A couple of months ago I watched a short video about how we got our cycling lanes. I think it provides some interesting context on why we built our cycling infrastructure. If you like this topic, you'll like the video...
There should be zero homeless (or close to it) in the United States. The U.S. is the richest country in the history of the world, by a long shot, and growing wealthier every year. Certainly Americans can afford to provide basic food and shelter (and healthcare) to everyone. We lose sight of concrete reality when we get caught up in the economic and social philosophizing and political conflict; nothing justifies leaving a human being on the street, like a stray dog, when you can do something about it. There is no excuse.
This might not be popular here (and I'm not advocating it, merely bringing it into the discussion), but Guaranteed minimum income (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income) has been proposed as a possible solution to homelessness in the US.
Of course, what happens to stray dogs a little while later is unthinkable for humans. Unless you are into eugenics, which many HN readers are. Social Darwinism and similar 19th century outmoded beliefs are extremely popular today. This classism and general elitism is the first part of the problem.
You wouldn't be able to survive winters in Netherlands. Also social system is probably better.
Coming to LA and accidentally wandering few miles off downtown to warehouse district left me in shock. I was ready to jump in front of police car just to get me out of there.
I knew about the ghettos and drug problem just wasn't expecting it to hit me so hard. People living in tents, some lady sort of dancing or having convolutions. I've seen plenty of poor people in various countries, but nothing like this. Heck, homeless beggar in London will say good day to you.
Edit: I actually have some anecdotal experience about social care in Netherlands. One morning I woke up in acquaintances house after night of doing MDMA (and him, speed). Some lady was staring at me. She explained as the guy was living off social care, he was being monitored in case he needed some help or something like that. She didn't ask anything in particular or was judgmental. Looked like he had everything, a computer, decent place, skateboard and bmx bike. A night earlier he explained his both parents deceased.
What's also interesting is the contrast. Downtown LA and the "Arts District" are getting gentrified. People live in very fancy lofts. Check AirBnB for pictures of them. Some are incredibly amazing. But, right in between downtown LA and the Arts District is Skid Row. Drive down 4th street and see all the tents and homeless and fires.
I stayed at the Barker Block building for a month last October. 1/2 a block away there were tents.
The downtown eastside of Vancouver, BC is pretty bad just for its sheer in your face drug use and rampant poverty. But at least it's the warmest place in Canada to live if you're homeless.
But you bring up a good point I can't imagine how people in Canada can survive being homeless in -40C weather in Winnipeg for example.
Some people refuse even pointed attempts to help them. They'll say no to shelters; they'll say no to social workers; they'll even say no to the police. And the bar for involuntary confinement is high in some places.
A fairly common situation in the U.S. is that people with drug and alcohol problems usually need to get clean before they get housed and it is not at all easy to get clean if you are not housed.
In my immediate area social services are very good and anybody who is on the street who will comply with what DSS mandates can get off the street pretty quick, but many people won't do it for many reasons.
>A fairly common situation in the U.S. is that people with drug and alcohol problems usually need to get clean before they get housed and it is not at all easy to get clean if you are not housed.
Hurray for protestant ethics in 2015. As if a drug-using homeless person doesn't need shelter...
They evidently don't in LA or SF (as opposed to Norway in the winter). Otherwise, we would necessarily see far lower rates of homelessness in those places.
Utah's taken a different approach, and it seems to have worked pretty well, though I'm not sure how many urban cities want to (or can) follow that lead.
Why? If California is your norm, keep in mind that California has 20% of the U.S.'s homeless population (California, Texas, and Florida have 58% of the under-18 homeless population). It's really not a universal problem.
I can understand the reasoning, but in fact there are many homeless in northern cities. New York, for example, has a large number. Perhaps migration isn't common among the homeless.
That number is the result of the massive, largely volunteer effort led by HUD to count the homeless that is done every January. There are other numbers, but they tend to involve a lot more guesstimating and a lot less data.
Comparing data from different countries is very tricky.
You don't know how the statistics define homelessness (they aren't consistent even in a single country), you don't know who they count or how they count them.
For example in Europe the homeless statistics do not count or do not count the migrant population very well (at least in some countries cannot say for NL).
Number of homeless at any given time is also not the only factor if a person in NL is homeless for average for 3 months and in the states for 6 or 1 it makes a bigger impact than the total number.
The UK for example is probably very very bad at counting homeless they don't even want to call them that they call it "sleeping rough" (people who actually sleep on the street and not in housing) here according to the official figures England has only 2414 (est. 2014) homeless people (at any given time). London apparently has only 400 or so homeless people at any given night and even by living in the 2nd most expensive borough in London i can easily go BS about it without the need to jump to east London.
That said if you are arrested and are put in holding for the night you don't count for the "sleeping rough" statistics so it's very easy to poison such statistics with even simple police enforcement.
Not claiming that the Dutch authorities are doing anything like that (although I've seen quite a few homeless people being picked up if they are in central Amsterdam) but playing with the numbers of people who "don't count" in the eyes of many is far too easy.
There's no doubt that the dutch social net is better, but large populations generate a large overhead it's always much easier to handle and provide social services to small population even at a fraction of the per-capita costs that the budgets of populated countries allow.
A lot of homeless people in the south of Europe comes from the north. I heard a lot of them speaking polish, for instance. They are running away from the hard winters.
I suppose is the same case in Los Angeles.
So, maybe, the homeless people from the Netherlands are not in the Netherlands.
They released a short video [1]. It reminds me of video made in 1999 where a Dutch reporter asked people if they have a mobile phone [2]. The majority responded with: no, I don't need it, I have a phone at home, I have an answering machine, etc.
I'm wondering if Google Glass and similar products will change the future the way mobile phones did back in the '90 and early '00. What do you think?
As I said in another comment, I haven't tested in IE entirely. Going to buy a windows laptop today :). I don't know MoneyBird that well (except for the invoicing part), so I can't tell you exactly. What I do know is, we have streamlined the entire process of sending invoices and reminders. We take a fundamental different approach to MoneyBird.
I am glad you are a happy customer of MoneyBird. This tells me there is at least a market of 1 person ;) I am quite surprised you can tell from only a couple of screenshots, MoneyMonk is a limited clone.
Of course there are similarities, giving the fact we target the same audience. But I really think we have a different kind of product. This sort of competition is only a good thing. It keeps us all motivated to make the best software for our customers. In the end it is the customer who wins.
You're totally right. It was a little presumptuous. You know the saying: "Assumption is the mother of all..."? From an autistic, mathematical point of view you are right, but if I look into the stats of my Google Analytics, I see less then 4.1% Dutch. If I take into account that especially Dutch people would click on a link ending with .nl, I think I may assume the percentage of Dutch HN readers is even low.
What I meant of course is: most of the people cannot read it. So, lets trigger them to judge the design, just by its design. This gave me a lot of new insights I want to thank everyone for :)
Well, it actually does. Where classical accountancy software (Unit4, Exact, etc.) focusses on the ledger aspect, making it hardly impossible for human beings to use the software, we take a different approach.
We thought: what is accounting about? It is about registering financial facts. That's what we actually do. We optimized the user interface for normal human beings registering financial facts. We are then able to derive the entire accountancy fundament with double entries, ledgers, etc.
Suppose one transfers 100 euro from their bank book to the cash book. This should be registered using a cross post (don't know if this is the correct term). No human being (freelancer) understands this. But if they can select: oh, this was a cash withdrawal, Money Monk knows how to register the financial facts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog