoline prices. On the west side of town, the prices were $3.1899 per gallon at two stations, but on the east side of town, it was $3.2599, which was the lower price in Lubbock, I thought. But look at this: http://www.texasgasprices.com/Lubbock/index.aspx.

So is there a gasoline price war going on in Idalou. Maybe. 

The price differences shown at the link are not really great, but are within a mile or two of where I usually fill up my vehicle. It might be worthwhile for me to check the prices before I do that fill up.  A penny would not make that much difference, but there is more than a one cent difference in these prices.

Years ago, when I lived on a very tight budget, I researched these kinds of things. I have become lazy about researching savings.  Maybe, I need to pay better attention to that.

Budgets Really Do Have Political Bases

I work in a psychiatric prison hospital.  When we opened, staff were encouraged to get the Hepatitis B vaccine.  So, I did. This was an expensive vaccine, and after a while, we did not received that encouragement. We were also told we had to get a TB test every year, and were encouraged to do that during our birthday month, an easy way to remember.  So, most years I did that.  Until it became non-mandatory.  And it was interesting how it became non-mandatory.

We had a very efficient and diligent communicable disease nurse who would set up in the lobby a few days a month to catch people and ask them if they were due for their TB test.  She was told to stop this, because it was costing the agency too much money.  Which sent the message that although we were told to get TB tests, there was an implicit expectation that people would not bother, at a cost saving to the agency.

Well TB has increased, and it is now politically correct for the agency to offer TB testing. To the point that it is now mandatory, and every employee is required to get a TB test during the month of February.  Even if you had a test as recently as November or December.  People who tested in January this year got a bye, but will be expected to get a test next February.

It will be interesting to me to see if next February TB testing is mandatory.  Hmmmm.