Kipp,

Thanks for coming into this thread and sharing your experience and observations. I hope you consider carefully before deciding to appease Dickey's (or anyone else's) curiosity about your particular circumstances.

I wonder, when you talk about people making big money in the industry that has indeed arisen around 'services' for the poor, if you are speaking of the privatization of traditionally publicly run programs? You don't say enough about that for me to know exactly what you are talking about. I know there are definitely businesses making money, and lots of it, who contract for job training and job development programs, and in mental health. It is the CEO's and the very upper level management of these firms who are profitting, and profitting nicely. I also know that New Jersey has some famously corrupt municipalities (don't know about county and the state gov't) where agents of the the government historically have made tidy sums from kick backs, etc. I don't think of these people and the management of these companies as 'do gooders.' I think of them as corrupt opportunists. I also know from my own professinal experience that the amount of 'spin' that goes into programs, public and private' that are touted as services for people in need are in reality something else intirely. I do not mean that no one in need is ever helped by these programs. However, the publicly stated mission of service is simply a cover. The real mission is something else intirely. Usually some combination of profit for a small number of top level management, irresponsible cost-shifting, and the creation of political capital for some one else. This is a whole topic unto itself, so I won't comment further on it at this time.

As you know much better than me, shelters are appalling environments. The most dysfunctional of the poor, the bottom of the barrel so to speak, make up the majority of the population in shelters. but the this is not who comprises everyone utilizing a shelter. And those in shelters are representative only of those in shelters, and not all who are poor in this country. I think you make that point, actually. What I hear, when I read the few posts you have made, is confirmation that stereotyping people is an ineffective way to view people. And contrary to popular belief, people are people, whether they are poor or not.

A related but somewhat off-topic aside - crack cocaine - is probably one of the most destructive agents to influence our society in our history, and it is definitely a contributor to the maintenance of poverty to an extent that no other addictive substance has ever been. It's corrosive effects on the personality and behaviors (choices) of crack addicts goes well beyond that of opiates, alcohol, meth-amphetamine, powder cocaine, or any other drug I can think of. It is also most definitely a poor man's drug. Short of the extinction of the substance, I do not know how this destructiveness can be stopped or slowed. No amount of law enforcement or treatment known to mankind today can stop it. I'm not convinced that even extremely draconian measures such as automatic, permanent removal of children from the homes of crack addicted parents, or even forced sterilization of confirmed crack users as the only way to prevent increasing numbers of 'crack babies' born with significant organic brain dysfunction from en utero exposure to crack would bring it under control.

More later. gotta go to bed.

Thanks again for posting Kipp. Hope we hear more from you.

Janie