In a housing pickle. Thoughts? Ideas?

[ApatheticNoMore]

What? they can do that if the candidate had enough signatures or whatever they go through to get on the ballot?

Well I don't know how interesting this topic is, it's just kind of an aside as to why I can talk up 3rd parties more than I can actually vote for them. But with the California open primary system (and maybe any state that in the future decides to adopt open primaries - Oregon was considering it I think, so this might be of interest to Oregonians) while all candidates are on the primary ballot only the top two candidates get on the general ballot. The top two candidates are sometimes unsurprisingly a Democrat versus a Republican. But often the top two candidates are both Democrats and so there isn't any Republican candidate in the general election at all (it's a pretty blue state ok - a red state with these rules might be the reverse). It very rarely includes a 3rd party candidate, though in theory and occasionally in practice it does, if they places 1st or 2nd in the primary. Whereas before open primaries, the top contender for every party that is approved in the state, major and minor parties, was on the general election ballot.

[freshstart]

This just isn't true, as many of us here can attest through lifetime of experience with chronic illness. I wish folks would stop promulgating this, as it ends up blaming and shaming people for their illnesses.

with 23 yrs of nursing under my belt, I would have to see statistics from a respectable agency, the NIH being an example, before believing this is true.

Yes, I had type 2 diabetics who did not take care of the problem and ended up with gangrenous wounds resulting in losing feet, then legs, etc. But the people who let it get that far, honestly did not have the intellectual ability to grasp the illness. We gear our health teaching to a 5th grade level, but if the insurance company only approves 2 visits for a guy like that, we can't really blame him if he can in no way learn that fast. Smokers with lung cancer, obesity resulting in multiple medical problems, all true. Now, I am probably biased because I only saw sick people and did not deal with the healthy population, but there are mind boggling types of disease that no one "caused". Way more than those with preventable disease. Messages that if you lived right, you wouldn't be sick make these people feel worse.

I am all for health promotion and prevention, early detection, free screening projects but it all needs to be increased ten fold, 100 fold? in oder to even make a dent. And money is not being spent enough on this when the sick need help that they have to fight insurance companies to get. While the health insurance and drug companies, are a mess, driving health care costs up while profiteering. Big pharma and these insurance companies need to have there feet held to the fire, pure corruption.

Health prevention and promotion is being taught in some schools, wonderful, catch kids early. Take out soda and candy machines at school, put healthy stuff in. And OMG, someone needs to address school lunch. Hi, honey, want a hot dog? tater tots? how about some more carbs and sugar? sugary drinks and cookies? you got it! oh, I forgot, they toss in an orange, that just about every kid throws out. I'm in a good school district, PTA and parents work on healthier things, they did get soda and candy machines out of the high school. But every week, we still have nachos day, since when are a pile of chips loaded with processed cheese "lunch"? Since forever.

I disagree that we would barely need health insurance if people lived healthy, but 100% agree these issues need to be worked on hard. We would spend less money overall if more of it went to health promotion. This needs the dollars backing it and the realization that we did not get this way overnight, lots of time and education will make a dent, yes, but lifestyle takes years to change or even a generation to change.

I disagree on SNAP because I feel strongly that "experiments" should not be imposed upon those that use social programs appropriately. If someone qualifies for SNAP, they qualify, who am I to say what they spend their money on (obviously not beer and cigarettes)? SNAP offers many educational offerings about eating healthy, this is great. Letting the rest of the population eat what they want but telling the poor what they can eat is not fair, IMO. Imposing better nutrition by say taxing junk heavily, fine but dictating what one group of people can eat simply because they are poor, is not the fair way to go about enacting sweeping change.

Your favorite, Obama, and Michelle have dedicated time and money to health promotion. The ACA resulted in no charges for a yearly physical and for women's Gyn visits and mammograms. Do you have any idea of the number of sick I've seen who would've had devastating illnesses caught earlier if they had had insurance and a free yearly physical?

Last thought (finally!), who is going to reach the population that needs healthy lifestyle teaching perhaps the most? Those who struggle with ESL or poverty or lack of ability to comprehend teaching if only done once? And how do you get people without transportation or have to take a bus, to buy into health promotion classes or how do you get them to even know these programs exist? Public health depts in cities are gone or barely getting by. VNA homecare gets in and gets out, they try to hit on health promotion but if only 2 visits are paid for, the gangrenous leg open wound has to take priority. If someone in power would listen to lowly old me and others who back this, there are ways to get nutritionists and nurses into these communities. Classes in the high rise low income housing, ask church leaders to let you in, etc. Best case scenario, doc identifies issues at physical and insurance has to pay for a nurse and nutritionist to work with obese diabetics in their home and not limit visits to 2. Best, best scenario? Primary docs and nurses going into the community by mobile van, knock out a bunch of physicals, have portable mammography, and then nurse beginning health teaching. Happening in a very few cities. In the end, if given the proper amount of time, it could help, but no one will pay for it now and doubt they would continue programs long enough to get the job started.

[jp1]

I think that more than health insurance or dental insurance our national healthcare system ignores some blatantly obvious things. It ignores the fast food cesspools on every corner, the "convenience" stores full of sugary and caffeinated sh*t, and the groceries with 8 zillion kinds of sugary cereals marketed directly to little kids. We'd barely need health insurance (accept for accidents and major diseases not related to lifestyle) if there was no fast food or candy.

I think that things like snap should only be for fresh fruits and veggies. But I have a lot of radical views. haha

The thing about fast food and junk food, though, is that they didn't suddenly appear out of a vacuum for no reason. They are the direct result of longstanding farm subsidies that were instituted initially in the 30's when people really were going hungry, as a way to get cheap calories out there so that people wouldn't go hungry anymore. They serve no rational purpose now except as welfare for big farmers. And they cause all sorts of bad eating habits because everyone, especially poor people that have few other choices, likes cheap food.

[kib]

Responding to the OP: This so totally depends on you! My toyed-with utopia is to live in a hotel room, like People with a capital P used to do in NYC, only I'd take a Residence Inn or something similar with a kitchen. Talk about zero return, but wow, everything is rented, there are no major bills except the one big one, there are no responsibilities, no personal landlord interaction, and if anything goes wrong or gets shabby you just move to a different room. Or town. Or continent. Of course this is probably in the realm of "rent" of $4000+ a month (not in NYC, in Ferguson), and not a very frugal option at all. And it's peculiarly transient no matter how long you stay in the same place; I might start to miss having roots. Still, sigh ...

More realistically, and I haven't read the whole thread so probably someone has already said this, driving an RV is super expensive and it's fiddly, always something else to do. But living in one that stays parked in one place definitely isn't, and has the perks of being moveable if you want to move, being small and contained, and giving you the option of living "in nature" without being over-run by it. An RV is the most inappropriate car in the world, but it's not an unreasonable house.

[jp1]

My aunt and uncle lived in a couple of rv's in their retirement. They had a smaller camper that fit on a pickup and a larger trailer that they could tow behind the pickup. They used them in varying ways over the years but the basic concept was to winter in AZ on a plot of land in an RV park that they owned and summer in a national park up north somewhere and work the summer month at a menial job in the park. (most often laundry room keeper) They'd get free parking at the park for the summer plus a few bucks in wages, had a paid for place to park in AZ for the winter and would spend maybe a month traveling to get between the two every spring and fall. Only drove 4 or 5,000 miles per year. They absolutely loved the life and kept doing it until my aunt's health declined to the point that they needed to settle somewhere where she could have regular access to a set assortment of medical providers. My mom always thought they were crazy to want to live so minimally. I always thought it sounded awesome to wake up in someplace really beautiful and even more awesome that the really awesome place wasn't always the same place.

[sweetana3]

We stayed at a Residence Inn recently and it was a lovely comfortable and fully stocked apartment. I would not have minded staying there permanently. Wonder if they have a monthly rate?

It was also well located with a grocery/CVS/restaurants/arena and Target within 2 blocks. Evening food 5 days a week and an excellent breakfast.

[Float On]

[QUOTE=sweetana3;210197]We stayed at a Residence Inn recently and it was a lovely comfortable and fully stocked apartment. /QUOTE]

We stayed in a lot of those when traveling for the art shows. The Marriott perks were pretty good, they always had a gift basket waiting for us. They were always well built and quiet. A lot of corporate travelers on the other hand when we first started out we'd use the Extended Stay America were more basic, always something broken in the room and noisier.

I've got a friend who is doing a US tour while moving from Steamboat Springs to "somewhere to land maybe in the NE". They headed for CA first, driving a truck pulling a camper and got as far as Vegas. The transmission gave out in the truck. She's been there 4 days while it's being fixed. She is definitely second guessing her "US tour" idea.

[shadowmoss]

I don't have the bill here for my 3 or so weeks at an Extended Stay here in Phoenix, AZ 2 years ago, but it was less than $1000 for a month, and the number $700 sticks in my brain for some reason. That may have been for the 3 weeks I actually ended up there. Yes, most of those places have monthly rental rates that when you factor in all the stuff you don't have to go out and get separately come in close to what an apartment costs. Depends on what you want. No responsibilities and the mobility of renting are looking better and better to me as I get older.

[iris lilies]

Responding to the OP: This so totally depends on you! My toyed-with utopia is to live in a hotel room, like People with a capital P used to do in NYC, only I'd take a Residence Inn or something similar with a kitchen. Talk about zero return, but wow, everything is rented, there are no major bills except the one big one, there are no responsibilities, no personal landlord interaction, and if anything goes wrong or gets shabby you just move to a different room. Or town. Or continent. Of course this is probably in the realm of "rent" of $4000+ a month (not in NYC, in Ferguson), and not a very frugal option at all. And it's peculiarly transient no matter how long you stay in the same place; I might start to miss having roots. Still, sigh ...

More realistically, and I haven't read the whole thread so probably someone has already said this, driving an RV is super expensive and it's fiddly, always something else to do. But living in one that stays parked in one place definitely isn't, and has the perks of being moveable if you want to move, being small and contained, and giving you the option of living "in nature" without being over-run by it. An RV is the most inappropriate car in the world, but it's not an unreasonable house.

i am telling you, the best housing deal,I've heard of is the senior living place where my friend's dad lived. It was two big rooms, a large closet, small kitchen with stove (they don't all have stoves) and all meals and laundry service (sheets and towels weekly) for $26,000 annually. Kib that beats your price by half.
Downside was that it's not walkable to anyplace interesting.
i think there awesome hidden gems in the Over-55 housing compounds.

[kib]

We stayed at a Residence Inn recently and it was a lovely comfortable and fully stocked apartment. I would not have minded staying there permanently. Wonder if they have a monthly rate?

It was also well located with a grocery/CVS/restaurants/arena and Target within 2 blocks. Evening food 5 days a week and an excellent breakfast.

I know, right? Stick a yogurt and a banana in your purse and lunch is covered as well.

Iris, I agree. While the "senior centers" are raking in the dough and can get seriously out of hand, the simple 55+ looks pretty darn good. But I do also agree with Shadowmoss, if you don't want a dishwasher and a fireplace, extended stay hotels can be super affordable, they're just not, like you point out about 55+, usually near anything interesting. I want to stay in the Algonquin and hang at the Round Table.