JOHN DOLAN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS - TIPS FOR NEW PAUPERS

JOHN DOLAN TIPS FOR NEW PAUPERS - FULL ARTICLE LINK HERE  originally published October 15th 2008 -  about the time the first wave of middle class homeless were starting to hit the streets in the United States.

... Car. Got one? Maybe you should sell it. Cars drain the last dollars out of you. And there’s something worse: cops can smell desperation, and they hate the poor. I didn’t use to hate cops much, except drug cops, but God, I hate them now. The real purpose of cops is to keep poor people off the roads. That’s their only real goal. On my way to an interview for a job that could have gotten us out of the gutter, a cop stopped me because my insurance was two weeks overdue—for the simple reason we didn’t have money to pay it. She gave me a $600 ticket for that, plus $120 for not having an updated address on my driver’s license. Then she called for a tow truck and told me, “So, a lesson learned here today!” as I watched my car towed away and trudged off with our terrified dog down a typical Western suburban road: four lanes of fast traffic with no sidewalks. Are you poor? The cops are your enemy now. Accept it. The car is how they’ll try to get you. Sell it if you can—which is to say, if there’s any decent public transportation—hah!—where you live...

(We think John was writing from Canada.)