I'm already seeing where I could take the 100% opposite view from the one I've taken here.. but heck... I got published!
(10.27.2011 - it appears that the link is gone. While I try to retrieve the full thread, here is a comment I posted, in response to a comment on the post, that gives a gist of the argument I was making.)
Hi Bob and dtafs! Thanks for jumping in! Great food for thought you’ve offered.
Before I get too wrapped up in that head of lettuce touched by your 7 cent Mexican, or wonder what strata of workers deserve to eat in restaurants every now and then, I’d like to revisit my original point. Calling the Madrona affordable housing is wrong.
The Madrona is a housing project. For what it is, a housing project for near homeless addicts, its wonderful news, and yes, dtafts, on that merit alone it is something to be commended. But to paraphrase what Bob said so well in his comment on Dan’s original posting, there should be a difference between affordable housing and housing projects.
I’ll refer you to this piece about the Madrona, written by Anna Griffin for the O. http://www.solaroregon.org/about/news_folder/madrona-studios-opening-most-worthwhile-part-of-portlands-rose-quarter-renewal You’ll notice that she never calls this ‘affordable housing’: “To move into the Madrona Studios, a rectangular box of an old Ramada Inn on Northeast Weidler, you must be homeless or nearly there.”
Where I get my tuft in a ruffle is when we lump hardworking, fully employed people who happen to be doing jobs that rest on the ‘no degree required’ scale in with recovering addicts and expect them to knead their soiled hats in their hands and whisper ‘thank you, sirs, may I have another?”
There should be a benefit to working.I am having a hard time fathoming that we actually disagree on that point.
Bob, you’ve provided a handy calculator and answered my direct question. You consider $8.73/ hr. a living wage for a single person in Portland, Ore. With 47% of take home toward housing, and a $53/week food budget. Really? Are you kidding me? That’s a lot of fast food down the gullet, and bound to up that medical cost pretty quick, don’t you think? Well, heck, on that scale, my 11.50/hr. worker really is earning a kings wage!
Apparently, though, that princely sum doesn’t extend to being allowed to dine alongside their betters or take a few days rest and travel once a year? (for the record, Bob, there is quite a continuum you’ve quoted between dining in a decent restaurant every now and then and the luxury of keeping domestics)
At what point does a person ‘need’ a vacation, dtafs? At what point do they deserve one? I have to let you know, poor folk do eat out, not as often from white tablecloths, but cost increases do affect them as well. And while you may not worry too much about those upper crusts who can afford to have their manors tended by crisply uniformed staff, I think they’re valid humans, so I tend to ‘worry’ about them, too.
So where we seem to diverge is on the realistic implementation and effects of ‘living wage.’ The question is one that is by no means settled, so on that point I’m gonna do my homework and come back for more real soon.
But again I would like to point out that we are constrained to the realities we live in; those being that we are in the midst of a recession and that wages are not likely to rise for a while. I’ll also note that Oregon’s minimum wage is already tied to rise with inflation.
Ultimately, though, the main point is just this, $11.50 an hour should afford a better quality of life than a housing project.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Crazy Bus Man...
Today I took the only seat open on a crowded line 9, and there’s one of those guys sitting there reeking of booze and getting chewed on by some other washed out and useless whose conversation he jumped into, unwelcome.
No one wants to sit next to that guy.
But I do anyway. He says he wont bite. Almost looks like he’s grateful, to me, just for sitting down. Starts talking my ear off, old timer, 60 but looks like life’s been hell, he smells like hell, I can see the bottle peeking out from behind his coat, a bottle with a cap like mouthwash, but he reeks of hard booze.
But he has a smile, and a soft careful gentle about him. I can tell he’s harmless enough for 50 blocks, and I want to sit down. So I listen, put on my nice smile, he’s gonna talk, and I wanna sit, so ill listen.
Said he’s got cancer.
Had hair down to his ass, but cut it all off and gave it to the kids at st. judes.
"But I don’t want to go up to pill hill and get the microwave – that’s what I call it - they gave me some pills, but I quit ‘em, ill let the vodka do the job."
"I’ve got a real nice apartment, I get my check direct deposit and I put a nice parachute over my bed and one of those folding Japanese things and a real nice view and… I just want to die at home."
"I rode the rails when I got back from killing viet cong for a living,. 70’s and 80’s, went all over, till I came back to here and got in that fight over around Lloyd center. They called it murder, but I was just defending myself. They gave me a lawyer and he said, ‘just sit on your hands and don’t talk’., so that’s what I did. ‘ I wasn’t doing so good back then"
He shows me how kept quiet and just sat on his hands.
"I wasn’t convicted, though. They told me to take a plea. They called it manslaughter. So I went to prison. For ten years. "
Then his blue eyes just lit up... he was smiling, remembering prison.
I was not more than a few inches away from those eyes. You get real close to another person on a public bus. Temporary, but distance can just melt away. He’s glowing, now. While he tells me his story.
He built a garden while he did his ten years. The officers and the inmates aren’t supposed to get involved with each other. Keep their distance. But the guards brought in 40 tomato plants, and he built a fence for the string beans to crawl up.
He’s shining like a little boy, his bright blue eyes are dancing.
One time a hummingbird landed on him… and when he was telling it, remembering it he was back there, he was full of pure sweet satisfaction and love and joy. He held out both hands, 9 fingers, and he showed me where the bird landed, right on him, loved him for his prison garden.
I see my stop coming. I like this old guy. He calls himself an old hippy, talks about playing cat stevens on his guitar in the same breath he talks about killing in Vietnam.
He's still rambling on, while my stop is getting closer.
“And now, our guys coming home, they keep putting guns in their mouths and pulling the triggers. 6000 of em so far, just can’t handle being back because the government isn’t helping them get home, they get here, and they don’t know what to do. Just like Jimmy and Charlie, and Rob.. guys I grew up with, they did the same thing, just couldn’t take it. We all volunteered, then we got home, and…. you think they would have learned. I guess I’m just not as sensitive as them. I miss those guys.. but”
… he's closed his eyes and he says…
“About all that, I , … I only think about the good times.
But I’m watching his eyes get wet and I hear his voice drop low and he whispers… ‘I love everyone on this bus’
I should have stayed just a little while more. What does it matter to me, really, if I have to cross the street and catch the line back. The timing was all off… I left him alone when he had picked me to talk to. Who cares if he’s crazy, or he killed someone, or if I don’t know him so he shouldn’t matter. He picked me in that way we sometimes need to, just talk to anyone, someone, anonymous. He was starting to talk about that shot he took, aimed a little off, killed that whole family, but he didn’t mean to. The difference in his eyes between the hummingbird and that hellish war.
He didn’t mean to, just aimed a little off. Blue eyes sad and wet and trying not to cry.
He’s dying of cancer, and giving his hair, and some of his check each month, to those kids up on the hill, and just letting the vodka do the job because he just wants to die at home.
And I pulled the string.
I Went one stop, two blocks, past where I would have usually. I should have given him more time. Should have tried to get him back to that hummingbird, behind the prison wall.
His tomatoes and string beans, and watermelons this big, and the guards sneaking his seeds out to plant in their gardens at home. The way his eyes lit up, pride. Acceptance, he accomplished.
In that temporary moment of no distance between us, but still anonymous, free to just say what you need to, he talked to me about things I will not ever know myself.
Between Vietnam, and riding the rails, and manslaughter, and dying of cancer, that hummingbird in his prison garden is the place he goes back to, the place where he was accepted and accomplished and proud.
No one wants to sit next to that guy.
But I do anyway. He says he wont bite. Almost looks like he’s grateful, to me, just for sitting down. Starts talking my ear off, old timer, 60 but looks like life’s been hell, he smells like hell, I can see the bottle peeking out from behind his coat, a bottle with a cap like mouthwash, but he reeks of hard booze.
But he has a smile, and a soft careful gentle about him. I can tell he’s harmless enough for 50 blocks, and I want to sit down. So I listen, put on my nice smile, he’s gonna talk, and I wanna sit, so ill listen.
Said he’s got cancer.
Had hair down to his ass, but cut it all off and gave it to the kids at st. judes.
"But I don’t want to go up to pill hill and get the microwave – that’s what I call it - they gave me some pills, but I quit ‘em, ill let the vodka do the job."
"I’ve got a real nice apartment, I get my check direct deposit and I put a nice parachute over my bed and one of those folding Japanese things and a real nice view and… I just want to die at home."
"I rode the rails when I got back from killing viet cong for a living,. 70’s and 80’s, went all over, till I came back to here and got in that fight over around Lloyd center. They called it murder, but I was just defending myself. They gave me a lawyer and he said, ‘just sit on your hands and don’t talk’., so that’s what I did. ‘ I wasn’t doing so good back then"
He shows me how kept quiet and just sat on his hands.
"I wasn’t convicted, though. They told me to take a plea. They called it manslaughter. So I went to prison. For ten years. "
Then his blue eyes just lit up... he was smiling, remembering prison.
I was not more than a few inches away from those eyes. You get real close to another person on a public bus. Temporary, but distance can just melt away. He’s glowing, now. While he tells me his story.
He built a garden while he did his ten years. The officers and the inmates aren’t supposed to get involved with each other. Keep their distance. But the guards brought in 40 tomato plants, and he built a fence for the string beans to crawl up.
He’s shining like a little boy, his bright blue eyes are dancing.
One time a hummingbird landed on him… and when he was telling it, remembering it he was back there, he was full of pure sweet satisfaction and love and joy. He held out both hands, 9 fingers, and he showed me where the bird landed, right on him, loved him for his prison garden.
I see my stop coming. I like this old guy. He calls himself an old hippy, talks about playing cat stevens on his guitar in the same breath he talks about killing in Vietnam.
He's still rambling on, while my stop is getting closer.
“And now, our guys coming home, they keep putting guns in their mouths and pulling the triggers. 6000 of em so far, just can’t handle being back because the government isn’t helping them get home, they get here, and they don’t know what to do. Just like Jimmy and Charlie, and Rob.. guys I grew up with, they did the same thing, just couldn’t take it. We all volunteered, then we got home, and…. you think they would have learned. I guess I’m just not as sensitive as them. I miss those guys.. but”
… he's closed his eyes and he says…
“About all that, I , … I only think about the good times.
But I’m watching his eyes get wet and I hear his voice drop low and he whispers… ‘I love everyone on this bus’
I should have stayed just a little while more. What does it matter to me, really, if I have to cross the street and catch the line back. The timing was all off… I left him alone when he had picked me to talk to. Who cares if he’s crazy, or he killed someone, or if I don’t know him so he shouldn’t matter. He picked me in that way we sometimes need to, just talk to anyone, someone, anonymous. He was starting to talk about that shot he took, aimed a little off, killed that whole family, but he didn’t mean to. The difference in his eyes between the hummingbird and that hellish war.
He didn’t mean to, just aimed a little off. Blue eyes sad and wet and trying not to cry.
He’s dying of cancer, and giving his hair, and some of his check each month, to those kids up on the hill, and just letting the vodka do the job because he just wants to die at home.
And I pulled the string.
I Went one stop, two blocks, past where I would have usually. I should have given him more time. Should have tried to get him back to that hummingbird, behind the prison wall.
His tomatoes and string beans, and watermelons this big, and the guards sneaking his seeds out to plant in their gardens at home. The way his eyes lit up, pride. Acceptance, he accomplished.
In that temporary moment of no distance between us, but still anonymous, free to just say what you need to, he talked to me about things I will not ever know myself.
Between Vietnam, and riding the rails, and manslaughter, and dying of cancer, that hummingbird in his prison garden is the place he goes back to, the place where he was accepted and accomplished and proud.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
this is how much it costs to live indoors.
Oregonians average housing cost as a percentage of gross household income across income brackets, and percentage of Oregon population earning each income bracket. 2006 census data.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Project 2/3
For our project on housing & homelessness, I used 2006 Oregon census data, and investigated the percentage of income that Oregon families spend on shelter - rent or mortgage and their utilities - across different income brackets.
My suspicion was that lower income families are paying a huge percent of their income toward housing, the issue is known as the poverty trap.
I also wanted to show that not only are lesser incomes spending a high percentage (on average) of their income on shelter, but that there are a lot more people in those lower income brackets... median household income in Oregon ( 2006) was around $46,000 / year, which means that half of Oregonians earned less than that amount, while the top range of income for my study was over 200k.. an income that some still consider 'middle class' though it represents only 1.5% of the population at the high end of the range.
The first challenge was sorting through the 56,000 records of data that I had. A lot of time was spent waiting for the computer to catch up to what i had asked it to do. Huge data set for a little macbook to try to crunch! Eventually, I arranged each income grouping ( separated into 15k ranges) into a scatterplot with income on the y axis and percentage spent on the x axis. is a
This is an image of the 60k - 75k income graph
Now the design issues began. My initial idea was to layer each of the scatterplots, using color contrast to show the larger numbers of people in the lower income brackets, and eventually make something that would be interesting to look at, and also convey the huge numbers of Oregonians spending far more than the 'traditional wisdom' of 1/3 of their income on shelter.
Quite pretty, but it doesn't really convey the information. I banged my head on how to make this more effective for quite awhile. The idea I came up with was to print each individual layer onto a transparent sheet of plastic, and separate them so they could be viewed either individually or as a single image, with each layer labeled with its income and percentage info.
For web viewing purposes, here is a version of that concept, thrown together when I found out we weren't having an in person final, so bringing in my tactile object wasn't an option and it didn't photograph well)
Very interesting, but now I decided to go back to the drawing board and create a single image that used my data, but in a way that would clearly and immediately show the issue.
The poster design was full of its own challenges. After spending so long inside the huge mass of information, distilling everything down into simpler and simpler visual concepts was challenging for me. Lot of people tried to say 'bar graph, Jana", but it wasn't until I heard it from my dad that I actually listened.
Here it what came out of the process:
My suspicion was that lower income families are paying a huge percent of their income toward housing, the issue is known as the poverty trap.
I also wanted to show that not only are lesser incomes spending a high percentage (on average) of their income on shelter, but that there are a lot more people in those lower income brackets... median household income in Oregon ( 2006) was around $46,000 / year, which means that half of Oregonians earned less than that amount, while the top range of income for my study was over 200k.. an income that some still consider 'middle class' though it represents only 1.5% of the population at the high end of the range.
The first challenge was sorting through the 56,000 records of data that I had. A lot of time was spent waiting for the computer to catch up to what i had asked it to do. Huge data set for a little macbook to try to crunch! Eventually, I arranged each income grouping ( separated into 15k ranges) into a scatterplot with income on the y axis and percentage spent on the x axis. is a
This is an image of the 60k - 75k income graph
Now the design issues began. My initial idea was to layer each of the scatterplots, using color contrast to show the larger numbers of people in the lower income brackets, and eventually make something that would be interesting to look at, and also convey the huge numbers of Oregonians spending far more than the 'traditional wisdom' of 1/3 of their income on shelter.
Quite pretty, but it doesn't really convey the information. I banged my head on how to make this more effective for quite awhile. The idea I came up with was to print each individual layer onto a transparent sheet of plastic, and separate them so they could be viewed either individually or as a single image, with each layer labeled with its income and percentage info.
For web viewing purposes, here is a version of that concept, thrown together when I found out we weren't having an in person final, so bringing in my tactile object wasn't an option and it didn't photograph well)
Very interesting, but now I decided to go back to the drawing board and create a single image that used my data, but in a way that would clearly and immediately show the issue.
The poster design was full of its own challenges. After spending so long inside the huge mass of information, distilling everything down into simpler and simpler visual concepts was challenging for me. Lot of people tried to say 'bar graph, Jana", but it wasn't until I heard it from my dad that I actually listened.
Here it what came out of the process:
Sunday, February 1, 2009
reading response? or just a post ...
I am very disappointed with the 2009 Superbowl ads.
dot com's and house ads.
Some foreign cars rerunning things we've seen before. none of the innovative, big-budget, or inventive ads that I'm used to seeing in years past. 3d glasses that SoBe sponsored... didn't make any difference.
if design is really meant to capitalize on a new, user defined era, it was lacking in the same ol same ol that they stuffed at me tonight. There was even airtime for Gold For Cash, an infomercial, for gods sake... featuring ed mcmahon and mc hammer. The worst part? this was the best of the offerings.
this is truly the decline of western civilazation.
here's what i wanted to see, here's what would have made me faithful that America isn't D.O.A and just doesnt know it yet....
---- a jp morgan chase ad, (one of the feel-good, fuzzy type that at no point betrays its sponsor), featuring a multi-ethnic collage of American happy family moving forward... children climbing jungle gyms, mom or dad warmly greeting partner at the door with dinner waiting on table, and homework eagerly checked... smiling.... some tagline like.... (jesus, i dont know) .... chase, still here, so you can relax. (perhaps too hamhanded.. how about...oh, yeah.. here it is) ... the good life goes on ...
There was not a single ad during the Superbowl that featured the American Family smiling. not.a.single.one.
if design is new, interactive, reactive and assertive to its consumer, a voice of you and now and here and today that channels the constantly adapting and presents the truth (is there a capitol T?) of the real of today, I would have hoped that would mean more than godaddy.com and busty females and cutting to a pornographic promise that the web version is unrated.
dear god, save us, please... is that what real is now?
I know times are tight. i know we, the royal we of the American Dream, is teetering on the edge of complete ruin (the 'victims' of our own greed and avarice, forever grasping for more of of the illusive concept of 'growth') but for heavens sake... please, ad council of america, don't give up on me so quickly.
or, to put it another way....
I already knew that the American consumer had given up on the CEO. What makes me sad, scared, and hits it home, is that according to the grand and formerly untouchable ritual of all things US patriotic, it seems very likely that the American CEO has given up on the consumer.
dot com's and house ads.
Some foreign cars rerunning things we've seen before. none of the innovative, big-budget, or inventive ads that I'm used to seeing in years past. 3d glasses that SoBe sponsored... didn't make any difference.
if design is really meant to capitalize on a new, user defined era, it was lacking in the same ol same ol that they stuffed at me tonight. There was even airtime for Gold For Cash, an infomercial, for gods sake... featuring ed mcmahon and mc hammer. The worst part? this was the best of the offerings.
this is truly the decline of western civilazation.
here's what i wanted to see, here's what would have made me faithful that America isn't D.O.A and just doesnt know it yet....
---- a jp morgan chase ad, (one of the feel-good, fuzzy type that at no point betrays its sponsor), featuring a multi-ethnic collage of American happy family moving forward... children climbing jungle gyms, mom or dad warmly greeting partner at the door with dinner waiting on table, and homework eagerly checked... smiling.... some tagline like.... (jesus, i dont know) .... chase, still here, so you can relax. (perhaps too hamhanded.. how about...oh, yeah.. here it is) ... the good life goes on ...
There was not a single ad during the Superbowl that featured the American Family smiling. not.a.single.one.
if design is new, interactive, reactive and assertive to its consumer, a voice of you and now and here and today that channels the constantly adapting and presents the truth (is there a capitol T?) of the real of today, I would have hoped that would mean more than godaddy.com and busty females and cutting to a pornographic promise that the web version is unrated.
dear god, save us, please... is that what real is now?
I know times are tight. i know we, the royal we of the American Dream, is teetering on the edge of complete ruin (the 'victims' of our own greed and avarice, forever grasping for more of of the illusive concept of 'growth') but for heavens sake... please, ad council of america, don't give up on me so quickly.
or, to put it another way....
I already knew that the American consumer had given up on the CEO. What makes me sad, scared, and hits it home, is that according to the grand and formerly untouchable ritual of all things US patriotic, it seems very likely that the American CEO has given up on the consumer.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Davis Response
Luke, wtf? 32 pages? really?? ok....
design as a craft, vs. design as a discipline. yes, i see how that needs talk. its the difference between fosque and ... you. i too share concerns about how many graduates of the fosque school can actually find work... how many designers do the sunday price and item circulars actually need? especially in a recession. I'd like to amount to more in life than the gal who can squeeze 105 different washing machines onto one broadsheet.
thinking about the people for whom we design in the design process. omg. YES. the customer matters. communication is the goal, and so OF COURSE we have to think about who the heck it is we want to talk to. nice to see someone say it out loud... sometimes the simple things are the toughest to bring to light.
an increasingly intricate web of interactions. this is something that we're seeing across disciplines. we live in a postmodern age. I love my liberal arts education, because i get to see the connections between all things which in the past were supposed to be separate.
shes talking now about the foolishness of starting with the abstract and moving on to the real. point, line, plane. letter, word, sentence. As if we're born blind and dumb, our first moment of comprehension is a perky blond in our face, screaming "Gimmee A G!" (what the heck is a g? how do I use thing random thing?)
Now she's talking about the classic picture of the designer, who is so hell bent on control and impact that he has lost sight of why hes talking in the first place. To say something to someone.
"ive come to think that if i hear the phrase 'the computer is just a tool' one more time, I will shoot myself" lol, snort. im falling out of my chair this is so great. technology is. there is no other way, get used to it, accept, integrate. "design is the medium of interaction"
next, research. the information that professionals amass is not, generally, shared, and therefore, consensus on 'what is research' is not reached. The result is that design, as a discipline is sorely lacking. No culture. So sad.
form can be taught within a context. if you only think about one thing in this piece, pick this one.
The 21st century arrives at the design school. I knew there was a reason I signed up.
The thing, though, that saddens me is that before I read this article, i had clicked into each and every one of my classmates blogs, and reviewed their reactions. Overwhelmingly, their reactions to this article ran along the lines of "what is she talking about?" Which, as davis is talking about how narrow and technical the teaching of design is, technique without context, and how what our new world needs is design within the context of the rest of the world... proves her assertions are true. If the marketing types are right, that it takes more than one "impression" for a message to hit home, I can only hope that papers like this are assigned again and again.
design as a craft, vs. design as a discipline. yes, i see how that needs talk. its the difference between fosque and ... you. i too share concerns about how many graduates of the fosque school can actually find work... how many designers do the sunday price and item circulars actually need? especially in a recession. I'd like to amount to more in life than the gal who can squeeze 105 different washing machines onto one broadsheet.
thinking about the people for whom we design in the design process. omg. YES. the customer matters. communication is the goal, and so OF COURSE we have to think about who the heck it is we want to talk to. nice to see someone say it out loud... sometimes the simple things are the toughest to bring to light.
an increasingly intricate web of interactions. this is something that we're seeing across disciplines. we live in a postmodern age. I love my liberal arts education, because i get to see the connections between all things which in the past were supposed to be separate.
shes talking now about the foolishness of starting with the abstract and moving on to the real. point, line, plane. letter, word, sentence. As if we're born blind and dumb, our first moment of comprehension is a perky blond in our face, screaming "Gimmee A G!" (what the heck is a g? how do I use thing random thing?)
Now she's talking about the classic picture of the designer, who is so hell bent on control and impact that he has lost sight of why hes talking in the first place. To say something to someone.
"ive come to think that if i hear the phrase 'the computer is just a tool' one more time, I will shoot myself" lol, snort. im falling out of my chair this is so great. technology is. there is no other way, get used to it, accept, integrate. "design is the medium of interaction"
next, research. the information that professionals amass is not, generally, shared, and therefore, consensus on 'what is research' is not reached. The result is that design, as a discipline is sorely lacking. No culture. So sad.
form can be taught within a context. if you only think about one thing in this piece, pick this one.
The 21st century arrives at the design school. I knew there was a reason I signed up.
The thing, though, that saddens me is that before I read this article, i had clicked into each and every one of my classmates blogs, and reviewed their reactions. Overwhelmingly, their reactions to this article ran along the lines of "what is she talking about?" Which, as davis is talking about how narrow and technical the teaching of design is, technique without context, and how what our new world needs is design within the context of the rest of the world... proves her assertions are true. If the marketing types are right, that it takes more than one "impression" for a message to hit home, I can only hope that papers like this are assigned again and again.
Start of project 2
this is the email i sent to (the revised) team antfarm on Tuesday am, before learning of the new, more efficient, grouping method for project #2. I'll most likely stick with and jump from one of these ideas as I move forward.
side note - a shout out to Dr. Todd Beck, DDS. I (heart) root canal. Love you, man.
Howdy Rock stars,
Doubt any of you will necessarily see this before today's class, but as a reminder, I wont be able to make it to either of the classes this week. (whee! dental work! Ug)
I am though, really excited about this one, as it touches on a lot of my areas of concern so I have some ideas for the project that I wanted to share with you.
I suggest that as a first step, we really hone in on what segment of homeless/transitional population we want to be looking at. The issues and challenges facing a 50 year old man with a lifetime of alcohol and/or drug problems is going to have different resource needs, and challenges, than a 25 year old single mother, or a 14 year old runaway.
Once we've decided what segment we want to hone in on, and have a few ideas about what our question is, we should gather our research data. It's the research data that will drive our mapping options. A traditional map of the city, with sample housing prices for inner city and outlaying areas, plus transportation costs and food access points could be interesting as a starting point. There's a lot of potential meat to this assignment, and I get teh idea that Luke would ultimately like us to produce something that would be relevant to City Hall as a part of a campaign to affect their legislation.
On the transitional housing/general info/affordability side, one shooting off point we could attack this from is by looking at how expensive housing in portland. By calculating average wage -- for example, pre and post tax income at full time minimum wage - (which comes out to 1456/mo Gross 1092 net, and doesn't even begin to address the difficulty in actually getting full time employment in this economy / for these populations, which we could map by itself) then looking at teh average cost of, say, a studio apartment in Portland (search craigslist/housing term = "studio apartment" and compute the mean price listed, lets say, @ 500/mo) we already show that the housing costs alone ( no utilities, transportation, or food, or god forbid - daycare) puts our sample person at a 50% debt to income ratio right off the bat... which is not classically affordable.
That's just a start, there are many organizations in pdx that offer transitional housing, and we could research how many applications they get, compared to how many units they have to offer. How long the period of transitional support lasts, and what percentage of their clients 'make it' through the program and come out with secure housing at the other end. What are the challenges they face, adn what can we think of that might improve/impact those ratios?
Another, more fanciful route we could take, (this idea comes out of a conversation i had with a grad student in the Urban Studies Dept -- i think they could be a good resource for research sources) is looking at access to utilities for homeless populations. Water, electric, heat, etc. How do they plug in their cellphones and other electronic devices (many do have cellphones) How much could better access to power sources improve their quality of life? is this enough of an issue that we should design some sort of public power strip (solar powered?) As i said, this one is fanciful.
Those are my initial thoughts, please, if you have a minute, fill me in on yours, and on what transpires in class this week. I'll be in touch.
Best,
Jana
side note - a shout out to Dr. Todd Beck, DDS. I (heart) root canal. Love you, man.
Howdy Rock stars,
Doubt any of you will necessarily see this before today's class, but as a reminder, I wont be able to make it to either of the classes this week. (whee! dental work! Ug)
I am though, really excited about this one, as it touches on a lot of my areas of concern so I have some ideas for the project that I wanted to share with you.
I suggest that as a first step, we really hone in on what segment of homeless/transitional population we want to be looking at. The issues and challenges facing a 50 year old man with a lifetime of alcohol and/or drug problems is going to have different resource needs, and challenges, than a 25 year old single mother, or a 14 year old runaway.
Once we've decided what segment we want to hone in on, and have a few ideas about what our question is, we should gather our research data. It's the research data that will drive our mapping options. A traditional map of the city, with sample housing prices for inner city and outlaying areas, plus transportation costs and food access points could be interesting as a starting point. There's a lot of potential meat to this assignment, and I get teh idea that Luke would ultimately like us to produce something that would be relevant to City Hall as a part of a campaign to affect their legislation.
On the transitional housing/general info/affordability side, one shooting off point we could attack this from is by looking at how expensive housing in portland. By calculating average wage -- for example, pre and post tax income at full time minimum wage - (which comes out to 1456/mo Gross 1092 net, and doesn't even begin to address the difficulty in actually getting full time employment in this economy / for these populations, which we could map by itself) then looking at teh average cost of, say, a studio apartment in Portland (search craigslist/housing term = "studio apartment" and compute the mean price listed, lets say, @ 500/mo) we already show that the housing costs alone ( no utilities, transportation, or food, or god forbid - daycare) puts our sample person at a 50% debt to income ratio right off the bat... which is not classically affordable.
That's just a start, there are many organizations in pdx that offer transitional housing, and we could research how many applications they get, compared to how many units they have to offer. How long the period of transitional support lasts, and what percentage of their clients 'make it' through the program and come out with secure housing at the other end. What are the challenges they face, adn what can we think of that might improve/impact those ratios?
Another, more fanciful route we could take, (this idea comes out of a conversation i had with a grad student in the Urban Studies Dept -- i think they could be a good resource for research sources) is looking at access to utilities for homeless populations. Water, electric, heat, etc. How do they plug in their cellphones and other electronic devices (many do have cellphones) How much could better access to power sources improve their quality of life? is this enough of an issue that we should design some sort of public power strip (solar powered?) As i said, this one is fanciful.
Those are my initial thoughts, please, if you have a minute, fill me in on yours, and on what transpires in class this week. I'll be in touch.
Best,
Jana
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