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[quote=Anonymous][quote]

Anonymous wrote:
My understanding is that yes, hunger is an issue. The stats the Capital Area Food Bank quote are:

1 out of 10 residents of the metropolitan Washington region is food insecure. 
Nearly ⅓ of them are children.

There was an article in the Post talking about how students have suffered and food insecurity via losing access to meals was part of it. I'm not a policy expert by any means, but I do think that the benefits from UBI would extend into the community greatly. Just looking at this one issue, people could then spend money in their communities instead of relying on school meals or food banks. Maybe shoplifting would go down encouraging more grocery stores to open, providing stable jobs. There is something to be said for the dignity of choosing and paying for your own food.

As for the issue of involvement with the drug trade, which I assume is what's fueling these shootings, [b]my hope would be that with better options people would choose something else[/b]. No one wants to be terrified for their life as they walk down the street, or see their friends and loved ones hurt or killed. People with better options exercise them. That's why there's a Ward 9.

So the shootings were about food shortages? Stay on topic.
[/quote]

The amount of naïveté on this thread is astounding.  Better options already abound.  As PPs above have noted--there is no shortage of "programs" for youth in this city, including the long-running Summer Youth Employment Program which extends until the age of 22.  In addition, restaurants and hotels are begging for workers now right now and cannot find people to apply.  They would rather sit home and collect stimulus checks.  But you know what?  Taking advantage of those programs and opportunities requires having the capacity to show up.  To show up on time.  To put down the Insta/Snapchat and listen and do actual work.  To be able to speak without every other word beginning with "mother**er" or some other profanity.    To not get in confrontations with coworkers or supervisors.  And the responsibility to instill those types of  life skills lies with parents.  Not with schools.  Not with "society" at large.  But with parents.

And there are a LOT of young AA and Latino kids in this city who DO avail themselves of those opportunities, becoming the first generation in their families to graduate from high school or attend college.  But there are some---like the roughnecks doing the banging around 14th Street, who instead find it much easier to get up late, smoke dope, and shoot the sh$t with their buddies on the corner.   And those folks don't need more "programs"---they need to be kept in jail and away from the rest of us instead of the continuous "catch and release" cycle for violent offenders that our equally naive city council endorses.  One of the reasons there is a Ward 9, as PP put it, is that during the 1980s and 90s, a huge number of middle class AA families decided that they weren't putting up with the crime BS either, and they moved.[/quote]

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