Author Archive: Blythe

Salvation Army Homelessness Report

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The Salvation Army just released a report on their recent research into homeless in Australia. The study found the following:

  •   155 Salvation Army homelessness services operate across Australia.
  •  More than 310,000 accommodation days were provided between 1 July 2012 and 31 December 2012
  •  53% of women accessing Salvation Army SHS women’s services identified domestic and family violence as their main presenting issue.
  • 44% of clients accessing Salvation Army SHS services identified housing affordability or housing crisis as their main presenting issue.
  • One in five (20%) of clients accessing Salvation Army SHS services who provided information on their mental health have been diagnosed with a mental health issue.
  • One out of every eight clients who accesses all Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) in Australia accesses a Salvation Army service.
  • 17% of Salvation Army clients identified financial difficulty as their main presenting issue.
  • 25% of clients accessing Salvation Army homelessness services have been homeless for more than six months.
  • Over 80% of Salvation Army SHS clients identified government support payments as their main source of income.

So you need that smart cuckoo clock for Christmas, do you?

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So you need that smart cuckoo clock for Christmas, do you?
Christmas permits the global bullshit industry to recruit the values with which so many of us would like the festival to be invested – love, warmth, a community of spirit – to the sole end of selling things that no one needs or even wants….

Are we so bored, so affectless, that we need to receive this junk to ignite one last spark of hedonic satisfaction?

It’s not about the drugs. It’s about the social environment in which we live.

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It’s not about the drugs. It’s about the social environment in which we live.
An interesting study done on drug use (in rats) indicates that drug addiction is a situation that arises from poor socioeconomic conditions.  Asking the question:

Perhaps it’s time the war on drugs becomes a war on the existence of poverty? (edit: Poverty of our relationships to family, community, and nation too, not merely monetary. As commenters have pointed out, there are plenty of people who have plenty of money who may well be the most poverty-ridden in other respects.)