To put it bluntly, the only way to end homelessness is to house people or kill them.
That's it. Those are your options. Homelessness doesn't go away based on "crime crackdowns." You will imprison the unhoused, and when they are free, they will be unhoused again. Or they will die in prison.
When you burn encampments or force people out without their stuff, they remain unhoused or freeze to death.
After working with the unhoused, it's become abundantly clear that those who don't want to support them instead want them dead.
There is blood on the hands of every government and organization that controls the homeless population with force instead of compassion.
ID: A youtube comment with 11 likes by Niceone, it says "I've lived 46 years without knowing this. How nice of life to save some of the best bites for later." End ID.
Normally, people tend to get frustrated, even jokingly, if they miss out on something. This comment was on a song from 1974 and it made me smile quite much. Simply appreciative. Like a dessert after dinner.
It is genuinely mind blowing to me just how many Tumblr posts have changed my life for the better and taught me to be happier. Not all of the thoughts originate on Tumblr, but the way people collect and frame them has literally changed my brain chemistry.
I love lying to my landlord. “We’re currently looking at a comparable unit in the area at $[a hundred dollars less than our current rent]/month, so if your offer has any flexibility to come down on the rent, that would help us reach a decision about whether or not to renew our lease here” and the comparable unit exists only in my own beautiful mind
Actually, no! And since several people have replied asked for my script for negotiating lower rent, I’m gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that I’m not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlord—I’m just someone who has been a renter for 10+ years across different states, and I know for a fact that I have saved myself thousands of dollars by successfully negotiating a lower monthly rent on almost every lease I’ve ever signed. (Also, I’ve only ever rented in the U.S., so this advice may not be as applicable elsewhere.)
Step 0: Know Thy Enemy
The key thing to understand about all residential landlords, whether they’re corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their asset—the property—is a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time it’s sitting empty. The property taxes, insurance, mortgage, HOA fees, and maintenance costs all still come due every month/quarter/year whether they have a tenant to cover it all and then some, or not.
Because of this, at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to fill every unit at all times with someone who will reliably pay the rent on time and in full. And because everything else is secondary to that goal—and because with the exception of Just Some Asshole landlords, the person responding to your emails and writing up your lease paperwork is several degrees of separation removed from the shareholders who profit off your rent money—they’re almost always willing to negotiate with you. As long as it gets the liability converted into an asset faster or keeps the carriage from turning back into a pumpkin for longer, then in the long run, it’s actually in their best interest to give you a better price.
Step 1: Identify Your Leverage
If you understand how supply and demand works, you can figure out how much leverage you have pretty easily. High supply and low demand = you have more leverage, and vice versa. Do they have an “AVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAY” sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says “First month free”? Does their website and/or Apartments.com show a bunch of currently open listings? Do you already live there and know at least two families on your floor have moved out in the last several months with no one new moving in to replace them? These are all indications that they have more than one unit currently sitting empty, meaning higher supply and lower demand. No sandwich board and a website that just says “call for availability”? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.
You have the least leverage if you’re a prospective tenant looking to move in somewhere that has a waitlist. They have no reason to offer you a discount if six other people are already in line to pay full price for apartments that aren’t even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if you’ve already signed a lease and you’re in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so you’re stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if you’re a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and you’re being offered a renewal on your existing lease with higher rent than you're currently paying, especially if they already have some units that have been empty for a while. If you move out, not only is your unit going to sit vacant for at least part of a month, they’re also probably going to have to put in some work to “turn” the unit (repainting, professional cleaning, etc) to get it in move-in condition for the next tenant.
All of this means that if you move out, even if they can fleece you out of your security deposit and find a new tenant the very next month, it’s still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. They’re probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know it’ll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if you’re a prospective new tenant—if they can’t get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, that’s $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and they’ll never get it back. It’s a perishable item about to spoil.
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number they’ll quote you for the rent—the sticker price that you’ve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, they’ve built some buffer into that number. There’s almost always some room for them to come down, and depending on your leverage, they will if you ask nicely. But for reasons that baffle me, most people don’t!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Don’t reply to their initial offer right away—unless there’s a waitlist (in which case, you have little haggling power anyway), wait a few days. It makes them sweat a bit, and it shows you aren’t desperate. The person who is rushing to reply is not the one who has more leverage in the negotiation, and making them wait reminds them of that. In the meantime, use Apartments.com or Zillow to get an idea of what similar units in the same area are currently going for. Then you come up with your counteroffer.
As a general rule, anything more than about 20-25% below their opening offer (or below market rates) will probably just piss them off or make them take you less seriously. But when we’re talking about your monthly rent over the course of a year or two, even a 10% discount adds up to a lot of money!
When I negotiated our original lease for my current place, I also asked for and got a two year lease term instead of the standard one year. But whatever automated calendar event system they use to remind their leasing office staff when it’s time to send out renewal offers didn’t get the memo about that, so they mistakenly sent me a renewal offer the following year, meaning I got to see how much they would have jacked up the rent if they could’ve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)
Here’s the tricky part. You need to write an email—always negotiate over email if you can, it’s too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isn’t in writing means nothing—which simultaneously makes it sound like you would sign a lease with them in a heartbeat and like you are actively flirting with five other apartment complexes right now who all want you so bad it makes them look stupid, because you are just so sexy and fun and your credit score is eight inches flaccid. You need to make them believe you are both highly motivated and ready to sign on the dotted line and willing to just walk away from the table at any second, but if they could just come down a little bit on that number, you’d delete those other hoes’ numbers forever! Here’s the rough script I use every time:
“ Thank you for [your email/the tour/sending over the offer letter/etc]. I have had a chance to review and consider it. I think [name of apartment complex] would be the perfect fit for me, but I am also exploring and touring other options in the area, including a comparable unit nearby at $[a little below your counteroffer number]/month.
If we could come down to $[your counteroffer number]/month on the rent, I would be prepared to sign the lease today. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks! "
Step 6: You Win Either Way
Sometimes they really do just accept your counteroffer without question and send you over a revised lease to sign. (When this happens, I make a note for next time that my counteroffer was probably too high and I should’ve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number that’s higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; you’ve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and they’re likely to lose patience if they have to keep going around and around with you. And sometimes (though only very rarely), they may come back and say the price is firm—in which case, guess what? You still didn’t lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didn’t mention it above because I just couldn’t fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically “price firm :(”, but then life happened, so I forgot to respond and accept. The email sat in my inbox for a week. And then, completely unprompted, they magically replied again saying, “actually, nvm, how’s $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?”
To them, it looked like I was staring them down cold as ice like
I was literally just busy with other stuff! and they were sweating!!! BULLETS!!!
being a trans girl feels like being the person who has to explain the rules of the board game to everybody but for everything in your life. including explaining the rules of board games.
i love you archival work. i love you alphabetizing. i love you sorting. i love you reshelving. i love you document restoration. i love you shelf reading. i love you inventorying. i love you analysis. i love you archival work.
Things that I knew about: that the mass incarceration of people in the USA , particularly black men, has direct ties to/is an extension of slavery.
Things I did not know: this specific shit about Louisiana HOLY FUCK this is evil.
I’m from Mississippi and it’s like this in my home town. Enslaved prisoners clean roadways, pick cotton, everything they’ve done since before slavery was supposedly ended. What they teach in schools is nothing but propaganda.
I actually do think we should discourage women from becoming housewives. Do not become financially dependent on a man. That's how a lot of women ended up dead over the years. A man gets violent suddenly and you have to choose between homelessness or potentially dying at his hand because you have an enormous gap in your resume and no degrees or certifications or anything that will help you pursue a career that will allow you to be financially independent. He owns your bank account. His name is probably the one on the car. Try and leave and he can report it stolen. Where will you go then?
And if you do become a housewife, take steps to protect yourself. Make sure you’re legally married, for starters; stay-at-home girlfriends have very little legal recourse to claim their partner’s assets in a breakup. Make sure your name is on the house deed/rental agreement, and have your car in your name, even if your spouse is paying for it. Have your spouse transfer money every month into an account solely in your name, so you can buy yourself things without needing permission, but also so you can save up to leave if needed.
If your spouse fights you on any of this, then don’t quit your job. The tradwife to poverty pipeline is real, and so is financial abuse.
also, many women/people experience controlling behaviour and domestic violence from their partner for the first time during pregnancy. don’t risk thinking “he’s just stressed, it’ll get better when the baby comes” because it won’t. neither you and your child will ever be safe with that man. get out as early and safely as you can
really tired of seeing the idea that women & girls are less likely to be diagnosed with autism because it "presents differently" so widely accepted even in progressive spaces
it is also widely accepted that women get raises less often because they don't ask as much as men. this is objectively not true.
it is also widely accepted that women are more talkative than men. this is objectively not true.
it is also widely accepted that women are taken less seriously when speaking because their speech patterns are associated with a "lack of confidence". this is objectively not true. [1][2][3]
every time we talk about gender discrimination, people look for an explanation that starts with women's behavior.
and every fucking time, actual research shows that across the board, women actually don't behave that differently from men.
women aren't diagnosed less often with autism due to "presenting differently". it's gendered medical neglect, and weaponized diagnoses disproportionately applied to women (e.g. BPD, HPD, bipolar, etc.)
please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.
you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.
first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.
now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:
in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.
and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.
and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.
it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:
• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.
• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.
• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.
• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.
• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.
• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.
and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.
what i'm asking:
if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.
if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.
india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.
“Because the truth is, tech doesn’t have an image problem. It doesn’t have a message problem. It has an intention problem. What’s wrong with the axe murderer who broke into my house is not that he hasn’t successfully persuaded me to buy into his narrative. What’s wrong is that he’s trying to kill me with an axe. Similarly, when you launch a product that’s designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn’t that you haven’t told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them.”
I'll try again. What you want isn't to "Save the World" like you so doggedly insist, it is to feel recognised by society, by your peers and betters. You're so wrapped up in this myth of human sacrifice, the idea that anyone can become remarkable by simply dying, that you've forgotten that all dying does is make a world without you in it. You can't be important if you're dead.
Why don't you focus on saving the girl in front of you for a change?
Hello person having transgender thoughts but convinced they aren't trans because they don't have the requisite amount of dysphoria they think they need
Hi I transitioned without even thinking I had dysphoria. Like later in hindsight I can go "oh that's probably what it was" but for the first year of my transition I was straight up like "I like being a guy but I like being a girl WAY more" and you can do that!! There is no prerequisite amount of suffering needed to make yourself happier.
titsay
andulkaphoto
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
gracieabrams
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
amandla
dailybridgerton
blakekathryn
