While it appears that the gap between the haves and have-nots may finally have taken a turn where it is narrowing a bit, decades of damage has been done. The Middle Class is not yet back, at all. So The Clash. Clearly not, not nearly not, the royalty and dignitaries, with their brandy and cigars.
In this new economic state, I think it’s twofold. Those who have means are doing quite well right now, as compared to the vast majority of the earlier part of the Millennium, and I’d guess that’s where our newfound consumer spending is coming from, the holidays pending, as inflation is somewhat being curbed. But those on the other end are continuing to find it harder and harder to get by.
The poor were not invited to the party.
Cheap beer, which is what many turn to, needs to become even cheaper. Have to think twice before even ordering that cheapest, even if its half-price at happy hour, potato-based, appetizer at the favorite haunt you can’t find the where-with-all and gas money to hit as often, even if just down the way, though you think it might aid mood control. Enabling all those extra work hours.
There of course are far greater needs. To meet all of those, social services agencies and charities, and their staffing and extra hours and the need for them, and their funding are, it seems obvious by attrition between them all, being more and more pushed to the brink. Logically, several of them locally, not just two or three, are beholden to this pattern, and have to deal with it as best they can.
— Here is one other barometer: The (still occasional) numbers of homeless, I’m assuming, some solo and some duos, people who have been sleeping or just camping out in the Hudson downtown doorways-that-jut-in of shops — but not in the music clubs, as that would be more visible past midnight. Despite their seeming need, one man offered ME some cigs. Some had 20-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew setting around, along with various kinds of clothing to change into as temps changed, and also sleeping bags and other standard gear, and one had a like-size can of Coors Light, (sorry to reinforce a sterotype). A third man had left a care home because he had issues with his treatment, and was soon befriended by a mom who has a son with a similar medical scenario, and also myself as I offered him some chocolate cookies and potato chips — I hope he likes spicy — and I added not nutritional, but its all I had at the moment, so at least its something.
All this has not often been seen in Hudson, at least in the older business district, but we have also long had our invisible homeless, as not seen sleeping under bridges or folded in cardboard. A newer version of couch surfing with aid of families and friends, until these at times trying types typically wear out their welcome and then shuffle to another spot, is to have people move in for a while and take care of an older or (also often) disabled relative or offer cleaning in lieu of rent — and such people like all of us have skills to use, and I’ve seen some be very good at organizing on the fly, also — but a problem crops up when after a few weeks or months they have worked too well and are no longer needed, and are victims of their own success. The garage is cleaned and the leaves are raked. And the dishes have long been done. These things can be much more complicated than seen on face value.
So they are back, again or still, to trying to find an apartment — a privilege reserved these days for only the most premium applicants, and sadly even sparse availability for them. Just the cream of the crop get the loft, or location that’s prime or even a bit sub-prime. Lower-income applicants have to wait, on a list or otherwise, these days. Sometimes years.
On this, one thing I have long wondered about. On Walnut Street, a half-block west from the main drag, there are on each side of this route as again a jut in, two medium-sized enclaves — or nooks, over by these bar and grills, to use a kitchening word — surrounded on three sides by high building walls, where trash is disposed of, hey you can’t have it all, that could seem like great places to sleep out of the cold. And thus out of the wind. The north side spot is more sheltered from strong breeezes than the south. There’s space there aside from those many garbage cans, and the occasional stairwell and such. This could be the antithesis of those times when we’ve had even early-on in our own country, the push to tell the homeless to get up and leave (did I type live?) the busy hub districts — and go where? — when something like the Olympics was in the Beautiful People offing. The key word here as far as keeping up appearances for the tourists acoming, and the dollars they bring to the ritzier parts of the economy, one that often could be invoked on various fronts: Sanitize. Or did I type Satanize. (OK people, the main way it is practiced, aside from the fringe element that exists in all religions, isn’t really that bad. Truly. Study it and learn. More on that in a future post. As Joe being Joe, he will bring in numerous heavy metal lyrics to back up his claim.)
One other measuring stick of the (bad) ecomony, for some. You can always tell times are getting worse when cheaper cross-state-or-country bus services do a much higher volume of business, a reflection also of high car prices and their skyrocketed loan interest rates. But at least with bus lines in most areas, like virtually all of Minnesconsin, competition these days is driving the prices down. So if you if you can put up with that odd, or sometimes quite engaging, person you end up sitting next to … Thank God for armrests. —
I thus theorize that many people who were getting by, swimmingly, since gas and grocery and home prices rose significantly in the last year and/or two, had earlier built up a rainy day account, but now have needed to raid it. It has run dry.
It seems to me that by the time the feds — and I gotta say it can involve cost of meds — get a chance to compile and analyze all their many sets of data, we are likely back out of a recession before they even name it as so.
Here are actual tales from the trenches, to build up my premise:
— A driving service, just call ahead a couple of days, that aids those with disabilities and aging has found themselves much more pressed for time for getting back to schedule rides, even if the route chosen is very familiar to them and thus boilerplate. That being said, my go-to person agreed that we are probably in a recession, already, now. That said on a day when she got pushed by a combo of late request and one that was not routine.
— That difficulty in answering phones right away was ditto with the state My Access line, which administers many government benefits programs. Along that line, many Social Security and SSI recipients haven’t yet gotten their customary notice regarding their cost-of-living annual increase, which could again be big, a good thing here, although some have gained a general idea through word of mouth.
— The local food shelf, open mornings, has often taken longer to return scheduling calls, and especially those newer volunteers have not been as up to speed with certain times, as with staffing constraints, the timing for training has likely ebbed. It seems the portions have been diminishing, although the shelves at the shelf are far from bare, its just that selection choices may be down, (as in the main, currently seen, as a worst-case scenario, having just one kind of spaghetti sauce, low salt, but plenty of that.) For a while, short-distance delivery was offered, in a pinch, and then ended.
These numbers may tell the tale, involving the fact that the $25 food vouchers to a local grocer that are so generously given with each visit have now been reduced from two to one a month: The ample store balance for this account that is listed on the bottom of purchase slips has in the last couple of months been seen to drop by about half, and then just recently even a bit more.
— In the other end of the church basement that houses the food shelf, the Hudson Backpack Program that aids local students with food has said their main numbers have, even since the school year its lunches started, jumped up by about 40 from around the earlier 200. They were crazy busy on a recent weekday.
— The woman who delivers excess commodities to low income people, (given out in about the third week of each month), about 500 across an area of a few counties, has said that the number clients has picked up by roughly 200 since late summer, and probably moreso since the last monthly drop. When making a recent delivery she found it necessary to really be on the run, and have to bolt immediately, even though she had a question to ask.
— At the six-morning-a-week produce giveaway at Hudson’s Cornerstone Church, numbers have increased steadily in the past six months, a pastor said. At their Friday max-out distribution with other kinds of food, there recently were even more people clamoring, to the point that there was a rarity in that some shelves were close to being barren.
At both ends of that offering, there have been many times when there was another rarity, signs posted that said take only one item, or two, from a particular large cupboard area. The “rescue” me silly food signs are also less frequent.
— At a place called The Source, open mostly over each weekday starting-early noon hour, which fills many gaps, they have had occasional gaps themselves in their basic-needs offerings. The number of the gas cards that were being given in these hard times was stepped up for a while, then cut way back. They had also donated farmers market vouchers, but that the means for that ended early.
— West Cap, open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., which provides utility assistance, mailed out their annual notice of when to expect the appointment call, based on the alphabet of the first letter of their last name, by Oct. 15, the start of the “heating season.” That was tentative. Some appointments got pushed back, in the actuality of these times, to early December.
— Lastly, can it be, there is no social security and disability pay provision under new House Speakers keep-the-government-open plan? (A news channel had as an almost-footnote, making note of funding certain un-named other federal programs.) Almost makes you want to shut it all down.
You may have noticed that sprinkled into this post are references to when places are open, and for the sake of brevity their addresses are not listed, (that’s something we do here at HudsonWiNightlife, when there are multiple listings.) It is a requirement, even ethically, that you do your part also. So you have Google, as there are low-cost programs for that, you have the power, so go to town! You can get the help you need, even if supplies are running a bit short.