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Here is an image of where some are living now...
and some this way:
High rents create a new class of hidden homeless
As affordable housing gets harder to find, some newly homeless live out of their cars on the streets of Los Angeles and I am sure its happening elsewhere..
Are these really what we should be paying...
While she was employed as a social services case worker, Estrada's rent increased from $1,000 to $3,000 per month, forcing her to move. The cheapest place she could find was $1,800, but then she suffered complications from a medical condition and ended up losing her job.
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What if your home was more like the one which I found using Mr. Google
Its a hybrid, solar, pedal power vehicles that would be sort of a tiny home and transportation for local use in a city suburban setting
https://ibikes.wordpress.com/2015/06/02 … r-designs/
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Edited Repost of things that I just learned from our conversations here on Newmars.
Thanks you elderflower as I have learned a new term "Tuk-Tuk" as it is a modified motor cycle cart which is a the mordern day use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw
Many nice images from all over the world.
many more images on the search
Alternative designs for a micro home and I would agree should be 4 wheeled.
Here is a solar powered version which when created as a hybrid vehicle for mars is fantastic.
Originally Manufactured: Bangkok, Thailand
Capacity: 1 Driver + 4 Passengers
Speed: 50 km/hour
Weight: 900 kg
Length: 3.98 m
Motor: 7 kW
Range: approximately 300 km per charge
It is hard to tell how much solar is on the machine but hopefully we can find the information or come up with a good guestimate.
Found one image that has 8 panels but unsure of what power capability they would have but its on the website one would hope.
http://www.c-fee.com/solartuktuk.html
going to need an to english translation of the spec on the page
This gives great promise for making these for temporary use by the poor which are camping as this would be a step up.
Sure lots of solar panels would be for the top end use while no generator but direct pedal drive would mean the lowest cost and would be reduced in size as well to still make it moveable by the average human when needed.
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So if we are expected to put away money for retirement and we do this is Have only $100K saved? Here's how long it will last in each state
That does not sound like very much money to have set aside but if thats all you got then maybe you can still keep working....
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For SpaceNut ....
In another recent topic, void showed a link to an article about research into more efficient catalysts for chemical reactions.
I noted that the researcher quoted offered a prediction that it might be possible to reduce the size of the investment currently required to make certain chemicals.
The topic of poverty as posed here is asking why we have poverty in America (and around the world).
A stretch subtopic might be how to address the problem, and to increase the number of people who are able to climb out of poverty, or not get into it in the first place.
Some decades ago, Mao Tse Tung famously attempted to lead his population to jump over centuries of poverty with his "Great Leap Forward". A detail I remember from reading about that period is that he thought that people might be able to make iron in their back yards, and my recollection is that the experiment was a dismal failure.
The solution to poverty in China (or anywhere) appears to be to organize people into groups who are able to divide up the work into specialties, so that individuals become better and better at some task, and (more importantly), more and more of the work can be automated.
In the case of void's discovery, I am wondering if it might be possible to divide up the production of useful chemicals among a large number of small producers, instead of the current system, which is characterized by ownership of corporations by investors, who pay workers to make products, but who (generally) do not share ownership of the corporation with the workers.
Thus (as I observe the scene) relatively few workers are able to acquire shares in corporations, and thus enjoy the rewards of the growth of value of those shares over time.
If the cost of a chemical manufacturing facility can be reduced to an amount that a bank would be willing to fund for a young couple starting out (similar to a house in today's world), then (I am imagining) ownership of the means of production would be extended to a part of the population able to manage these small facilities, and thus to pay them off over time.
A model for this is the franchise industry, which is most familiar to (me at least) in the food industry.
An individual can invest in a franchise, and with hard work and attention to a myriad details, bring it along to the point it will pay itself off over time.
(th)
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That reminds me of the small brewery companies that do specialty beers in a way.
For america the job and low pay yields poverty as you are unable to save when all of the income goes to treading water.
We are an energy requiring peoples for just about everything that we would want to do these days.
Very little gets done manually and what little there is is partly economic and as a result of no energy supply where you are.
Using less energy is only a partial way to free up cash that is needed to be saved but that will only go just so far if all other expenses continue to climb. That along with a long term job loss will eat up what you have saved just to keep the roof over your head.
I have started to look at small scale solar to allow for a reduction in energy costs for locational lighting needs as that is obtainable even at a dollar a lawn marker light and does not require the large investment.
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For SpaceNut .... Thank you for a very nice lob over the net (or soft ball if you prefer) ...
That reminds me of the small brewery companies that do specialty beers in a way.
<snip>
For america the job and low pay yields poverty as you are unable to save when all of the income goes to treading water.
Before starting this reply, I went back to the beginning of this topic in 2017, when you started out with a report of a visit from the UN to study poverty in the US.
In the first 25 messages, kbd512 and RobertDyck contributed recollections of their families experiencing what would surely be called poverty today, but at the time it was (probably) pretty normal.
In particular I noted a post from kbd512 which listed behaviors that would increase chances of success in life. That post is one that I noted to reread, and it is easy to find because it is in the first 25 of this topic, which itself is easy to remember.
I've been thinking about your brewery company observation since I first read it. There was a recent local interest story about a couple of gents who are building a small craft brewery in incremental steps. This story reminded me that not everyone is capable of putting together a successful small business. The people who have the combination of ability, personality and persistence deserve any rewards they are able to secure.
It seems to me that at no point in the years I've spent in education and employment in the US has anyone suggested that setting up and running a small business was something to consider. That may reflect the open-ended concept that is part of the American culture, or it may just be human nature.
Franchise opportunities are a way for a good business idea to propagate through the population, by reducing by orders of magnitude the uncertainty that goes with starting a business. Running a franchise still requires all the basic skills that are needed for any business, so (again) not everyone is capable of growing into the challenge.
Recently, the author David McCullough published a book about the settlers who took on the challenge of filling up the Northwest Territory after the Revolutionary War in the US (ca 1776). The script printed for money was worthless, so revolutionary war soldiers were offered grants of land out in Indian territory, and many took on the arduous travel, construction of simple shelter, and clearing the land for crops.
What I am thinking about, in response to void's discovery of recent research that (may) reduce the cost of setting up and running a chemical production facility, is that it may be possible to "teach a man to fish", but also, to supply the boat, line, hooks and bait, on credit terms designed to insure successful reimbursement over a period of 10 or 20 years.
"Job Creators" (whether government or private industry) generally provide the environment in which individuals can make a useful contribution, and potentially earn enough to be able to save above meeting immediate needs.
Are there members of this forum who would be both willing and able to explore the idea a bit?
As stated in a previous post, I am thinking about moving towards a culture which distributes responsibility for manufacture of selected chemicals from gigantic corporations to large numbers of small facilities, each of which would be owned by a family or individual, and maintained as a source of income for retirement.
The move from small farms to giant megafarms is understandable but (from my point of view) a move in the wrong direction.
(th)
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Nice serve but here comes the volley back in references for the US, state to state income for poverty and some more thoughts hopefully to fill where numbers might not be.
Poverty in America The surprising poverty levels in the world's richest nations
States where poverty is worse than you might think
The poverty line varies depending on the number of people in a household. The income threshold is $12,140 for an individual and $25,100 for a family of four in the contiguous 48 states.
https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines
The numbers thou are not even close when you look at the America's richest and poorest states with The city hit hardest by extreme poverty in every state with the other end of the scale being The poorest town in each state but you might think that I am telling a story in States where poverty is worse than you think
Long and short the answer to the problem is not a number away as income is not the only determining factor for being poor.
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For SpaceNut ...
This topic has been running since 2017, and it has accumulated 183 posts.
As I read your reply #183 this morning, I realized that there is a chance that after all that discussion, no one has learned anything.
Or am I just misinterpreting your reply? That is certainly possible.
Adam Smith said (I'm paraphrasing of course) that the natural state of humankind is poverty.
For an individual to exist ABOVE poverty, that individual has to live in a culture that is able to organize itself to lift itself above the natural state.
To say that poverty exists in the United States (or anywhere) is to acknowledge that the natural state of humankind exists in the United States.
In my post #182, I was trying to envision a way of reducing the total amount of poverty. It should be noted that in order for that idea to work, there would need to be a group involved, and the members of that group would have to live up to the expectations set out in kbd512's post on how to rise above poverty.
(th)
Nice serve but here comes the volley back in references for the US, state to state income for poverty and some more thoughts hopefully to fill where numbers might not be.
<snip>
Long and short the answer to the problem is not a number away as income is not the only determining factor for being poor.
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There are many services that give to those that meet the guidelines of not just earnings but expenses which will use there fake numbers to calculate what amount you qualify for. There are food pantries and many income based services for housing but they all come with you taking time out of work to get the help. But that is based on you still having an address to which you are living at.
These groups all help but they do not make jobs...
Its not just the income that is the issue for poverty...if you work a 52 wk at 40 hrs a week thats a total of 2080.. with the base pay of $12,140 you are earning $5.84 an hr wage...when the minimum wage is around $8 and above for all states.....
So jobs that pay a living wage are required to be able to live in the minimum home situation of a roof over your head that gets you an address to get other help.
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Poverty is a two fold problem with the third being wants or desires for having worked so hard for what little one can make for an earning.
With of course want to earn more so that we can actually enjoy the money doing what ever our hearts desire.
The unemployed in my state can get different types of help for employment depending on what has lead to the job going away but there are limits and requirements for this help.
So if you run on hard times near retirement age they all look at you as if you are strange to want to still work. Which if you have not prepared for it with a deep bank account to draw from you will in time end up on the streets homeless and wanting.
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We have poverty in America for just a single reason:
Rich people, on average, though clearly not in all cases, are more intelligent and do more useful work than poor people. Being poor isn't a sign of intelligence or moral virtue, nor is it all that useful to yourself or anyone else. Those who aren't very intelligent don't stay rich for long. A fool and his money are easily separated. The most intelligent rich people find ways to bring everyone else out of poverty in the process of becoming rich, kicking and screaming the whole way if they have to. The poorest amongst us today are better off than my Grandmother or Grandfather could ever have imagined being when they were kids growing up during The Great Depression.
Everyone's perspectives on what constitutes intelligence or useful work has no bearing on what's useful to a market-based economy where the customer decides what is worthwhile, rather than some all-powerful centralized government full of know-nothings who do nothing useful for the people they're supposed to govern. Rich people don't complain about not having all that they want, either. If they want more, then they get busy figuring out how to get more. Being rich is about creativity, or richness of thought, not how much jingle you currently have in your wallet. The wealthiest people in the world were also the poorest at one point in time. Rather than complaining about that, they decided to expend more effort on becoming wealthier. Complaining that their kids live easier lives than they did is just asinine. Everything I do, I do to ensure that each successive generation has an easier time of it than we did. That said, I also know the difference between "showing love" and "getting the job done". Getting the job done is Priority #1, forever and always. Period. If you ever forget that, then you'll be poor.
That's all there is to this topic. The rest is just incessant griping about how to divide the largess produced of the richest, most productive nation on the planet, in the entire history of the world.
If you want to feed a man, then you give him a fish. If you want a man to eat for the rest of his life without any further effort on your part, then you teach him how to fish. After that, he either fishes like everyone else or he starves if he decides he doesn't want to fish. I can't fathom how it is that people who have so much intelligence can't grasp that simple concept.
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So teaching a man a trade allows him to stay fed but teach a man to create a business means he can feed many. Our education system does not do that...
Being rich or intellegent does not go hand in hand, big dreams and dumb luck to create the business that creates the many jobs as well do not change the situation.
Meaningfull work of any type is just a job priority #1 but without someone that wants the end product you have no job not even a employer.
Being able to reduce one's expenses to being well below the earnings is the only way one gets out of poverty.
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Look, it's fundamentally about whether there are jobs available that pay living wages. In a hierarchical pyramid, the bulk of the population is at the bottom, period, end of issue. "Upward mobility" may increase turnover, but cannot change that basic fact.
"Capitalism" in the sense of a market economy is the most powerful engine of creation ever devised by man. Nothing else comes close: not socialism (see dictionary definition, please!!!), and not kingships. And certainly not anarchy. It also has millennia of history that clearly show unregulated capitalism inevitably leads to a few pirates at the top of the pyramid oppressing a population of slaves.
Capitalism/free market economies simply require rules of fair play, for people not to be slaves. Period. End of issue. The analogue to that is you have to fence off the seed corn, lest the cows eat it, too. Greed knows no bounds, you must confine it some way. That's the ONLY known way to keep the pirate/slave thing from happening. It's a relatively new experiment (western democracies, including us in the USA), and that experiment has not yet run its course. We're still learning of the pitfalls and what to do about them.
The two most serious problems plaguing western societies (including ours in the USA) are (1) export of jobs to slave labor societies, and (2) unrestricted spread of automation. There are many serious problems, but those two are the long-term worst.
We have yet to figure out how to penalize those higher in the pyramid for exporting away our jobs to slave labor societies, just to reduce their labor costs. As long as there are slave labor societies somewhere, and as long as the $bottom $line outweighs (totally swamps, actually) all other considerations whatsoever, this problem will continue to seriously plague us.
Until recently, it was the most serious of those problems we face. In societies where there is racism (as here), it affects some people far more than others, but eventually it affects us all (and now has begun to affect us all, even right in America).
In recent years, unrestricted automation has become even more severe a problem to face than the export of jobs to slave labor societies. If you bother to look close, it's in the reported statistics for jobs and the economy. Just as an illustration, consider an old time machine shop employing 50 machinists. Once the price of the robot machines equals the accumulated labor cost over a defined (usually fairly short) interval, the machine shop automates. They still need 2 guys to maintain the robots, but what are the other 48 supposed to do for living now? Especially if all the machine shops automate? THAT is not part of the decision, but in some way, it should be.
We have no workable solutions for either problem yet. That is why good-paying jobs are getting scarce, leading toward the demise of the middle class. And THAT is where the anger comes from, that led to Trumpism in America, something resembling Nazism re-arising in Germany, that ultra-nationalism leading to botched Brexit in the UK, the yellow vest rioting in France, and whatever they call it in Sweden. And to where Putin has taken Russia after the Soviet breakup.
I've got no answers. But at least I know some of the questions. We all together need to go finds some candidate answers, and try them out. Sooner or later, something will work. Hopefully before the pirate/slave thing happens yet again.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-06-01 10:41:33)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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SpaceNut,
There is no such thing as a successful business that remains successful on pure dumb luck. As someone who spent years involved with a very small business, I know this from first-hand experience, rather than personal belief. Any assertion to the contrary is objectively false to anyone who has actually started a business. Your final assertion was also only partially correct. Rich people find new ways to make more money if they need more money to cover expenses. That goes right back to creative thought.
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I would agree with Kbd512 about the dumb luck thing, except that there are NO certainties in small business. Some amount of dumb luck is always involved, no matter how saavy a businessman you become.
I, too, have operated a small business for about 15 years now. I bootstrapped this thing from scratch, without ever taking on debt. It's not big enough to support us, but it is an adjunct to our family living. I build and sell a family of custom farm implements (for which I hold the patent) that eradicate prickly pear cactus out of farm and ranch pastures. No pickup or disposal required. Just riding around on a tractor drinking beer.
The dumb luck part was how I invented the thing. I was trying to build a scooper-upper, but it failed. Months later, I went to salvage the steel, and saw the cactus was gone from wherever I had towed it. That led to my invention and my small business.
Yep, there is a dumb luck component.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-06-01 10:50:28)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW,
Successful businesses do not remain in business on pure dumb luck. Your invention was not dumb luck, either. You had the creativity of thought to recognize a niche problem that no one else had effectively addressed, you had the engineering skills required to create a useful invention to eradicate an invasive cactus species, and you successfully marketed your invention to people who paid you to purchase copies of your invention, which was obviously useful to them for agricultural or ranching purposes.
THAT WAS NOT DUMB LUCK!
Good grief, man. Take credit for the fruit of all that grey matter sitting between your ears. Speaking of using your grey matter, please don't operate agricultural machinery while drunk.
If the other farmers and ranchers were as smart and skilled as you were, then they'd have purchased some sheet metal, welded up an implement to kill their cactus, and none of them would've paid you for what they could have made themselves. Most farm boys I've met are pretty handy with tools as well. Since there is clearly a market for your tool, that must mean that you've demonstrated some level of creativity and skill and/or business acumen that others have not. Any belief to the contrary is selling your own capabilities short of what they happen to be.
Both intelligence and hard work are required to run a successful business, however small or large. Most people don't want to put in the level of effort required, which is why they work for someone else at less than the market value of their services.
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Well, I suppose the dumb luck part was accidentally finding that something actually worked. I had been trying and failing to control cactus for about 15 years prior. I did recognize it, and I did develop it into a marketable product. True enough.
There's no "sheet metal" involved, though. The smallest stuff I use is 1/4-inch steel plate. There are few stock pieces that weigh less than 160 pounds. Depending upon options, finished tools weigh between 750 and 1300 pounds. This farm equipment stuff is so stout because, when you drag steel through rocks, the rocks usually win.
I used to manhandle this stuff on the driveway to build them. I'm too old for that crap now. I built a farm shop a bit over a decade ago with an overhead trolley and crane system (that I specifically designed to handle the heavy stuff with chain hoists). I've more than made back the expense of building that shop, even while using some of the business proceeds to pay for my airplane hangar rental.
By the way, I now have to put my plane up for sale. I can no longer fly: I had a stroke 2 weeks ago. Does anyone want a very-good-condition Cessna 170B, vintage 1952? 4-place, although it climbs a lot better with only 2 aboard.
It's a "taildragger", which requires a tailwheel endorsement on your license these years. It flies very well, and it is a lot of fun. Not fast, just fun (if you think 100-115 mph in cruise is slow).
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-06-01 14:41:55)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW,
Sorry to hear about your stroke. That happened to my wife when she was pregnant with our last child. Apparently, relieving the pressure from a massive brain tumor has lots of unwanted side effects. Anyway, I hope you're doing much better now. Losing your medical sucks, but not becoming another smoking hole in the ground is more important. You can still legally fly ultralights and motor gliders, but eventually all of us will have to give up flying. That won't be a good day for me, either, but eventually it will come and I'll have to be content with the fond memories I've had.
While I would love to have my own Cessna 4 seater, I'm working on building my own bird and I'm not a tail dragger driver. All the Cessnas at my flight school have tricycle gear. I'd have to convince one of the old timers at my EAA chapter that I wasn't going to ground loop his pride and joy. Any Cessna is still a good 60mph faster than what you can legally drive on the highway. That's fast enough for me, although I'm not one of those "hair on fire" (quite possibly because I don't have any, but I digress) types with a need for speed. If you want, I could send an E-mail to see if any of our "real" pilots are looking for a new bird.
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Kbd512:
There's 2 hours missing out of my life. I was in the shower, then I was in the ER where my wife took me. She said I was awake and talking the whole time, but had absolutely zero short term memory. The images showed zero visible brain damage, and I am showing no long-term effects at all (I hope the same is true for your wife).
Because it wasn't the classic bleeder-type or clot-type stroke, with characteristic brain damage in the images and weakness on one side or the other, I got put in the "TGA" ("transient global amnesia") bin, which the doctors tell me is really just the "we have no idea what happened or what caused this" bin. But a stroke is a stroke is a stroke. I took myself off flying status before anyone else could. It was the right thing to do.
I have yet to put the plane on the official market. I thought I might start with my local EAA chapter and maybe Trade-A-Plane, plus a couple of other contacts. I'd be pleased as punch if you know anyone who might be interested. 1952 C-170B, 3-position flaps, all-metal wing, pretty much factory stock except for the radios (much has changed since 1952). Fairly low-time engine. Modest airframe time. Needs a fresh annual and a new battery to fly. Will need ADS-B next year to fly around a towered airport, but prices have been coming down for that. The insured value is $41K. Hangared, not kept outside, so very good condition.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-06-01 20:09:21)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Sorry that you have gone through a stroke as well.
Much like Kbd512, my wife has survived 3 different strokes with different parts of the brain being effected.
The first was down one side of her body with months to recover until she no longer needed a walker. Granted we use a wheel chair for getting around in a shopping store now after all of the years that have passed she is ok with it as her legs have quite a bit of pain when walking thou she can do it for short distances.
The second was on the opposite side and it effected her speech with stuttering, slurring or words even texting would be mispelled for a great speller of which I am not...but she got through it over the course of time. It did persit over serveral months with repeat episodes of poor spelling of text speratically that would pass. She did have headaches when going through these periods but would be ok after resting for a bit.
Her last one has caused her to have heighten fears and dementia at times but she is recovering to a degree with each passing day getting less of these showing.
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Spacenut:
I'm really sorry to hear about all the troubles your wife has had. The experiences she (and Kbd512's wife) has had, make mine seem trivial in comparison.
I always thought of this as a problem for older ages. I'm pushing 70 pretty hard, but didn't think it was much of a risk yet for me. I was wrong.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Thanks GW ya the wife is only 56 now but was 45 when she had the first...my mom had a bad stroke which hospitalized her but she made it as well at 75 after many weeks of rehabilitation.
We think little about such things as you meantioned feeling that its just for the elderly along with heart attacks and so many more disabling or killer diseases.....
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At my age, I wasn't surprised by worn-out knees, or a pinched spinal cord. I've been active all my life and just wore all that stuff out. I had knee replacements a few years ago, and back surgery last year.
But this stroke thing this year, THAT caught me by surprise! My blood pressure and cholesterol were only slightly high by today's criteria, and not high at all by the criteria 20 years ago. I did not seem to be at credible risk.
All I can offer is that you and Kbd512 take care of your ladies. My wife surely took good care of me.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-06-02 21:59:35)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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There is a small population in the area which are made up of not only young but those near our age and these are a group of those that have served.
Veterans open up about struggles with homelessness and Veterans Affairs Clinics
Recycled Rides: Businesses give refurbished vehicles to veterans
Minnesota Nonprofits using community solar to help veterans, families
Not done yet with posting of information but will continue when I get back....
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