Spread & Containment
Shelters can help homeless people by providing quiet and privacy, not just a bunk and a meal
As US cities struggle to reduce homelessness, two scholars explain how planners can reform shelter design to be more humane and to prioritize mental health…
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The city of Phoenix set heat records in summer 2023, with high temperatures that topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) for 31 consecutive days and at least 54 days in total. In such conditions, providing basic services – including cool spaces – for people experiencing homelessness is lifesaving.
In 2022, 420 people – many of them unsheltered – died in Phoenix from heat-related causes. Estimates are not yet available for summer 2023, but given this year’s extreme conditions, the toll is expected to be higher.
For the past two years, we have worked as researchers with the Human Services Campus, a 13-acre complex in Maricopa County, Arizona, where 16 nonprofit organizations work together to help people who are experiencing homelessness. The campus includes Central Arizona Shelter Services, or CASS, Phoenix’s largest homeless emergency shelter, which assists 800 people experiencing homelessness on any given night.
Our work includes talking with staff and clients to better understand their challenges and identify possible solutions that draw from our work in the fields of architecture, health and social innovation.
Dormitories at CASS protect residents from extreme heat with a bunk to sleep in, day rooms for socializing, case management services, and sanitary shower and restroom facilities. But CASS struggles to provide dignified spaces that offer privacy, storage space and quiet environments. People need this kind of environmental support in order to battle recurring physical and mental health issues that often accompany homelessness and can hinder or prevent healing.
Overflowing shelters
As of 2022, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that the U.S. had nearly 600,000 homeless people nationwide, with about 60% living in emergency shelters, safe havens or transitional housing. The other 40% lived outdoors or in places such as abandoned buildings and public transit stations.
Homeless centers must conform to architectural standards for emergency shelter. These standards have historically been influenced by institutional building design, which prioritizes attaining minimum conditions needed to keep people alive. Today, many homeless shelters struggle to provide even that level of care.
The Human Services Campus was originally constructed in 2003 to provide consolidated services and a coordinated entry plan for people experiencing homelessness. However, it was intended to be part of a larger system of shelters, not the sole service provider for Phoenix’s estimated 9,000 homeless people.
The city’s homeless population has grown, in part because of unprecedented rent increases and a lack of affordable housing. During this summer’s heat wave, nearly 1,200 unsheltered homeless people lived on sidewalks surrounding the campus, many in tents, with limited access to bathrooms and sanitation facilities.
Homelessness and mental health
When asked about causes of homelessness, policymakers and members of the public often point to mental illness and addiction, as well as a lack of affordable housing. They tend to pay less attention to the underlying impacts of past trauma other than noting that many women become homeless to escape domestic violence.
In a 2005 study, an alarming 79% of homeless women seeking treatment for mental illness and substance abuse reported experiencing a past traumatic event such as physical or sexual abuse. More recently, a 2020 study showed that nearly two-thirds of homeless women and almost half of homeless men reported that they were homeless because of trauma. Shelter design can affect homeless people’s ability to recover from past trauma and to battle addiction and other mental health issues that perpetuate cycles of homelessness.
For example, one woman who currently lives in CASS told us about trying to get a full night’s sleep while living in a day room where the lights were kept on around the clock and there was constant activity. Because she had several bags of personal items that were too big to store in the dormitory, she could not get a bed there.
“When they don’t turn the lights down at night, I start to feel like my body is vibrating,” she said. “I start to see people walking around, and I’m not sure if they are even really there.”
Routinely sleeping less than seven hours per night can be harmful to health. It lowers immune function, increases chronic pain and raises the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and death. For homeless people battling mental health challenges, addiction and past trauma, rest and recovery are essential to getting back on their feet.
CASS staff have tried to create healthier sleep spaces, such as dorms that remain dark, quiet and cool at all times. Priority access goes to people with jobs. These sections can house only about a third of CASS’s residents, leaving others to sleep in dorms where there is more noise and light.
More supportive spaces
Simply feeding people and providing them with places to sleep is a major challenge for shelters in cities where homelessness is rising. But some have found ways to think more broadly.
In San Diego, Father Joe’s Villages, a nonprofit network with a central campus and scattered-site programs, houses more than 2,000 people nightly. San Diego’s more temperate climate makes it less urgent to maximize the number of people they shelter indoors, so staff at Father Joe’s can use its decentralized design to create shelters with private and quiet spaces.
The Father Joe’s network includes multiple smaller-scale facilities where clean bathrooms are easily accessible and homeless people can use basic amenities like laundry and storage. One example is Mary’s Place, a collection of diverse shelters that provides emergency and long-term support in smaller facilities modeled after the simplicity and comfort of a home.
People experience less stress and can more easily navigate the challenge of ending their own homelessness when they can get a restful night’s sleep in a quiet environment, with spaces that allow them some privacy. We are encouraged to see other U.S. shelters moving in this direction – but there’s a long way to go.
Steps toward better design
To address the lack of privacy at CASS, we have proposed subdividing the day room into more private spaces to accommodate activities like online telehealth appointments, counseling and job interviews. To tackle long-term impacts of overcrowding, we also have recommended introducing sanitation amenities, such as laundry facilities, “hot boxes” to sanitize clothing and bedding, more bathroom facilities and reliable trash removal to reduce the spread of infection and pests such as bedbugs and lice.
For new facilities, designers could consider small changes, such as increased storage and more diligent regulation of temperature, light and noise.
Hospitals, nursing homes and retirement communities have found many ways in recent decades to use design to support patients’ health. Many of the same concepts can be applied to emergency shelters and help turn these facilities from institutional warehouses into spaces of health and opportunity.
Heather Ross receives funding from the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium and Public Interest Technology - University Network. She is affiliated with the Arizona Democratic Party and multiple healthcare professional organizations including American Nurses Association, American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and American College of Cardiology.
Natalie Florence ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
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Spread & Containment
No Privacy, No Property: The World In 2030 According To The WEF
No Privacy, No Property: The World In 2030 According To The WEF
Authored by Madge Waggy via SevenWop.home.blog,
The World Economic Forum…
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Authored by Madge Waggy via SevenWop.home.blog,
The World Economic Forum (WEF) was founded fifty years ago. It has gained more and more prominence over the decades and has become one of the leading platforms of futuristic thinking and planning. As a meeting place of the global elite, the WEF brings together the leaders in business and politics along with a few selected intellectuals. The main thrust of the forum is global control.
Free markets and individual choice do not stand as the top values, but state interventionism and collectivism. Individual liberty and private property are to disappear from this planet by 2030 according to the projections and scenarios coming from the World Economic Forum.
Eight Predictions
Individual liberty is at risk again. What may lie ahead was projected in November 2016 when the WEF published “8 Predictions for the World in 2030.” According to the WEF’s scenario, the world will become quite a different place from now because how people work and live will undergo a profound change. The scenario for the world in 2030 is more than just a forecast. It is a plan whose implementation has accelerated drastically since with the announcement of a pandemic and the consequent lockdowns.
According to the projections of the WEF’s “Global Future Councils,” private property and privacy will be abolished during the next decade. The coming expropriation would go further than even the communist demand to abolish the property of production goods but leave space for private possessions. The WEF projection says that consumer goods, too, would be no longer private property.
If the WEF projection should come true, people would have to rent and borrow their necessities from the state, which would be the sole proprietor of all goods. The supply of goods would be rationed in line with a social credit points system. Shopping in the traditional sense would disappear along with the private purchases of goods. Every personal move would be tracked electronically, and all production would be subject to the requirements of clean energy and a sustainable environment.
In order to attain “sustainable agriculture,” the food supply will be mainly vegetarian. In the new totalitarian service economy, the government will provide basic accommodation, food, and transport, while the rest must be lent from the state. The use of natural resources will be brought down to its minimum. In cooperation with the few key countries, a global agency would set the price of CO2 emissions at an extremely high level to disincentivize its use.
In a promotional video, the World Economic Forum summarizes the eight predictions in the following statements:
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People will own nothing. Goods are either free of charge or must be lent from the state.
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The United States will no longer be the leading superpower, but a handful of countries will dominate.
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Organs will not be transplanted but printed.
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Meat consumption will be minimized.
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Massive displacement of people will take place with billions of refugees.
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To limit the emission of carbon dioxide, a global price will be set at an exorbitant level.
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People can prepare to go to Mars and start a journey to find alien life.
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Western values will be tested to the breaking point..
Beyond Privacy and Property
In a publication for the World Economic Forum, the Danish ecoactivist Ida Auken, who had served as her country’s minister of the environment from 2011 to 2014 and still is a member of the Danish Parliament (the Folketing), has elaborated a scenario of a world without privacy or property. In “Welcome to 2030,” she envisions a world where “I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.” By 2030, so says her scenario, shopping and owning have become obsolete, because everything that once was a product is now a service.
In this idyllic new world of hers, people have free access to transportation, accommodation, food, “and all the things we need in our daily lives.” As these things will become free of charge, “it ended up not making sense for us to own much.” There would be no private ownership in houses nor would anyone pay rent, “because someone else is using our free space whenever we do not need it.” A person’s living room, for example, will be used for business meetings when one is absent. Concerns like “lifestyle diseases, climate change, the refugee crisis, environmental degradation, completely congested cities, water pollution, air pollution, social unrest and unemployment” are things of the past. The author predicts that people will be happy to enjoy such a good life that is so much better “than the path we were on, where it became so clear that we could not continue with the same model of growth.”
Ecological Paradise
In her 2019 contribution to the Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum, Ida Auken foretells how the world may look in the future “if we win the war on climate change.” By 2030, when CO2 emissions will be greatly reduced, people will live in a world where meat on the dinner plate “will be a rare sight” while water and the air will be much cleaner than today. Because of the shift from buying goods to using services, the need to have money will vanish, because people will spend less and less on goods. Work time will shrink and leisure time will grow.
For the future, Auken envisions a city where electric cars have substituted conventional combustion vehicles. Most of the roads and parking spaces will have become green parks and walking zones for pedestrians. By 2030, agriculture will offer mainly plant-based alternatives to the food supply instead of meat and dairy products. The use of land to produce animal feed will greatly diminish and nature will be spreading across the globe again.
Fabricating Social Consent
How can people be brought to accept such a system? The bait to entice the masses is the assurances of comprehensive healthcare and a guaranteed basic income. The promoters of the Great Reset promise a world without diseases. Due to biotechnologically produced organs and individualized genetics-based medical treatments, a drastically increased life expectancy and even immortality are said to be possible. Artificial intelligence will eradicate death and eliminate disease and mortality. The race is on among biotechnological companies to find the key to eternal life.
Along with the promise of turning any ordinary person into a godlike superman, the promise of a “universal basic income” is highly attractive, particularly to those who will no longer find a job in the new digital economy. Obtaining a basic income without having to go through the treadmill and disgrace of applying for social assistance is used as a bait to get the support of the poor.
To make it economically viable, the guarantee of a basic income would require the leveling of wage differences. The technical procedures of the money transfer from the state will be used to promote the cashless society. With the digitization of all monetary transactions, each individual purchase will be registered. As a consequence, the governmental authorities would have unrestricted access to supervise in detail how individual persons spend their money. A universal basic income in a cashless society would provide the conditions to impose a social credit system and deliver the mechanism to sanction undesirable behavior and identify the superfluous and unwanted.
Who Will Be the Rulers?
The World Economic Forum is silent about the question of who will rule in this new world.
There is no reason to expect that the new power holders would be benevolent. Yet even if the top decision-makers of the new world government were not mean but just technocrats, what reason would an administrative technocracy have to go on with the undesirables? What sense does it make for a technocratic elite to turn the common man into a superman? Why share the benefits of artificial intelligence with the masses and not keep the wealth for the chosen few?
Not being swayed away by the utopian promises, a sober assessment of the plans must come to the conclusion that in this new world, there would be no place for the average person and that they would be put away along with the “unemployable,” “feeble minded,” and “ill bred.” Behind the preaching of the progressive gospel of social justice by the promoters of the Great Reset and the establishment of a new world order lurks the sinister project of eugenics, which as a technique is now called “genetic engineering” and as a movement is named “transhumanism,” a term coined by Julian Huxley, the first director of the UNESCO.
The promoters of the project keep silent about who will be the rulers in this new world. The dystopian and collectivist nature of these projections and plans is the result of the rejection of free capitalism. Establishing a better world through a dictatorship is a contradiction in terms. Not less but more economic prosperity is the answer to the current problems. Therefore, we need more free markets and less state planning. The world is getting greener and a fall in the growth rate of the world population is already underway. These trends are the natural consequence of wealth creation through free markets.
Conclusion
The World Economic Forum and its related institutions in combination with a handful of governments and a few high-tech companies want to lead the world into a new era without property or privacy. Values like individualism, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are at stake, to be repudiated in favor of collectivism and the imposition of a “common good” that is defined by the self-proclaimed elite of technocrats. What is sold to the public as the promise of equality and ecological sustainability is in fact a brutal assault on human dignity and liberty. Instead of using the new technologies as an instrument of betterment, the Great Reset seeks to use the technological possibilities as a tool of enslavement. In this new world order, the state is the single owner of everything. It is left to our imagination to figure out who will program the algorithms that manage the distribution of the goods and services.
Spread & Containment
Vehicles Sales increase to 15.67 million SAAR in September; Up 15% YoY
Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for September: September U.S. Light-Vehicles Sales Bounce Back Despite Gloomy Conditions (pay site).Hard to say exactly how much but sales could have been slightly stronger in September if not f…
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Hard to say exactly how much but sales could have been slightly stronger in September if not for some lost inventory caused by production cuts related to plant shutdowns from UAW strikes at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Sales losses will be more strongly felt in October as production cuts mount.
This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards Auto's estimate for September (red).
The impact of COVID-19 was significant, and April 2020 was the worst month. After April 2020, sales increased, and were close to sales in 2019 (the year before the pandemic). However, sales decreased in 2021 due to supply issues. The "supply chain bottom" was in September 2021.
The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. Sales in September were above the consensus forecast. fomc open market committee transmission pandemic covid-19
Government
Nationwide test of Wireless Emergency Alert system could test people’s patience – or help rebuild public trust in the system
If an alert from the federal government pops up on your phone, will you notice it? Will you know who it’s from? Will you trust it?
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The Wireless Emergency Alert system is scheduled to have its third nationwide test on Oct. 4, 2023. The Wireless Emergency Alert system is a public safety system that allows authorities to alert people via their mobile devices of dangerous weather, missing children and other situations requiring public attention.
Similar tests in 2018 and 2021 caused a degree of public confusion and resistance. In addition, there was confusion around the first test of the U.K. system in April 2023, and an outcry surrounding accidental alert messages such as those sent in Hawaii in January 2018 and in Florida in April 2023.
The federal government lists five types of emergency alerts: National (formerly labeled Presidential), Imminent Threat, Public Safety, America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response (Amber), and Opt-in Test Messages. You can opt out of any except National Alerts, which are reserved for national emergencies. The Oct. 4 test is a National Alert.
We are a media studies researcher and a communications researcher who study emergency alert systems. We believe that concerns about previous tests raise two questions: Is public trust in emergency alerting eroding? And how might the upcoming test rebuild it?
Confusion and resistance
In an ever-updating digital media environment, emergency alerts appear as part of a constant stream of updates, buzzes, reminders and notifications on people’s smartphones. Over-alerting is a common fear in emergency management circles because it can lead people to ignore alerts and not take needed action. The sheer volume of different updates can be similarly overwhelming, burying emergency alerts in countless other messages. Many people have even opted out of alerts when possible, rummaging through settings and toggling off every alert they can find.
Even when people receive alerts, however, there is potential for confusion and rejection. All forms of emergency alerts rely on the recipients’ trust in the people or organization responsible for the alert. But it’s not always clear who the sender is. As one emergency manager explained to one of us regarding alerts used during COVID-19: “People were more confused because they got so many different notifications, especially when they don’t say who they’re from.”
When the origin of an alert is unclear, or the recipient perceives it to have a political bias counter to their own views, people may become confused or resistant to the message. Prior tests and use of the Wireless Emergency Alert system have indicated strong anti-authority attitudes, particularly following the much-derided 2018 test of what was then called the Presidential Alert message class. There are already conspiracy theories online about the upcoming test.
Trust in alerts is further reduced by the overall lack of testing and public awareness work done on behalf of the Wireless Emergency Alert system since its launch in June 2012. As warning expert Dennis Mileti explained in his 2018 Federal Emergency Management Agency PrepTalk, routine public tests are essential for warning systems’ effectiveness. However, the Wireless Emergency Alert system has been tested at the national level only twice, and there has been little public outreach to explain the system by either the government or technology companies.
More exposure and info leads to more trust
The upcoming nationwide test may offer a moment that could rebuild trust in the system. A survey administered in the days immediately following the 2021 national test found that more respondents believed that the National Alert message class label would signal more trustworthy information than the Presidential Alert message class label.
Similarly, in contrast to the 2021 test, which targeted only select users, the Oct. 4 test is slated to reach all compatible devices in the U.S. Since users cannot opt out of the National Alert message class, this week’s test is a powerful opportunity to build awareness about the potential benefits of a functional federal emergency alert system.
The Oct. 4 test message is expected to state, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert system. No action is needed.” We instead suggest that action is, in fact, urgently needed to help people better understand the rapidly changing mobile alert and warning ecosystem that confronts them. Familiarity with this system is what will allow it to support public health and safety, and address the crises of the 21st century.
Here are steps that you can take now to help make the Wireless Emergency Alert system more effective:
The Wireless Emergency Alert system is only one form of emergency alert. Identify which mobile notification systems are used by your local emergency management organizations: police, fire and emergency services. Know which systems are opt-in and opt-out, and opt in to those needed. Ensure access to other sources of information during an emergency, such as local radio and television, or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radio.
Understand the meaning of mobile device notification settings. Just because you are opted in to “Emergency Alerts” on your cellphone does not necessarily mean you are signed up to receive notifications from local authorities. Check the FEMA website for information about the Wireless Emergency Alert system and your local emergency management organizations’ websites about opt-in systems.
Have a plan for contacting family, friends and neighbors during an emergency. Decide in advance who will help the vulnerable members of your community.
Find out if your local emergency management organizations test their alert systems, and make sure to receive those local tests.
Anticipate the possibility that mobile systems will be damaged or unavailable during a crisis and prepare essentials for sheltering in place or quick evacuation.
Finally, push back on the lack of information and rise of misinformation about alerts by sharing reliable information about emergency alerts with your family and friends.
Hamilton Bean has received funding from the Department of Homeland Security and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Elizabeth Ellcessor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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No Privacy, No Property: The World In 2030 According To The WEF
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