Wednesday, February 17, 2010

A Brave New Education System

With the advance of media and technological entertainment kids are more skilled these days in pushing buttons and pulling triggers than they are in tying their own shoelaces or boiling an egg.

That may sound cool if you are a kid playing a computer game, but out here in the real world it will get you into trouble. And even though they are on TV, jail and gangs are not fun; you do physically and mentally and emotionally hurt and die when somebody shoots or knifes or rapes you or your family or friends or your pet dog.

In the real world you gotta know how to boil an egg, how to sew on a button, how to change a tire or oil on a car, how to do basic bookkeeping, how to be a member of a community, how to change a baby’s nappy, how to bandage a wound, how to address other people politely so you can get something you want, how to work out problems, how to think before you act, how to wipe your ass and not piss on the toilet seat.

If parents aren’t taught this in school, how can they teach their own kids at home, how can they prevent their kids from joining gangs, how can they instill the value of education and being a good neighbor and how to live life in the real world if they aren’t taught the basics themselves? If schools can't use a stronger punishment than detention, how are they going to get the message through?

Reading, writing and math can be learned by 8 years old, so what are kids learn through to year 12 and college? Why can’t they boil an egg or know simple hygiene or understand common sense and basic good manners? Why aren’t kids taught lateral thinking so they can work out simple problems by themselves? Maybe it’s not so much lack of funding as the wrong types of classes being taught in elementary, high school, and college?

Maybe kids do need school uniforms and basic life skills to teach them what they really have to do out there and being a member of a community? Maybe kids don’t need too much freedom, because they get the wrong messages about how to be a member of society?

Look at our current reality on the street today, what sort of society are we creating? Look up Richmond and Vallejo, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Check out the troubles they deal with. 15 year old kids shooting folks in church, 2 year old girls being shot through the wall of a house, ice-cream ladies shot in their ice-cream van, and on and on. The place is an urban war zone. These aren’t mobs of protestors fighting for human rights, these are kids with real guns reliving video games killing real people, because nobody taught them otherwise.

All you Silicon Valley and video game makers should get on your knees and bow your heads and mourn for your souls in shame. A TV screen is one of the strongest forms of hypnotism. You’ve taken one of man’s greatest teaching and healing aids and used it to create street thugs and killers. You ask anybody that lives in places like Richmond and Vallejo, or extremist terrorist families.

Mister Media Man would you move your offices to places like these? “No!” Why? “Because the kids watch too many video games to be useful interns and the kids use real guns to kill people. Der!”

Video game moguls and any violent media industries should start using those millions and billions of dollars they’ve made from teaching kids to kill and start putting it to teaching kids what they really need to know. How to be the beautiful bright human beings they are meant to be and to be here in the world as loving members of society.

Enough already, we don’t want to have people go through this kind of trauma anymore, it is insane, it is horrifying and most if not all of it is preventable. Premeditated violent media is killing people, it is a murderer of sentient human beings, therefore it and it’s makers is should be judged as murderers according to law and made to clean up the mess. Society humanity the whole planet desperately needs educational media, not violent media.

Humanity is life’s real experience, not frat goofs and giggles. What do they teach you in college? Obviously not how to be members of a larger society, that’s for sure. And why’s that? Because your won professors weren’t taught any better either.

So you begin to see the pattern here.

Violent media - Wake up, get out of the loop and crash the loop. Take your violent media off the shelves, and recall what ever is out there. Use the blood money you’ve made to heal the harm you’ve done and you will make money and your soul will go to paradise in this lifetime.

Tax premeditated violent media out of existence.

My Vent

Sunday, February 14, 2010

T-Shirts and Gifts to Save the World

I've created some fun t-shirts and gifts to raise money to buy real estate and green it for low income artist housing, work spaces, centers, and galleries.

The saying is on the merchandise is -
THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE THE WORLD IS TO BUY IT

There are bunches more shirt and hoodie styles and colors and different types of gifts, prices are very reasonable, most stuff is under $30, click on any of the gifts to go to the full catalog...


For info about the saving the world project or to make a donation click here

Note: The saying or text - the only way to save the world is to buy it - is copyright.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

the only way to save the world is to buy it

My name is Deborah Paulino and for 10 years I developed and ran a couple of arts employment resources called Gigslist.org and Gigdirectory.net (RIP for now).

I am still passionate about saving culture through the arts industries, but as all artists know, high rents are forcing us to scatter and mass produce décor and fashion are killing our industries. So I’m putting my experience with Gigslist.org and research on micro economies to do something real and tangible about it.

I’m seeking donations to buy back a small remote Australian town, population 20,000, once a vibrant artist and writer colony, now a cheesy tourist trap.

The goal of our mission is to secure the majority of the domestic, commercial and farming, real estate, green renovate and touch screen enable it, and give it back to it’s artists, writers, eco, and community workers as self sustaining low income housing community with tools to create and sell their art.

It’s going to take a few hundred million dollars to do this without raising eyebrows or press, roughly the price of a party yacht for a billionaire playboy, but if we can save one town we can use the experience as a prototype to save more.

 I am open to looking at feasible ideas to raise money and manage the project. We can start turning a whole town and population into art as soon as we buy the first round of real estate.

To receive more info about the project and be invited to the contributors discussion group: Please donate at least $11 or more. (11 is the numerological number of the town’s name), you can leave questions in the Leave a Note box when you donate.




For large donations of $9,000 or more - donate up to $9,000 and leave a note with your contact info for me to make special banking and security arrangements for the remainder.

To buy a t-shirt or gift with  THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE THE WORLD IS TO BUY IT  please CLICK HERE

Please post this message to friends.

Thank you for contributing.


Deborah

“The only way to save the world is to buy it.” Is copyright.

Blog: deborahpaulino.blogspot.com


Monday, February 8, 2010

A litany of little things that irk me.

Certain little things add to the accumulative stress and subsequent costs of living in a community and few will speak up for fear of hurt feelings. Yet the less stress we have to go through in little things makes our community a nicer place to live and enjoy. It would be immature to complain about something without offering an idea to fix it, so here are some examples of annoying little things and ideas for solutions. Simple manners and courtesy for neighbors and visitors and to improve our lifestyles and neighborhoods and de-stress our lives.

Board meetings in cafes: Get an Office!
It’s one thing when folks are quietly tapping at their laptops with headphones on. It’s entirely another when they have several people talking loudly about their business at the next table while you are trying to have your break.  People need their break time, so they can be better at their jobs.


Baby strollers in coffee shops and restaurants: Leave them outside!
How many times have you hurt your ankle on a baby stroller in a too small space then felt crushingly guilty for jolting the baby, which put you on eggshells for the rest of the day? It’s not your fault, it’s the fault of unthinking parents. Modern strollers come with a pod that parents can take out of the stroller and carry the baby in and sit on the chair next to them.  Simply chain up the stroller outside like people with bicycles have to do.  Kids too big for the pod can usually walk and sit in a high chair, which can be a fun learning exercise.



Pets in strollers: Put the pet on a leash and let it walk!
How embarrassing and unlearning for the poor pet to be walked around in a stroller like a human infant.  How embarrassing to watch an adult walk the stroller with the pet in it, like the adult is still five years old in the head. Plus the pet needs exercise just as much as you do, so it can ease its stress and won’t be so whiny, yappy, and neurotic.  (FYI: I’m not talking about pets with disabilities.)




Noisy vehicles: Use electric!
Rrrrrnnnngggg reeevvvvv pompmmp  rrrrrnnnngggg reeevvvvv pompmmp rrrrrnnnngggg reeevvvvv pompmmp  rrrrrnnnngggg up and down you street or 3 streets over, very loud, very annoying, very smelly, and very polluting.  Road noise is pollution too.  Needless city noise stresses folks so they also complain about music noise and our venues and festivals close down. Save the planet and the music and easier to park!





Howling, barking, cold, and/or thirsty pets tied up outside: Don’t leave your pet uncomfortable! How do you think it feels to the pet or the animal lovers passing by? Get your pet a warm dry coat, bring a portable water container, bring a friend to keep your pet quite while you shop, or reorganize your pet-time schedule.



 Screaming kids in restaurants: Take kids to a kids’ restaurant!
How often are you on your break or looking forward to a nice meal at your favorite café and then gut wrenching screams suddenly kill your appetite and peace of mind? It’s very bad for digestion as well as public stress levels and that can trigger anger, stomach problems, and even road rage. Kids can’t be expected to act like adults, they need to be kids to distress themselves and not stress you. A public place is not a nursery, like it or not, and grown up establishments can be stressful for a kid, which may in part be why the kid is screaming.


 Paper napkin pollution: Carry a handkerchief!
Paper napkins are a disgusting habit, incredibly bad for the environment, and totally unnecessary.  No matter how many cute little signs say “save the planet” there are always A Holes who take more napkins than they need and leave a mess. If people carry their own reusable cloth handkerchiefs we create jobs in the textile and sewing industries, save forests, keep millions of tones out of landfill, and save millions of dollars for cities.  Do the math.




Public bathroom crimes: Put the seat up, don’t leave a mess!
We’ve all been nauseated by the sight of it at one time or another. With the virus scares and all the other public “nasties” one would think that adults have more courtesy and awareness for public health.  Body servants went out of fashion two centuries ago and you are way too old to be having somebody else wipe your backside and clean up your urine and excrement and toilet paper. We all like clean bathrooms; let’s all keep them clean.





Neighbors lights in your bedroom: Turn it off or shade it!
Light pollution is why you can’t see the stars at night, plus it uses up a lot of electricity.  It also may be why your neighbor won’t say hello. Go over your whole house or building, Turn it off and you save money, see the stars, and de-stress your neighbors.  If the light is for security, put it on a motion sensor and shade it so it doesn’t shine in your neighbors’ or into the sky.



Fuel powered lawn mowers, cutters, and leaf blowers: Use electric!
Forget your mid afternoon nap on your day off or getting the baby to sleep, or concentrating on work. Industrial noise and domestic fuel use are pollution, which poisons the air and ground and stresses people out. Ever seen the sperm decline and cancer increase statistics and how they correlate with the rise of fossil fuel and man made chemical use? It’s kind of scary.  Plus fossil fuel machines are very high maintenance, which adds up. Electric is much quieter, very clean, way more reliable, and you can go solar to save even more money, as well as the planet.




Ugly buildings: Grow a fence and groceries!
There is such a thing as visual pollution and it stresses people out, mostly without them knowing it. The Chinese design tradition of Feng Shui addresses this problem, but it’s a lot to explain, so here’s a quickie...  In most cities one cannot build a fence beyond a certain height. But you can grow bamboo and trees almost tall as you like, and there are many varieties of trees with edible fruit and nuts, and even some varieties of bamboo shoots are edible. Green views also increase real estate value.  Don’t plant without consulting with a local nursery for the right kind of plants. Not all plants are edible or suitable for urban gardens.



Lack of local entertainment: Singer-songwriters in cafes, art gallery parties, neighborhood picnics, block parties, community gardens and halls etc.! People need to get out and socialize, but not everybody wants to go to a bar or drive. Neighborhood residents need to meet and socialize with each other in their neighborhood, so they can recognize and trust and lookout for each other. Get it together and have a get together.



Some of these ideas are excerpts from my book “The Big Girls Guide to Saving the World” , others are ideas and observations I was pondering this evening. Help me finish editing the book and get it published – please make a donation to Interesting Minds today!



Images with this text are random clip art from the web for personal blog only, not included in book.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Devil Worship

The true god that every religion in the East and West teaches and bases their individual cultures on is a god of love.

To pursue war or pollution, destruction of quality of lifestyle, or violence of any kind that hurts people is creating human sacrifice, a different god, more like the devil as described by those same religions.

The most violent, war ridden, and the most pollution ridden places and organizations are run by men. It seems the places with less rights for women have the more war and polution in their community.  Documentaries and priests will tell you these are signs of the devil or devil worship.

Also the places where women give up their rights and personal power to men have more pollution, war, and domestic violence. Traditional signs of the devil.

I'm not saying men are the devil, but I think men have Eve's temptation a bit too far and it's Eve's job to empower herself and her sisters and set Adam straight. Right now is the first time in over 2000 years where women have the power to do that. War, gangs, corruption, dirty politics it's all the same thing, men following the devil and practicing devil worship as described in religious texts.

It's time for women to grow up and stop having babies and start slapping their men into line and cleanup the planet and society, as tribal Aboriginal women are doing in Australia. And it's time for men to stop acting liked scared naughty greedy little bully boys with wooden toys that hurt people. Regardless of race, creed, religion, or what your mother said.

God is God by any name and all religious agree that the one true God is a God of LOVE.


Spiritually Speaking

Monday, February 1, 2010

Are Commercial Rents Stalling the New Economy?

18 Months ago I decided on a career change and went back into fashion design, working from my apartment in Haight Ashbury. My business started picking up, so I started looking for a retail/work space to expand my business to full-time and hire some staff. I surfed the web for and affordable retail space with good foot traffic, like most start up retail businesses.

At the time I started looking in 2008, I knew rents were high so I looked for a shared space. There were a couple available but the workrooms weren’t big enough and not much foot traffic. The folks with the leases had to make the extra effort of regular fashion parades, promotional events, and even vending at other events and festivals on weekends, and selling their designs in other boutiques, to make up for lack of foot traffic. And this was just before the main economic crash when folks were still shopping.

After the economic crash I thought, since retail income is in reality next to zero and many shop spaces are for lease, that commercial rents would become affordable for micro businesses like myself who can help get the economy back on it’s feet from a local level. But no, in many cases, such as Haight Ashbury and other neighborhoods and spaces in San Francisco, the rents went up. The rents were already to the point where having a retail space is not profitable, and even a useable size workroom or studio in a basement was stretching it. Then they put the rents up further.

If you are a small business owner looking for a space this is not new news. It’s the elephant in the room. The rents are too high to make a business profitable enough to sustain itself, let alone support family and staff jobs. Many shops are closing up and going online or moving out of SF.

That’s totally yuk for a bunch of reasons. First is that it will leave we SF residents with only chain-stores and generic made-overseas crap stores that can afford the high rents. I don’t want to live in that kind of city, and when I travel I avoid that kind if city, because I’ve seen it all elsewhere.

For an extreme local example - the bong superstore on Haight st, “OMG”, that shop is in such bad tourist trap taste and boring that people should picket it for fun, and that cheap sunglasses shop as well. And almost none of the stores on upper Haight Street sell anything that’s actually made in San Francisco, so who’s local economy are they helping and who’s local jobs are they supporting? Plus commercial rents in the Haight are astronomical, even in the side streets. Most of the retail on Masonic to Stanyan on Haight St. should be picketed as a public example of economic obstruction.

Same goes for generic modern architecture, big fat yawn and bad for tourism. I’d move my business to the countryside if they hadn’t built those modern cookie cutter shopping centers all out there, totally uninviting to shop unless it’s a supermarket.

From a plain dollars and cents and jobs point of view, very small businesses that an unemployed person can afford to get up and running helps rebuild the total economy, and business individuality helps build tourism. If landlords, real estate agents, and the government are creating high rents that only chain stores and big business can afford, then they are damaging the economy and tourism. Big business and imports are bad for the economy, or didn’t you get that in the news throughout 2009?

That’s got to stop right now. It’s not Socialism; it’s jobs for you as well as the homeless on the street and jobs for folks in the projects and artist communes. It’s safer neighborhoods and better schools and families staying together and the community empowering itself.

Ok, so now you understand the problem, big freak out, yes, but let’s work through a solution. The research is done; you can find it and more on the web anytime. Any politician worth their salt will see this is a real issue then develop a collaboration between landlords, real estate agents, and local, state, and federal government.

The other factor to be noted is that when real people think of small business it’s not $250,000 a year income per business, it’s’ more like $25,000 to $60,000 per year income per business. That’s where the real economy starts that builds and supports the larger economy’s stability. So that is what you’ve got to work with and there are a lot of us. We don’t just need grants and tax breaks, we need ongoing affordable commercial rents, so that we can get started and expand and create jobs and sustain those jobs.

In some shopping malls rent is paid by percentage of the shop’s retail net, and if the mall is not living up to their lease sales pitch, they don’t get paid. What if retail rents were based on something like this for at least the first 2 years? The first 6 months is the trial period to see if the businesses gets up and running, if it doesn’t look good in the first six months (the business owners flake, the product is rubbish etc) the landlord or the business can exit the agreement, or there is a limited amount of set rent to sooth the landlord’s nerves and prompt the business owner to get their act together.

I personally wouldn’t have a problem with submitting a business, marketing, and production plan summary to a landlord or governing org if it meant I could get a lease that was affordable with foot traffic enough to keep my business afloat and maybe some grants and tax breaks to get staff, equipment, and marketing up and running. I think it would be good common sense to make sure the business has owners with business sense and focus and worth the investment given by the landlord and org. It takes a village to raise a child and a team to run a business, if I can get second and third opinions it helps my business, even if it is not what I want to hear.

Something needs to be done that is real and now, we don’t need it discussed endlessly in court, government sessions, debates, or opinion pages. It doesn’t need a $25,000 web site or $1,250,000 to investigate and research. Just get on the phone, start networking, and make it happen.

Ideally we could set up a non-profit to be the mediator and to raise grants to help.

A Brave New Prison System

 A friend who is a public defender told me on facebook that a gang member couldn’t leave their gang else they will be killed. This shot home to me that the current prison system is simply not working and it’s actually the main breading ground of gangs. So using my studies and experiences in comparative religion and mental health treatments for my own sanity - I’m attempting to design a prison and system that prevents the spread of gangs and may actually cure and rehabilitate first time and repeat offenders.


The system is based on non-invasive, non-violent, non-chemical Eastern and tribal mental health treatments and modern eco friendly design, combined with modern learning technologies. It is cheaper, better security, and in more cases faster results than the current conventional therapy, rehabilitation, and/or prison. Mouthful, but I have the basic design down and so far it is making sense.

Based on Zen and Hindu principles of mental health using isolation to clear the mind, and positive reprogramming to rehabilitate.  

The growing pandemic of gangs is caused, nurtured, and exploded by the current prison system.  If we look to the oldest living cultures, such as the Australian Aborigines and ancient cultures such as Zen and Hindu, they see and treat crime as a mental disease.



In ancient Zen they isolate the patient for a minimum of 21 days to calm the mind, in ancient Hindu it is 21 days of Vipasna meditation staring at a blank wall.  Then through months or years of self-discipline and self-education, depending on individual responsiveness, the patient is gradually rehabilitated for re-entry to society.

At its most basic level, gang or organized crime is a contagious mental disease transferred by communication and collaboration, akin to mob psychosis.  This is not science fiction this is psychological fact from independent study over thousands of years to present day, both in the East and West.

 The current prison system, developed in the dark ages, allows communication and collaboration thus creating the danger and puts the community directly in it’s path with every inmate. It is the same as letting sick children with contagions go to school, one child shares a sandwich or sneezes on another and the whole school gets sick, then the children take the sickness home to spread throughout the community.

By that time you have pandemics like the gang problems in low-income neighborhoods where innocent residents are gunned down in cold blood and schoolgirls are pushed into prostitution and drug addiction and bystanders are caught in the cross fire of turf wars.  And even if they wanted too the gang members can’t actually quit, because the other gang members will kill them.

The only proven way to stop the spread of any disease from one living being to another is quarantine or total isolation, the same as preventing the spread of a virus, such as the H1N1 virus. We have to prevent the crime or gang disease spreading from one criminal or gang member to another by disabling their ability to communicate and collaborate.

By simply taking individual organized crime and gang members out of the picture, by putting them in isolation and not letting them see or communicate or collaborate with anybody, they cannot spread the disease of organized crime.


By not letting the disease spread, a single US state, such as California, can save billions of dollars in clean up and save tens of thousands of innocent lives, cities will save billions in property damage, and insurance companies save billions of dollars in claims. All in one year.

By cleaning up whole neighborhoods, nice families move back in, the property values go up, and the state/city earns billions more in property taxes and spends less in policing and victim compensation.

All the city, police, security service, or relative has to do is get written consent from the patient’s nearest relative, deliver the patient to the complex for medical observation and the patient stays for the duration of the 24/7 care program best suited to their problem.

The program is very similar to treating drug addiction.
 A sample rehabilitation program consists of:
One prisoner/patient, one cell, no communication.
Step 1#  21 days withdrawal and rest to calm the mind.
Step 2#  21 days deprogramming with videos.
Step 3#  21 days positive re-programming with videos.
Step 4#  21 days finding and nurturing a skill or talent.
Step 5#  180 days building that skill or talent to employment level, plus post traumatic stress training to deal with emotional triggers using instructional videos and video games and touch screens.
Step 6#  180 Days re-entry on parole into a new community with a job, clean residence, and ankle bracelet with sound transmitter;  well away from their old haunts, contacts and triggers.

Though we cannot force anybody to meditate and repent, it is possible to put somebody in a meditative environment where they can be consciously and subliminally rehabilitated using a noninvasive hypnotic medium, such as a television screen and commercially available educational videos and games.

Food is planned out according to good nutrition and security to maintain preventative health and served on paper plates and eaten with the hands, to prevent weapons or escape tools being made from utensils.  The used paper plates are then sent to recycling centers or patients can clean and reuse the plates for craft projects.

Soap and bathroom products are meted out in time-controlled dispensers in the cell bathroom to prevent waste.  All water is recycled, cleaned and filtered to be reused for toilets and cleaning.  The building fitted with eco friendly insulation, solar power, and energy efficient LED lighting and appliances to keep utility costs and environmental impact as low as possible.

During their stay in the complex, patients rarely come in contact with another human, and then only staff. Patients are also monitored with test projects, to see if they are ready for the next step and eventual halfway house then safe re-entry to society.

Discipline is noninvasive, non-physical, relatively simple, and in a way novel. For example, if a patient wipes their excrement all over their cell, an annoying jingle about cleaning up your mess is played very loudly over and over and over again in their own language until the patient cleans up their mess. Even if it takes weeks, the patient will eventually clean up their mess and not do it again.  In this way no staff are put at risk, the patient has nobody to focus their anger on, and nobody has to clean up the patient’s excrement except the patient.  This method also gives the patient a wake up call to grow-up, the first footfall on the path to rehabilitation.

While outdoor privileges in the complex are not possible for security and treatment effectiveness, patients do receive video fitness training in yoga and other mind calming physical practices. Patients are also encouraged in their progress with small educational privileges, such as being able to keep non-toxic indoor medicinal plants or receive e-books and specialized video learning.

Without the peer pressure of other inmates and internal gang politics, the patient’s mind is de-stressed and clear to receive positive re-programming and the inmate/patient is more responsive to rehabilitation.

The positive results can be life lasting and in the meantime the treatment truly takes the patient out of society and crime by not enabling them to communicate or collaborate, not even with family or loved-ones, as they may be enablers or triggers.

 The deprogramming and reprogramming helps patients ward off real life enablers and triggers that may make them re-offend, by giving them proven tools to stay on track and feel good about doing so.

For patients that fail the first round of treatment, a more intense version using psychiatric medication, and longer conscious as well subliminal reprogramming can be made available. In cases of severe drug addiction and violent crime a minimum of three to five years is recommended.

Because patients never see, hear, or communicate with each other it is possible to house females as well as males in the same complex.  Because visitors are not allowed and the building is sealed, a complex can exist within and urban environment without affecting the neighborhood or its residents even being aware that it is a prison rather than a private hospital.

The set up and logistics are not as expensive as building a new prison or mental health facility, because it does not need as much land and existing buildings can be refitted to purpose, such as a hotel or apartment buildings where there are small units with a bathroom and room for a single bed and video. The walls, ceilings, floors, and bathroom can be lined with steel, the windows bared, prison strength doors, and touch screens for media, monitoring, and security technology installed behind protective tamper proof covers.  These modifications also help make the building more fire and earthquake safe.

An experimental complex can be set up and running within 12 months, for less cost and expertise than renovating a high-end hotel.  Video trainings can be automated, and food served through secure hatches in the doors.

Running and security costs are cheaper because everything is in a single building and patients do not see or communicate with each other to attack each other or collaborate to cause trouble.

Results will start to be visible within individual patients within the first 6 months. Lasting results after completion of full program.

Extra income can be brought in by the patients working with the touch screens in data entry, surveys, and other on-screen work using a secure Intranet system.  Instruction pages and video tutorials can be in any language. All work is then checked by staff, from the safety of a secure office, before it is sent to the client.  

The system is designed to eliminate having direct communication with the patient, so the patient can focus on their rehabilitation with less risk of negative thought triggered by human interaction.  This also dramatically cuts down the cost and logistics of security and increases the effects of rehabilitation.

Actual cost of rehabilitation is minimal and low risk, because it is done by video learning not by actual hands on staff and therapist, and there are hundreds of suitable educational videos available commercially to start with.

Room and board costs are also minimal as per the cost of a small studio apartment and basic utilities and health insurance, plus food at bulk cost rates.

The complex can also serve as a private patient preventative measure to “nip it in the bud”, such as unruly or at risk teens, domestic violence, and road rage. Usually the first 63 days will give positive long lasting results alongside ongoing therapy for 6 months to 5 years, or as their assigned mental health professional prescribes. 

Inmate fees can be as low as $2,500 per month per head or less for treatment at the complex, as oppose to a conventional prison stay at $6,000 per month per head. With nonprofit status theses fees are also tax deductible.

FYI: Courts and criminal records don’t have to be involved if the patient is admitted before getting into legal trouble.   This can prevent future life setbacks.

Simply by preventing the spread of trouble we increase the safety of our communities, and it doesn’t have to cost or cause as much trouble, family heartache, stigma, or state or federal budget as a stay in conventional prison.

I believe the more of these complexes we can get set up, the faster we can make our streets and communities much safer places to live, and improve our children’s futures.



This is still a work in progress, but so far it is making sense to me.

Is Red Tape Keeping People Homeless?

And while the popular news is on the topics of real estate, government, and the ever growing jobless population turning into an ever growing homeless population.  During my search for a workspace for my fashion business I came across several lovely little apartments that had been deemed illegal to live in, some could only be used as storage not work.  It was strange, as the apartments seemed safe enough, no leaks or rotting floorboards, proper wiring etc, a couple even had good heating.

With so many people reportedly homeless because they can't afford market rent, why make it more of a problem by closing up viable cheap living spaces? How many illegal living units are sitting vacant or full of storage in San Francisco?  When it’s been raining for 5 days and nights and your sleeping bag is wet and  cold and you can’t afford $60 a night for a budget hotel, or don't have credit to lease a studio, where would you rather sleep, under a tree in wet sleeping bag or in an illegal living unit with a hot shower and a toilet? Which will put you in hospital faster and make you more of a burden on the government?

I know that one argument is that homeless drink, but which came first, the homelessness or the drink? In the Australian outback when temperatures drop to freezing at night, jackaroos (cowboys) will drink rum till they are drunk to numb themselves against the cold.  If we could keep folks out of the cold and weather and away from homeless peer pressure, would it not prevent them getting into drugs and drunkenness to numb out the weather and their situation(at least in part) in the first place?

I live in Haight Ashbury where we cohabitate with homeless in a gentrified neighborhood, and sometimes I ask the older regulars about their lives and being homeless. What I gleaned is that meth (speed) and alcohol are big problems. What I see is that if more cheap housing and solid laws programs were available to get folks into affordable housing before they hit the streets and mandatory no sleeping or loitering outside, the problem could begin to ease off.

Finland have it down pat, I spent two months there in 1989, it is illegal to sleep outdoors within city limits, and they make use of every bit of viable housing.  I think in San Francisco the resources and money are here to solve the homeless problem and prevent new homeless, but it is being mismanaged due to red tape and people being pedantic and scared instead of practicing common decency. We need to ignore the red tape and work together to heal the situation, because it's a society health thing, we are not children and it's not a government's job to heal a society, it's a government's job to keep the wheels turning, it's the people's job to heal society.

People need to take back their power to heal themselves and their neighbors and that heals society. People need people for that very reason, when we forget it we end up with a lot of displaced homeless people with serious issues sleeping on the streets and defecating on our doorsteps. All you folks who are retired or over 55 should be out volunteering and/or taking in your friends and family who are on hard times, it will keep your brain and health spry, and many hands make light work around the house and community.  Plus this is a problem caused by your generation because you gave everyone's power away, you didn't want the responsibility and now we have big problems, so now you can help us get our power of community back and heal society.

Why can’t low-income folks of sound mind, sign a waiver for the building codes so they can live in these spaces for say, a third of market value? Most of these spaces only need a small amount of fixing up to be safe, if not to code. There are as many if not more than 40,000 illegal living spaces in San Francisco, that’s a whole lot of people off the streets and increased revenue to the city in rent taxes. Mayor Gavin Newsom’s homeless report in 2009 stated there were 6,514 homeless in San Francisco. Judging from what I see on the street, that’s a lowball number but it is certainly lower than the housing that is available and not being used.

The homeless count could be feasibly zero if so-called “illegal” living spaces are made available and in turn funding raised from the rents to make them safe, if not totally to code, and sleeping outdoors withing city or county limits banned. It's common knowledge that people have a better chance of getting their lives on track and being law-abiding citizens when they have an affordable roof over their heads and a hot shower. It’s simple common sense.

I know you are going to say "red tape" - but even 2,000 folks homeless in one city is technically a state of emergency, SF has over 6,000.  And yes some are going to not want to sleep indoors, but if the law was that they couldn't withing city limits then they would either have to live indoors or leave town. It would also give much better odds of saving the children both the little ones with no choice, and the runaways. Eventually the deliberate homeless will get the message. And police would have a lot more time and funding freed up for more serious crimes than somebody urinating on a doorstep or sleeping off a bottle of wine in on a patio.

Home built attics in San Francisco today are luxury condos compared to what our friends in Haiti have, even before their big quake. Get some perspective and use the resources that are already here to give people affordable housing. The red tape needs to be thrown out the window and laws made to put real people’s basic needs at the forefront. They don’t need it to be pretty, they just need a warm dry place to sleep and a place to wash. They don’t need a full kitchen, but they do need a place to store food and boil water and maybe microwave a frozen meal.

My ancestors lived in home made rough-hewn log houses, before motor cars and without electricity or indoor pluming for years on end, and they were pillars of their communities. I’ve lived in places without running water or electricity for months on end in several different countries to see what it was like, I also lived in a tent with some girlfriends for 3 months on a beach and in grass huts in India and Thailand, and I am here to write about it without it.

Unemployment levels are still in a state of federal emergency; more good people and their children are living on the streets in our cities. Why can’t a "state of emergency for housing" be made to make the illegal living spaces available and ban sleeping outside in city limits, it would be a lot cheaper and better for the environment than building 40,000 new low income living spaces. It would at least get folks off the streets, registered and into programs until code abiding abodes are built. Who knows, they may even have jobs and a hair cuts by then; tis a better chance than none at all.

My personal feeling is F-bleep the red tape and over-zealous building codes, they haven’t made my landlord to fix my gassy heater or leaking windows. Why let them keep people on the streets and sleeping in their cars in the cold rain? The government needs to help people help themselves.

I am sick of people filibustering and creating laws to stop real good happening. I am sick of corporations having control of governments, and “out of touch” religious organizations having control of people’s moral and voting choices. It’s not working, it is hurting people, and it’s not Christian nor community.

We need to wake up and get practical and give our power back to ourselves as communities by rebuilding our own economies and utilizing readily available housing. Even if it is not to code, a crappy basement studio in Haight Ashbury is 1000 times better, safer, and healthier than a heap of rubble in Haiti, and cheap rents for micro businesses will mean more people with incomes and more taxes paid for better schools and health care.

My Vent