It is true our global 99% of labor are the earliest forced into these structures as our US quality of life disappears by continuous theft of our personal wealth by laws and policies installed by local global banking 5% freemason/Greek player pols.
Here is another GLOBAL BANKING 1% FAKE labor and justice organization which all those 5% players will be out hawking as being POPULIST FOR THE PEOPLE. It's true our US 99% of citizens black, white, and brown ALREADY poor and working class will be forced into these structures first----but the goal is ALL 99% of US WE THE PEOPLE being made that third world impoverished. PROJECT EQUITY says the global 1% extremely rich still working in naked capitalist markets will make sure all 99% of citizens remain impoverished, captured, and working.
OAKLAND CA is of course SILICON VALLEY ----STANFORD far-right wing Bush neo-conservative---those global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA.
'Project Equity
Project Equity logo
NEC Member
Contact
Oakland, CA
United States
Website URL:
http://www.project-equity.org/
Project Equity fosters economic resiliency in low-income communities by demonstrating and replicating strategies that increase worker ownership'
All this global banking 1% is preparing for our millennials ---those US young adults and new to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES immigrant workers.
‘Everyone Needs Someone Else’
WHY Americans OF ALL AGES are coming together in ‘intentional communities’
By Jeffrey Kluger
There’s not a lot to do in Syracuse, N.Y. when you’re living alone and a winter storm system dumps 3 feet of snow on the city. There’s no going outside, but there’s no staying inside — at least not for too long — if you want to remain sane. A dinner with friends would be nice; so would a yoga class or a shared movie and a good long talk. And when that’s all done, it would also be nice to have just a little bit of that wintertime solitude, watching the snow fall, all alone, from the privacy of your own home.
At one place in Syracuse, all of that happens on those long snow-filled nights. That place is Commonspace, a “co-housing” community on the fourth and fifth floors of a restored 19th-century office building. The community is made up of 25 mini-apartments, fully equipped with their own kitchenettes and baths, with access to a larger, shared chef’s kitchen, library nook, game room, coffee lounge and media room. The 27 residents (couples are welcome) live together — but only sort of — in private apartments that are, once you step outside your door, un-private too. And they’re part of a growing trend in an increasingly lonely country: intentional communities.
In cities and towns across the U.S., individuals and families are coming to the conclusion that while the commune experiment of the 1960s was overwhelmed by problems, the idea of living in close — but not too close — cooperation with other people has a lot of appeal. An intentional community is a very different beast from the more familiar planned communities, which can be big, unwieldy things — hundreds or thousands of families living on small parcels across hundreds of acres of land. While there may be some common facilities — a swimming pool or golf course or community lake — the communities are really just villages writ large or cities writ small, easy places to be anonymous.
Intentional communities, by contrast, are intimate: a couple dozen apartments or single-family homes, built around central squares or common spaces. And they’re operated in ways intended to keep the community connected — with weekly dinners at a community center or other common area, shared babysitting services, shared gardens or games or even vacations. If you don’t want to participate, fine; no one will come pester you to play a pick-up game you don’t want to play or join a committee you don’t want to join. But when you need the community — because a spouse is away or a baby is sick or you’re just plain lonely and would like some companionship — it’s there for you.
It’s that business of relieving loneliness that’s key to the popularity of intentional communities. Human beings may not always get along, but the fact is, we can’t get enough of one another. There are currently 7.6 billion of us in the world but we inhabit only about 10% of the planet’s land, and roughly 50% of us live on just 1% of that land.
“We evolved to depend on our social connections,” says Dr. Vivek Murthy, former U.S. Surgeon General. “Over thousands of years, this got baked into our nervous systems — so much so that if we are feeling socially disconnected, that places us in a physiologic stress state.”
According to a study by AARP, over 40% of American adults suffer from loneliness, a condition that, Murthy warns, is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and more. Worse, loneliness is a condition that makes no demographic distinctions; it affects millennials just starting their careers, widowed boomers just ending theirs, empty-nesters, new divorcees, first year college students a thousand miles away from family and high school friends. Social media, which ostensibly draws people closer, in fact may be atomizing us further, creating virtual connections that have little of the benefits of actual connections.
Please remember AARP is a global insurance corporation sold as working for US seniors----we can solve loneliness by simply rebuilding our families and getting people back to work.
A gusher of studies since the early 1990s have established the health dividends of social ties. Among people with cardiovascular disease, those with more social connections have a 2.4 times lower risk of mortality within an established period than those with poor social ties. Social connections lower the risk of cancer, speed recovery among people who do contract the disease, and reduce the risk of hypertension and other cardiovascular illnesses. Even wound-healing improves with social connections. Multiple studies suggest that part of this may come from the psychological boost—including the sense of responsibility—that meaningful relationships provide. When friends and family members are counting on you to be around, you make better health choices, even if they’re unconscious. Other studies have shown that similar brain structures control both physical pain and social pain—and that pain relief, through analgesics in the first case and relationships in the second, operate similarly as well. Being socially connected doesn’t simply make you healthier, it just plain feels good.
“Intentional communities are about creating attachment, the feeling that someone has your back,” says Harvard University psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a decades-old survey of the health of a population of Harvard graduates and their descendants. “We often ask people in studies, ‘Who would you call in the middle of the night if you were really sick or scared?’ Intentional communities can help you have an answer to that question.”
It’s not easy to come by a firm count of how many intentional communities are out there. Only about 160 of them have been built from the ground up with co-housing in mind, but the regularly updated Fellowship for Intentional Community lists 1,539 communities in all 50 states that have also used existing housing stock to establish co-housing arrangements.
There are urban communities like Commonspace in most major cities. There is Milagro in Tucson, Ariz., 28 single-family homes on 43 desert acres built around a central green space with a shared community center and other facilities. There is Village Hearth Co-Housing, a similar set-up in Durham, N.C., but one intended for singles, couples and families in the LGBTQ community. There are other communities for seniors or artists or veterans; there are even rural communities for people who want the independence of owning their own homes but the collective experience of farming the same land.
For each of the communities, the relative compactness of the population is what creates the feeling of togetherness. “You can’t possibly know three hundred people,” says Troy Evans, real estate developer and the co-founder of Syracuse’s Commonspace. “But you can know fifty. What we try to do in Commonspace is create a neighborhood in a building.”
To all appearance, they’ve succeeded at that. The community’s 25 apartments rent for an average of $850 per month, which is admittedly pricey for a tiny, 200 sq. ft. space, though services like thrice-weekly cleaning of all of the common spaces and the costs of activities like the weekly farm-to-table dinners are included. And the social benefits — which are impossible to measure in dollars and cents — are included too.
“We set everything up with a town square feel so when you come out of your door there’s not a long, dark hallway like in most apartment buildings,” says Evans. Town squares, of course, can be noisy — not to the liking of even some people who choose to live semi-communally. That’s why one of the floors has fewer apartments built a quiet lounge where locally roasted coffee is always on offer.
The mini-apartments are cleverly laid out, with a platform bed built atop storage cabinets and floor-to-ceiling windows that create an open feel. The bathroom is complete —though it has a shower without a tub — and the kitchenette is limited only by the fact that is has two electric burners instead of a full stove, because local regulations forbid open flame in such small quarters. The apartments are all equipped with TVs and high-speed Internet, and a Slack channel allows residents to stay in touch without having to remember 26 other email addresses.
Still, it’s the 6,000 shared square feet, not the 200 private ones that really defines the Commonspace experience, providing what Evans describes as “a lot of collision space,” which is something people who would otherwise be living alone often crave. “What we’ve found is demand from people who were landing in Syracuse for the first time and not knowing anyone,” he says. “We’ve got people from eight different countries and seven different states. It’s a really cool, diverse group.”
That diversity is not only cultural but temperamental. Rose Bear Don’t Walk, a 23-year old Native American studying environment and forestry at the State University of New York, Syracuse, moved in to Commonspace over the summer and soon grew friendly with another resident who works in computer coding. His mind operates arithmetically, hers works more emotively, and they took to talking about their different ways of approaching the world.
“He’s always building something or talking about building something or listening to podcasts,” she says. One day, when she was weaving decorative strands out of plant fibers, she decided to make him a bracelet. “It was just this way that our worlds connected,” she says. “He is very logical and mathematical and was very excited about this little tiny rope bracelet that I was bringing home.”
Meaningful as those kinds of connections can be, Commonspace residents don’t always have a lot of time to make them. Millennials can be transitory — characteristic of most people early in their careers — and the average length of tenancy is just eight months.
Things are very different at other intentional communities, like Milagro in Tucson. There, the buy-in is typically for life. The 28 homes in the landscaped desert space are sometimes available for rent, but are typically owned by their residents and have sold for anywhere from $175,000 to $430,000, depending on the market. The investment in house and land means an equal investment in the life of the community.
Brian Stark, a married father of two, has lived in Milagro since 2003, two years after the community opened, and considers himself a lifer. For him the appeal is not so much the community-wide dinner in the dining room every Saturday, or the happy hours or the stargazing sessions or the shared holiday parties. It’s the easy, collegial pace of the place, unavoidable when neighbors all know one another.
“You almost have to assume that someone may stop to chat with you when you’re coming or going,” he says. “It took some getting used to but when we’re in a hurry for school or a meeting, we’ve learned to explain our rush and connect another time.”
Even more important are the benefits that accrue to any community’s most vulnerable members: babies and seniors. “For families with very young children, we do baby care trades,” Stark says. “And having a supportive community to help as you grow older is also a wonderful alternative to assisted care living.”
Intentional communities are not without stressors. Stark recalls the decade of committee meetings that went into the simple business of deciding whether there should be path lights in the community — important for safety, but murder on the desert’s spectacular nighttime sky. Even when the community agreed that lights were a good idea, there was continued wrangling over cost, wattage and more. A similar struggle ensued when it came time to have all 28 homes painted, as residents debated color schemes for the homes’ stucco, trim and side boards.
Still, the long meetings and compromises are a small price for those suited to intentional communities. That’s true of diverse, cross-generational communities like Milagro, and it can be even more so when residents come together with a particular shared need for a particular kind of solidarity — as in the LGBTQ or aging Boomer communities.
Shortly after the opening of Village Hearth, the North Carolina LGBTQ community, one of the founders explained to a local reporter that she was tired of hearing about this or that intentional community that has “a nice lesbian couple or a nice gay couple.” She and her wife didn’t want to be a curiosity in even the friendliest surroundings, so they founded a community in which nothing would be remarkable about them at all.
Residents prepare dinner using ingredients from a community supported agriculture box while another uses his laptop to work on a CAD drawing.
There is little science so far that explicitly addresses the medical benefits of co-housing arrangements, but the benefits of the human connections the communities provide are being powerfully established. In one recent meta-analysis of 148 studies gathered from around the world, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, compared subjects’ reported state of loneliness with their overall life expectancy. The total sample size was more than 300,000 people and produced sobering results: Adults who are socially isolated, she found, have a 50% greater risk of dying from any cause within a given time frame than people who are more connected.
In a follow-up study in which she used census data to assemble an even larger sample group of 3.4 million, the results were a bit less stark, but no less conclusive, with social isolation and loneliness leading to a 30% increase in risk of mortality on average. “Of course, being alone is not the same as being lonely,” Holt-Lunstad stresses. “Many people enjoy their solitude, and other people can feel lonely even in a group. The key is the subjective experience. If that experience is bad, that’s when health can be affected.”
More often than not, social media falls into the category of bad rather than good experiences. Even without being trolled or cyberbullied, people can suffer merely as a result of having replaced real relationships with virtual ones. Murthy does not believe social media is all bad, provided it’s often used as what he calls “a way station rather than a destination,” helping to establish real-life connections.
“Using social media as a way station might mean that if I’m traveling to a different city, in advance of the trip I look on Facebook or LinkedIn to see if I have any friends there,” he says. “Then I reach out to them and we get together.”
The exact mechanisms that make loneliness so physically damaging are not easy to tease out, but chemical markers in the bloodstream, like cortisol, a stress hormone, or c-reactive proteins, indicators of inflammation, are considered worrisome signs. “They indicate a weakened immune system and metabolic disruption,” says Waldinger. “This is when you start to see signs of illness like rising lipid levels and blood pressure.”
Residents of intentional communities also see another kind of benefit to health and happiness in co-housing: as a way of alleviating transitions that can be both stressful isolating. Stark, the Milagro resident, recalls that when his older daughter, Maia, was born 12 years ago, the Milagro community was still new. Unbidden, the neighbors pitched in to help the family, cleaning their house, making them meals, even doing their laundry so that he and his wife could have the luxury of doing what few parents can do: focus their attention exclusively on their new baby. Since then, the Stark family has returned the favor, making food for people recovering from surgery and offering to make a pickup at an airport.
“Everyone at some point needs someone else,” Stark says. Intentional communities, in their quiet way, are helping to make sure that powerful human need gets met.
_____________________________________________
Below we see the name-sake of STANFORD'S HOOVER INSTITUTE------HOOVER being the ROBBER BARON President during the ROARING 20s when the same global banking 1% unleashed systemic and massive frauds against US public wealth and yes, HOOVER was global banking 1% KNIGHTS OF MALTA filled with waging continuous wars just as today's BUSH family----HOOVER INSTITUTE home of global banking 1% Bush neo-cons-------partnered with STANFORD'S ROOSEVELT INSTITUTION being WORLD BANK.
'The Iowa native and Stanford-educated engineer '
Hoover was paid to ignore the 99% of WE THE PEOPLE at the time of his economic crash just so it would lead to GREAT DEPRESSION.
When we look at the THINK TANK behind all these WORKER CO-OPS ----we see HOOVER tied to releasing all that public policy telling us that MARXISM IS LEFT politics. Don't worry say the WINGED MONKEYS working for the WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST----this is good-old-fashion US 20th century REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE social democracy----not third world far-right wing industrial corporate MARXIST FASCISM.
BOY-----THE HOOVER FAMILY has hit the market ------WORKER COOPS and POPULIST pundit.....and yet HOOVER is as right wing as it gets---that's why the HOOVER think tank is at STANFORD
Margaret Hoover Joins CNN as Political Contributor
| TVNewser
www.adweek.com/tvnewser/margaret-hoover-joins...
TV political pundit Margaret Hoover has found a new home on cable news, TVNewser has learned. The great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover has joined CNN as a political contributor. Her ...
Our US 99% of WE THE WOMEN will notice as those global banking 5% Hillary nasty ladies pretending to stand up for women----we see that NIXON and HOOVER-----nothing could be worse for women then these two OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA ----pretending to be PROTESTANT.
PROJECT EQUITY says the far-right wing global banking worst President HOOVER INSTITUTION. If we notice HOOVER was described back in early 1900s just as TRUMP is today----trade wars ignoring the needs of US citizens.
Worst Presidents: Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
He was known as a poor communicator who fueled trade wars and exacerbated the Depression.
By Jay Tolson, Staff Writer Feb. 16, 2007, at 10:14 a.m.
Worst Presidents: Herbert Hoover
More(Courtesy of the National Archives/Newsmakers)
Herbert Hoover, the 31st president, and Richard Nixon, the 37th, share the ninth spot for entirely different kinds of failings. And both had offsetting qualities and achievements that keep them off the 10-worst list of some major rankings.
Hoover, elected on the eve of the Great Depression, came to the office with the skills of a consummate technocrat and manager. The Iowa native and Stanford-educated engineer ran massive relief operations in Europe both during and after World War I. He was commerce secretary under Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
Once the Depression set in, he lowered taxes and started public works projects to create jobs, but he steadfastly resisted outright relief.
Hoover's rigid adherence to conservative principles may not have been his greatest problem. A poor communicator, he came across as mean-spirited and uncaring. The homeless dubbed their make-shift shanty towns Hoovervilles.
Perhaps his single greatest policy blunder was supporting and signing into law a a tariff act that fueled international trade wars and made the Depression even worse. But style points alone would have cost him the election against FDR.
For all his good qualities, it is fair to say that Hoover failed to rise to the greatest challenge of his time.
_______________________________________
The article below asks----DOES TERMINOLOGY MATTER? Well, YES when far-right wing global banking 1% is LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING myth-making and propaganda pretending to be POPULIST. Global banking 1% love to corrupt RELIGIOUS phrases---INTENTIONAL LIVING being tied of course to our Christian teachings. When we read global banking 1% media and see photos of happy co-existing families in WORKER CO-OPTS sitting beside BARCLAYS GLOBAL BANK----we are not seeing what these buildings WILL look like----
Global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA are trying so hard to make MOVING FORWARD today look just like 20th century left social progressive capitalism----all that PUBLIC HOUSING built and then defunded becoming ghetto.
THIS IS THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING WE HEAR TODAY'S GLOBAL BANKING 5% FREEMASON/GREEK PLAYERS HAWKING AS POPULIST.
'Cooperative Movement I mentioned.
Laird Schaub, the outgoing Executive Director of the FIC, and long time professional facilitator, as well as Aurora Demarco, the FIC’s new Development Director, attended the recent Cohousing Conference in North Carolina'
IF OUR US 99% OF WE THE PEOPLE THOUGHT DEFUNDED PUBLIC HOUSING WAS BAD---WAIT FOR 1000BC DARK AGES FAR-RIGHT WING INDUSTRIAL FASCIST WORKER CO-OPS.
'Shanty Town Facts: Hoovervilles in the Great Depression for ...
www.american-historama.org/.../shanty-town-facts.htm
Shanty Town Facts (The Hoovervilles) for kids. Shanty Town Fact 1: The Shanty Town was not new to America.Anyone who has seen the famous old Civil War movie ' Gone with the Wind' might remember the Shanty Town on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia that was occupied by freed slaves and poor whites'.
Cohousing and Intentional Community: Does Terminology Matter?
Submitted by Alice Alexander on June 30, 2015
Sky Blue, incoming Executive Director of FIC
Cohousing was one of my first introductions to collective living and the world of Intentional Communities. My father helped found Valley Oaks Village, in Chico, CA, in the mid-90’s. He and I moved into his unit in 1996, when I was 16, and I lived there for a year before I moved out on my own. I even become a member of the community (i.e. part of the consensus decision-making group) for 6 months (a token amount, but formative for a 16 year old). My path then took me to a student housing cooperative and then to Twin Oaks, and I’m grateful for the perspective each of these communities gave me.
My life has been all about community, culminating recently in being hired as the incoming Executive Director of the Fellowship for Intentional Community. My predominant associations have been with communities that identify as Intentional Communities, but I’ve had contact with many that don’t.
Terminology is a tricky business. A certain group adopts a label that’s meaningful to them. Another group comes along that’s very similar but wants to differentiate itself, maybe even disassociate. Maybe they didn’t even know about each other when they got started. But if they’re both reaching out to larger society, trying to grow as a movement, tapping into the same resource base, this can create tension and confusion. If they would be better off as allies, how do you reconcile the differences in terminology and any underlying, real differences the terminology might point to?
Is Cohousing a form of intentional community?
The term Intentional Community was in use before Cohousing, and describes a broader range of models than most people realize. But Cohousing describes a particular, innovative model developed fairly recently. By contrast, the term Housing Co-operative has been in use in the US since at least the early 1900’s, pre-dating the term Intentional Community. Does it make sense to try and identify housing co-operatives as a form of Intentional Community? Then there are Ecovillages (again, a relatively new term). Some groups adopt this as their primary identity, orienting them towards sustainability and is very inclusive of different ownership models (e.g. Ecovillage of Ithaca identifies as an ecovillage but is most akin to cohousing when it comes to how it’s ownership and finances are organized). And if Intentional Community is the blanket term, then do we need other terms for the various other kinds of communities out there? Communes, land trusts, homesteads… It’s a long list.
Why does this even matter?
Well, in the ecosystem of shared ownership models of residences and residential developments there are a number of different organizations doing networking and support: Cohousing US, the FIC, NASCO, ENA, the National Association of Housing Cooperatives, the Federation of Egalitarian Communities, to name some of the most active players. Are each of these groups movements in themselves? Do they collectively qualify as a movement? There’s a clear affinity and potential benefit to collaboration, but it seems to me that they are falling into the same pattern of “siloing” common in the non-profit world.
This movement, which I would call the Communities Movement (and which I would put into a larger movement I would call the Cooperative Movement, which, in my mind, includes worker co-ops and transition towns, for example), is in a very fortunate position at this point in time. There are a plethora of viable models and valuable resources available. Even within the distinction of Cohousing there are numerous variations that will appeal to different people or work for the slightly (if not massively) different circumstances each aspiring community faces. A great resource out there is the Cohousing Legal Toolkit, by Janelle Orisi and Cynthia Hawley. Whether or not a group were to identify as a Cohousing Community, and whether or not some of the material in the Toolkit is workable for a given group, it’s an amazing outline of the kinds of questions any group needs to be asking when embarking on the adventure of collective living.
The relationship between Cohousing and Intentional Communities, particularly as represented by Coho US and the FIC, has evolved over time and at this point is a success story in inter-organizational cooperation. Cohousing has always sought to be a more accessible model of shared living than other forms of intentional community, and, early in it’s life in the US, was reticent to associate too closely with “hippie communes.” This was understandable because of mainstream perceptions but didn’t necessarily reflect the reality of the diversity of intentional communities. But over time the movers and shakers in both worlds started interacting and even overlapping, and there was a recognition of how closer association could be beneficial for everyone. For example, Coho US pulls its directory from the FIC’s Communities Directory, which has been one of it’s primary programs for a couple decades, and the FIC has found an important market for its products and services in the Cohousing world, which tends to be more affluent.
One of the hats I wear is manager of the Twin Oaks Communities Conference. This 20 year old event, held each year on Labor Day weekend (Sept 4 - 7, 2015), has been the primary event for intentional communities in the US. We usually have two to three dozen different communities represented, as well as community seekers and people from other branches of that larger Cooperative Movement I mentioned. Laird Schaub, the outgoing Executive Director of the FIC, and long time professional facilitator, as well as Aurora Demarco, the FIC’s new Development Director, attended the recent Cohousing Conference in North Carolina. We’ve tried to have a presence at every national cohousing conference. Similarly, we’ve had members from cohousing communities attend the Twin Oaks Communities Conference many years, and I’d like to see this increase. This year there will also be a West Coast Communities Conference, Oct 9 - 11, at the Groundswell Institute in Mendocino County, CA. Both of these events can be valuable resources for Cohousing Communities.
At their core, all types of communities, collectives, cooperatives, and other community-oriented organizations tend to struggle with the same things: Decision-making, interpersonal dynamics, organizational structures, finances, whether or not people are doing their fair share, what color to paint the living room, why can’t people clean up after themselves, what to do about the barking dog… the list goes on. This year’s Monday Program is Money in Community, exploring that most confounding and quintessential aspect of our modern lives.
Every group has something to teach and something to learn from every other group. The mission of the Communities Conference is to demonstrate a satisfying experience of community and provide opportunities to create, develop, and learn about intentional communities. Whatever you call yourself, I hope to see you at Twin Oaks in September.
________________________________________
OH, LOOK! Singapore has its WORKER DORMS led by National Environment Agency---you know, all that global corporate campus SUSTAINABILITY as GREEN -----we have watched for several decades as FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES filled with global factories with WORKER DORMS-----all that INTENTIONAL LIVING-----were worse than slums and ghettos because people can at least get away from slums and ghettos. Workers trapped in WORKER CO-OPS in Asian Foreign Economic Zones had no where to go and no time to try to go there.
So, indeed, MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES will attach these WORKER DORM structures to a ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY pretending this is all GREEN----it's all about curbing CLIMATE CHANGE-----
Where Texas, California, Wisconsin are earliest out of gate with STALINIST/MAOIST far-right wing global corporate INDUSTRIAL MARXIST co-op intentional living ----Maryland is passing all those laws and policies already tying it to AFFORDABLE HOUSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING LAND TRUSTS LAND TRUSTS----
Remember, here in US----all we have to do is STOP MOVING FORWARD----rebuild our local US cities with REAL local, domestic, small business economies paid for with the tax revenue and state and Federal funding already coming to our US cities---LIKE BALTIMORE. NO GLOBAL BANKING OR WANTED FOLKS!
HOOVER VACUUMS ----not bad----HOOVERVILLE SHANTIES----not good.
Building PlanningApplication for Workers Dormitory
Workers' Dormitory in Industrial Premises
Industries which store and handle hazardous chemicals in bulk quantities have the potential of accidents leading to fire, explosion and/or release of toxic gases. To protect workers from these hazards, NEA does not allow workers' dormitory in areas that could be impacted by accidental release of hazardous chemicals.
All applications for workers' dormitory in industrial estates shall be submitted to the Central Building Plan Department (CBPD) of NEA for clearance.
The application form can be downloaded from here. A location plan of the proposed workers' dormitory shall be attached and submitted together with the application form. The main roads should be clearly depicted and the boundary of the workers' dormitory premises shall be clearly demarcated on the plan.
Workers' Dormitory Application FAQ
1. What is the processing time for my workers' dormitory application?
The minimum processing time for workers' dormitory application is 7 working days. For complex cases, a longer processing time would be required.
2. How can I check on the application status for my workers' dormitory application?
If you have not received a reply after 7 working days, you may contact Mr Ashraf Pinto at 67086194 or email your query to ashraf_pinto_s_jerome@nea.gov.sg.
3. Who can I contact should I require assistance in completing the workers' dormitory application form?
You may contact the following NEA officers should you require any assistance in completing the application form.
Mr Ashraf Pinto
67086194
Ms Amanda Wong
67086188
4. What do I need to submit together with the workers' dormitory application form?
A copy of the location plan of the proposed workers' dormitory and/or authorization letter (property agent / authorized person) by the owner shall be attached and submitted together with the application form. Please refer to the application form for more details.
5. What is the next step I should do after getting the NEA no-objection letter for workers' dormitory?
You are to submit the no-objection letter to URA to obtain written permission for the proposed workers' dormitory.
6. What is the validity period of NEA's no-objection letter for workers' dormitory?
URA will only accept NEA's no-objection letter for workers' dormitory that are not more than 6 months from the date of approval.
Other useful information
You may wish to contact the following agencies for any clarifications / assistance pertaining to workers' dormitory application.
____________________________
We want to warn our 99% US WE THE PEOPLE being staged to be thrown into global labor pool slave trade and sent to places like SINGAPORE under the guise of JOBS JOBS JOBS----WORKER-OWNED BUSINESSES ------we show often how CHINA and those Asian FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES are 'cleaning up their brutal enslaving act'---our international and national global banking 1% media show pictures just as this article ------BEFORE AND AFTER------and Singapore global banking 1% GLOBAL FACTORY OWNERS ----PROMISE they will not be operating as they did for several decades. So, this image may be a worker dormitory----or what here in US call INTENTIONAL LIVING------tied to a GLOBAL FACTORY the size of a US city---or it may be a worker dormitory tied to what are being sold as WORKER-OWNED BUSINESSES.
There will never be any dignity or pride ----no DAPPING happening in MOVING FORWARD when global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS with all that 1000BC DNA are tied to these policies.
OH, REALLY??????
'He added that foreign worker rights are important.
"It is a reflection of who we are as a society. Upholding their dignity is the decent thing to do."'
Singapore
Inside a foreign workers' dormitory
On May 31, 2016, KT
Mesdorm was fined $300,000 for overcrowding foreign workers' accomodation at Blue Stars Dormitory. The New Paper visited the premises on June 1 to see how things have changed.
Occupants of dormitory fined for overcrowding say conditions have improved
Ronald Loh
Reporter
Jun 02, 2016 06:00 am
Dirty and cramped sleeping areas with clothes strewn all over, garbage littered over the floor, and cockroaches crawling on table tops.
This was the condition of an overcrowded dormitory in Boon Lay.
On Tuesday, dormitory operator KT Mesdorm was fined the maximum $300,000 for housing foreign workers in overcrowded accommodation at its Blue Stars Dormitory.
KT Mesdorm, which pleaded guilty to 30 charges, was the first dormitory operator to be prosecuted and convicted in court under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.
The dormitory, which was built in 2001, was packed with more than 500 workers over the allowed limit of 4,500.
The Ministry of Manpower yesterday released photos taken last July of the dormitory's poor living conditions, which it said severely compromised the health and well-being of the workers living there.
A spokesman for KT Mesdorm told The New Paper yesterday that it immediately took steps to rectify the living conditions.
"KT Mesdorm acknowledges there were lapses, and we immediately took affirmative steps and rectified the situation and living conditions of the workers," said its spokesman.
He claimed the overcrowding happened because companies had asked it to house their workers on a "temporary basis". But the dormitory now keeps strictly to the stipulated limit.
He added that pest controllers were hired, and that KT Mesdorm actively educates the workers on proper hygienic practices.
TNP visited the Blue Stars Dormitory yesterday.
The premises consist of seven blocks, each six storeys high with about 10 units on each level.
Each unit had its own cooking and dining area, and toilets.
IMPROVED: Mr Amirul Islam (sitting on upper bunk bed), Mr Chinnarao (in orange) and their roommates in their dormitory room. PHOTOS: ISKANDAR ROSSALI
There was also a basketball court, supermarket and remittance centre in the compound.
Shipyard worker Amirul Islam, 27, who arrived from Bangladesh about 10 months ago - which was around the time the dormitory was found to be overcrowded - said conditions have since improved.
SHIFTED OUT
"We used to have 16 people in our unit. It was crowded. But now, four people have been shifted out.
"There's more space for everyone now," he said.
His roommate and colleague, Mr Chinnarao, 28, an Indian national, agreed.
"It's much better now. Last time, there even used to be two beds in the dining area. Now, no more," he said.
The living quarters were a far cry from the photographs taken last July.
For example, the living and cooking areas in each unit had been scrubbed clean since.
There was also no litter accumulating at the rubbish chute area, as seen in the photographs.
Mr Rajib Mohammad, 31, also a shipyard worker from Bangladesh, said the occupants do their best to clean the place from time to time.
When shown last July's photographs, Mr Rajib shook his head and said: "I am very unhappy.
"This is done by some people, who are stupid.
"Maybe they get drunk and they anyhow throw their rubbish. But this doesn't happen every day."
Another shipyard worker, Mr Gahil Abdul, 42, who has been living at the dormitory for four years, said he and his fellow occupants take turns cleaning the premises.
"We also don't want to live in a dirty place," he said.
Dorm had 542 more workers than allowed
Ronald Loh
Reporter
Dormitory operator KT Mesdorm was convicted of helping three companies breach a work pass condition by housing their foreign workers in overcrowded accommodation in its Blue Stars Dormitory.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said in a statement yesterday that it conducted an inspection of the dormitory on July 30 last year with the Singapore Civil Defence Force.
Authorities found 5,098 bed spaces occupied by 5,042 foreign workers residing in the dormitory, which was permitted to house only 4,500 workers.
"By intentionally taking in more residents than permitted, KT Mesdorm had caused the infrastructure and amenities in the dormitory to be over-taxed, resulting in overcrowded, unsanitary and unhygienic living conditions," said a MOM spokesman.
MOM also said the companies that had tenancy agreements with KT Mesdorm were not aware of the overcrowding.
Following the inspections, KT Mesdorm took steps to rectify the overcrowding issue and improve the living conditions in the dormitory.
Ms Jeanette Har, director of the well-being department of MOM's foreign manpower management division, said the agency will continue to step up inspections and take stern action where appropriate.
Reporter
Overcrowding in dormitories can have grave consequences for both foreign workers and Singaporeans, two migrant workers advocacy groups told The New Paper.
News of Blue Stars Dormitory's $300,000 fine did not come as a surprise to organisation Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2).
"Many purpose-built dormitories are run on a commercial basis. If they can make greater profit by cramming in more people, they will try," said TWC2 treasurer Alex Au.
But it is fortunate that the case came to light, as it signals to other dormitory operators that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) strongly frowns upon overcrowding, he added.
The advocacy groups do not have figures of dormitory overcrowding cases here, Mr Au said.
"Workers rarely risk their jobs to be whistleblowers. If employers terminate their contracts, they have to pay the agent fees again if they want to look for another job," he explained.
CLEANED UP: In a check on Blue Stars Dormitory by the Ministry of Manpower last July, cockroaches were found on tabletops and the cooking areas were filthy.
PHOTOS: MINISTRY OF MANPOWER
He said living conditions will improve when dormitory operators open their doors for inspection.
"If they wish to establish a good reputation and brand name, they might want to distinguish themselves by saying, 'We have nothing to hide and you can take a look inside because we have decent standards'," said Mr Au.
Although fines and hiring restrictions are appropriate punishments for errant companies, operating costs are still an issue, said Mr Jolovan Wham, a social worker at Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics.
"Instead of increasing the foreign worker levy, the Government should consider encouraging employers to channel more funds towards improving the welfare of workers," he said.
Poor living conditions, such as overcrowding, carry deeper consequences for society as well, the advocacy groups said.
PRODUCTIVITY
"These conditions affect productivity and the mental alertness of workers. They're closely related to work safety," said Mr Wham.
CLEANED UP (above ) PHOTOS: MINISTRY OF MANPOWER
Mr Au said: "Overcrowding has life and death consequences, and these are totally invisible to the public."
Mr Wham said it is usually a case of "out of sight, out of mind" when it comes to overcrowded foreign worker dormitories here.
"There isn't much awareness about the situation. It's not something that many people know about because these dormitories are situated in remote parts of Singapore," he said.
He added that foreign worker rights are important.
"It is a reflection of who we are as a society. Upholding their dignity is the decent thing to do."
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BREAKING NEWS!
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"I'm going home"
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
No copyright infringement is intended. Enjoy Tim Curry's perfection in one of the greatest classics of all…
The author of novel SAND HOUSES no doubt had her own meaning behind this title------the Biblical LOT and his wife turning to SALT STONES because they LOOKED BACK seems a likely meaning. Here is BOSTON in 2000s being those global banking 1% freemason STARS setting FADS for MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD for only the global 1% goals.
SALT HOUSES was a touching novel----the matriarch of the novel being that Palestinian originally pushed out of her sovereign nation had last words---NEVER FORGET. The great grand daughter living in BOSTON wanting to reconnect with her roots in JAFFA comes away having LOST those feelings while promising her great grandmother to NEVER FORGET.
No matter how much myth-making and propaganda global banking 1% releases via media, Hollywood, FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT political groups our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE can STOP MOVING FORWARD. We can LOOK BACK to US 20th century REAL left social progressive capitalism to rebuild our US cities -----we do not need global banking. We cannot STOP MOVING FORWARD if we wait until all those GLOBAL FACTORIES the size of US cities are built---if we fall for the same global banking 5% freemason/Greek players shouting JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, AFFORDABLE HOUSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING SCHOOLS SCHOOLS SCHOOLS COMMUNITIES COMMUNITIES COMMUNITIES----and especially if we allow those players shouting loudest to be FAKE 5% freemason/Greek religious leaders weaving all these brutal policies into a corrupted Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindi/Buddhist, Seik construct. LIVING INTENTIONALLY requires REAL left social progressive capitalism----
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Boston - Don't Look Back
Title: Don't Look Back (track 01) Artist: Boston Album: Don't Look Back Year: 1978 Label: Epic Writer(s): Tom Scholz Lyrics: Don't look back A new day is bre...