Tag Archive for jobs

Kids Are Not Good Business

November 17, 2014 Comments Off on Kids Are Not Good Business

This morning’s news brought a disturbing statistic: 1 in 3 American children are homeless, and 2 1/2 MILLION kids were without a home sometime during last year–so says the National Center for Family and Homelessness.  (For details, read the article in The Guardian.)   The two main causes are the impact of domestic violence and lack of affordable housing.

It’s this second cause that shouldn’t exist.  In the same news I learned that Candlestick Park in San Francisco is slated to become a luxury shopping center, hotel, and housing.  You can bet it won’t be affordable housing!  San Francisco is doing the same kind of project there that they’ve done at Hunter’s Point and the shipping yard.  The argument for the Candlestick Park venture is that it will create 3000 permanent jobs.  I can’t help wondering, though, where those service and hotel workers filling those jobs will live.  They won’t earn enough to live at that complex or anywhere else in pricey San Francisco, or down the road in nearby cities, either.  If they’re among the many under-employed homeless people, they can’t put a roof over their children’s heads.

I’d like to see the $1 BILLION this project will cost put into something more practical and humane.  We can live without another upscale shopping center, hotel, and fancy condos.  But how long can our kids survive living on the streets?

Oh, I forgot.  That wouldn’t be good business.

 

 

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Speak Up To Help Children

April 29, 2014 Comments Off on Speak Up To Help Children

Picture this: You’re 20 and working hard at a job you’ve had since age 14.  In fact, 14-year-olds and younger work by your side.  Bathroom visits must be quick or you’re physically and verbally abused.  Your hours are from 8:00 am to midnight, sometimes to 3:00 am, seven days a week, with no days off.  You may make $125 a month or not be paid if the factory’s goal isn’t met.  You know that the building’s structure is weak but try to ignore the danger, because your family needs the income you earn.  Finally, one day, it collapses, killing some workers, trapping you under rubble for twelve hours and injuring you to the point that you can’t return to that job but must find little jobs here and there, where you (and you weakened body) can.

This is Rana Plaza’s story, and the story of countless others in places where clothing is made to be sold cheaply in our Walmarts, Children’s Places, and other discount stores.  In other words, the pennies that we save buying those items bring misery to children and adults in other parts of the world.

True, if we just stop buying those items people lose their livelihoods.  However, we can demand safer, fairer conditions for workers by raising our voices.  Walmart has to listen if we shout loud enough; they’ve had so many black eyes from their civil rights violations NOT to listen, as they’re currently trying to rebuild a more positive image.

Read Rava’s story–which mirrors millions of children’s stories–at Credo’s website. While you’re there, make your voice heard by signing the petition to Walmart and Children’s Place.

 

 

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Hotels for the Homeless?!

February 24, 2014 Comments Off on Hotels for the Homeless?!

The City of San Jose, CA is planning to house as many of its homeless as they can in local hotel/motel rooms, and some people are furious!  Why waste money on these people who prefer to live on the streets and are too lazy or drunk to get a job?

It would be a waste of money–if that stereotype were true.  However, many men, women, and children became homeless during the recession when they were laid off from their jobs and could no longer afford their mortgage or rent.  Many women (yes, and their children) discovered that their divorce settlement left them with no funds and that their main job as stay-at-home mom (which, often, was what hubby wanted) paid nothing and made them look like they had nothing to offer to companies who were hiring.  A good portion are veterans who, when coming home from the battlefield, had illnesses (mental and physical) that kept them from earning a living that would house and feed them.  So, let’s set aside the faulty stereotype of the “typical” homeless person.

On the financial side, taxpayers should save some money: in emergency room visits for people who have become ill or hurt on the streets; from police who spend time rounding up homeless; from crews who clean up homeless encampments, only to return in a few months to do it all over again; in aid given to charities to help the homeless. Then there’s the gain in taxes once these people get jobs and back on their feet, which can happen only after they have safe, healthy shelter.  And don’t forget the hotel/motel owners, with all the rooms that have been standing empty–more income for them means more tax money in the coffers.

Then there’s the fact that these people are part of our human family and, as such, deserve our efforts to help them help themselves.

Sounds like a reasonable deal to me.

 

 

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Steve Jobs No; Selma Yes

September 24, 2013 Comments Off on Steve Jobs No; Selma Yes

They’re trying to make Steve Jobs’ childhood home a monument.  Why him?  Just because he’s rich and famous?  Yes, he achieved a lot, but so did Selma.  As she grew up she read whatever she could lay eyes on, experienced and dealt with discrimination, dreamed up businesses she would one day run, began writing at an early age and submitting letters to her school principal and the editor of the local newspaper pointing out injustices she saw.  She and her mom planted a garden full of vegetables and flowers and set up habitat for critters visiting their yard–then she taught her friends how to do it, getting them involved and enthusiastic about gardening and looking out for bad things happening to the land around them.

In other words, while she was growing up, she was becoming a socially conscious person, even active in promoting social justice in small ways; she was also a budding entrepreneur, environmentalist, and teacher.

Today she, like Steve Jobs, uses what she learned and the skills she developed as a child in that home.  Today she’s just a mother, teacher, spokesperson for the environment, advocate for social justice.  Her house isn’t important enough to preserve as historically important, because she’s nobody famous.  Just a world-changer in her own right.

 

 

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Help for Homeless Vets

January 30, 2013 2 comments

Kudos to the VA!  Their Palo Alto facility now has an Employment and Housing Resource Center to serve homeless vets (remember that at least 20% of the homeless in our country are veterans).  It’s part of their five-year plan to end homelessness among vets.  The Center, open to all vets enrolled in VA healthcare, has free electronics that are essential in job-hunting–computer, Internet, and printers–along with staff help and employment guidance.  In addition, it offers resources related to finding affordable housing.

Many of these services aren’t new with the VA.  What is new is the fact that they’ve been consolidated into one Center where a person can go to get help in rebuilding his or her life after putting it on hold to serve our country.  Good going, VA!

 

 

 

 

 

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