Word on the Street: Housing Fears for Jobless Workers
Kim McMurray — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The politicians have it easy. At the end of November, the unemployment insurance extension is set to expire. With the unemployment rate still hovering around ten percent, this means that millions of Americans will be without mortgage payments, groceries, and heat. They will be without Christmas presents, winter coats, and school supplies. Sure, maybe a job will pop up. Maybe from one of the hundreds of applications that they sent out, they will get a call back. They will keep hoping and applying, and maybe it will finally pay off. But undoubtedly, the rent will be due.
I don’t envy the hardworking men and women in the Unemployment Offices around the country. Not for a second. I don’t envy the person on the other side of the desk, or phone call, or the email telling the unemployed that their worst fears have been realized.
At our last member meet-up, the conversation turned to Unemployment Insurance and then to housing because housing fears are at the end of all long-term unemployment worries. “I don’t know what I am going to do,” said our hostess Angela, whose benefits will be exhausted at the end of the month. She is currently on a month to month lease at her apartment because without a steady job or proof of income past November, she couldn’t sign on for a full year. She contemplates moving in with family, but worries about stability for her daughter.
Lynda has been searching for more affordable housing for months. Her house is under foreclosure but thankfully, the bank gave her a few months to find something else. Every day she is scouring the internet and newspapers for houses. They have looked at dozens of places, but their applications have been turned down every time. “If our unemployment insurance runs out, we might have to move into a shelter,” Lynda said. She survived breast cancer; she thought she could survive this recession.
“I have been saving every penny I can to make it through the winter. We may not have heat or extra money, but I can’t spend the winter in my car again.” Liz tears up as she remembers freezing nights, huddled under blankets in her car last year after her hours as a nurse’s assistant were cut back so severely that she lost her apartment. She would save as much as she could to stay in a motel for a night. Eventually, through odd jobs and short term assignments, she was able to work her way into an apartment, but if this vote fails her, and she isn’t able to find another job in time, she might be right back where she started.
Congress has a choice to make: to extend the lifeline, or not? To keep people in their homes and food on the table, or not? It’s a simple choice, but there will be people who vote against it. Here is the easy part: if this monumentally important vote fails, the politicians will go home, pay their rent, buy their groceries and celebrate the holidays.
Tags: Housing, unemployment
There are currently 550,000 people in California receiving extension payments. In some areas of California the unemployment rate is 20%. People receiving extensions are the ones without a support system. If they had one, their families would have gotten them a job. People can be evicted from their apartments with only a few days notice. Congress is failing to understand the public health hazards of having millions of people living on the streets. If a swine flu breaks out the public hazard will be worse than the cost of some unemployment benefits.
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Ultimately Congress is going to have to do something about age discrimination. The cheapest thing for the government to do is to deny federal contract and grant money to any company or university unless a certain percentage of its workers at all levels are over 50. Quotas for all companies of more than 1000 people are another remedy. Another alternative is to provide microfinance subsistence grants for people to start their own sole proprietorships. New Deal jobs should be created so that people who want to work can sign up and start working without having to go through the whole rigamerole of resumes, phone screenings, interviews, credit checks – the whole system of elimination processes designed to legally justify age discrimination.
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One thing we’re not quite wrapping our minds around: “Jobless workers” is merely another term for “the poor,” that segment of the population that is generally despised by Americans today. The US did accept a set of policies, called welfare reform, that clearly states that there is “no excuse” for being unemployed — much less, for being out of work for months at a time. We, the nation, agreed that providing a check to jobless workers is a disincentive to getting up in the morning and looking for work. The people agreed that strict time limits must be set on aid. You can argue that “we pay for UI!” Yes, but we also paid for welfare; some 80% of AFDC recipients used welfare for under 5 years, working before and after that, paying taxes. If we extend UI, we have to ask, “For how long?” Doesn’t this just encourage a “culture of dependency”? All the arguments used against welfare apply to UI. I’ve never agreed with those arguments, having concluded that life is far more complicated than that, but the country did agree. Maybe it’s time to rethink some of these things.
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I never agreed to it. I never had any problem with people collecting welfare either. Some people just CANNOT work (single mothers with low skills). I wish these self righteous assholes would shut up and get over it. This country has just gone crazy and I really hate about 50% of my fellow citizens. During the Great Depression, people were allowed to collect welfare because there were NO JOBs. There are NO JOBS NOW EITHER.
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This issue will get a lot more worst if small business owners will be kept denied by the banks because Now small business owners in America are the people who are creating two out of three jobs here in America. These are also the people especially in today’s economic environment that are being frowned upon by banks that originate traditional small business loans. see more..
Charles Baratta
Co-Owner
Express Funding Group
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