In the throes of a significant affordable housing crisis, the time for action is now, not at some distant point in the future as proposed by the authors of Friday’s opinion piece on Berkeleyside.com, including District 8 Councilmember Lori Droste. 

The proposal on Tuesday’s council meeting simply brings the City’s affordable housing requirements in line with two city-commissioned studies from 2015 and 2016. The proposed fees are still well below the maximum fees per unit that the 2016 feasibility study concluded could be collected without affecting the developer’s ability to make a reasonable return on their investment. 

The proposed affordable housing requirements are not a tax. They reflect the impact on affordable housing specifically created by market rate housing. New market-rate housing creates additional demand for services provided by teachers, police officers, and, yes, the construction workers who help build housing. The alternatives to requiring reasonable amounts in affordable housing mitigation is either that these needs go unmet, requiring people to pay significantly more in rent or travel further for jobs in the urban core, or that the burden is shifted to taxpayers, landlords, and those with in-law units, all of whom already contribute to affordable housing.  

The op-ed’s primary critique seems to be that the studies are not recent enough to be used and that any increase should be deferred until another study is performed. Such a recommendation is surprising since it was the previous City Council, of which Councilmember Droste was a member, which delayed issuing the nexus study for almost a year, and then took another five months to adopt affordable housing fees at a lower level than called for just as housing prices exploded.  

Rents now are even higher than they were at the time of the studies. In April 2017, two-bedroom apartment rents averaged $3,644 – a 26% increase from the time of the 2015 study. Rents have increased 15% since the study was conducted on the very same rental units used in the 2016 study.  

It is also a myth not that an increase in the mitigation fee/increase in percentage of affordable units will slow development. The last time the requirements were increased development did not slow. In 2015, 11 projects either applied to build, were approved to build, or were constructed. In 2016, that number increased to 17.  

A third point raised in the op-ed is that the fees being proposed in Berkeley differ from those in other cities. These studies by necessity take into account specific rent levels in each city. Cities such as Oakland, with lower rents, will have correspondingly lower affordable housing fees. As for San Francisco, the op-ed selectively looks only at city’s affordable housing fees while conveniently ignoring all of the other development fees (i.e., parks, transportation, child care, jobs-housing linkage) that San Francisco, but not Berkeley, requires of new developments.  

The housing crisis is in fact a crisis of housing affordability. Even with all projects already approved, Berkeley will have met only 3% of the goal for low income housing (affordable at rents of $2,000 per month) set by ABAG and 4% for moderate housing (affordable for rent up to $3,135 monthly), compared to 141% for market rate housing. Rising housing costs result in massive displacement, including most notably a double digit decline in our African American community. In the last local election, Berkeley voters resoundingly rejected the argument that we can build our way out of the affordability crisis without specifically building affordable housing. 

As the op-ed’s co-authors all agree, building more affordable housing is the best approach to preventing displacement. Professor Chapple notes that “subsidized housing has over double the impact of market rate units” in preventing displacement, while Professors Lens and Monkkonen conclude that “Inclusionary housing requirements have a greater potential to reduce income segregation than bringing higher-income households into lower-income parts of the city.” Yet rather than act now, they would instead waste more tax payer dollars for a “do-over” study to reconfirm what every Berkeley resident already knows – we need more affordable housing and we need it now.  

One of the co-authors of [Councilmember Lori] Droste's Berkeleyside [opinion] article on housing, Karen Chapple, debunks the myth that creating more market-rate housing will produce any short term relief from the affordable housing crisis. 

In her paper [To download, click here.] she debunks the February 2016 California report “Perspectives on Helping Low-Income Californians Afford Housing” which “concluded that the most important solution to the housing crisis in California’s coastal communities is to build more market-rate housing.” Instead Dr. Chapple concluded that the “report neglects the many challenges of using market-rate housing development as the main mechanism for pro­viding housing for low-income households, in particular the timing and quality of the “filtered” housing stock. The filtering process can take generations, meaning that units may not filter at a rate that meets needs at the market’s peak, and the property may deteriorate too much to be habitable.” 

She states “it would take approximately 15 years before those units filtered down to people at 80% of the median income and closer to 50 years for households earning 50% of the median income.” 

Basically her study debunked the myth that building more market-rate housing is going to help our low and moderate income citizens find local affordable housing, concluding “market-rate production is associated with higher hous­ing cost burden for low-income households” and that it takes decades before that market-rate housing filters down to lower housing costs. Therefore if we wish so solve the lack of affordable housing today, we need to build that affordable housing today, not wait decades for it to trickle down. 

The best way to accomplish this is to have higher required affordable housing requirements in all new construction – well above the current 10% -- and to make buy-out fees high enough so that developers choose to build that housing into multi-family buildings. The 2015 nexus study concluded $34k in fees, with up to $75k for condos, would provide more than adequate rate of return for new construction. But that study was completed before the recent boom in housing prices suggesting much higher buy-outs could be profitably accommodated. 

I would rather see the Council increase those fees to the $45k-$50k range, and increase the required affordable housing to at least 30% to incentivize the developers to build affordable housing into all new structures today. We need greater than the proposed 20% (from the nexus study) to make up for the lack of affordable housing construction during the last decade. For any luxury condo construction, where gated community exclusion of affordable housing will increase the selling price, the developer can afford to pay the higher fees. These fees can then be leveraged into public affordable housing for essential members of the community like teachers and nurses. 

Lastly, when a politician wants to avoid taking a position on policy, the first thing you hear is “we need another study” or “the evidence is not in.” We heard this from the tobacco shills, we continue to hear it from climate change deniers. It is an old trick and I hope the Berkeley public does not fall for it. In the Berkeleyside article, Droste says we should wait “unless a new nexus study or an updated feasibility study is completed and recommends higher fees.” (This is agenda item 51 for June 13 Council meeting.) 

A new Nexus study? We just had one that recommended higher fees. The previous study was suppressed by Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Droste (and Maio, Wengraf, Capitelli, Moore) to create a sweet deal for developers and to shaft the public. In the case of Harold Way, that backroom deal included an additional reduction in the buy-out fees. That deal will cost the city at least 4.2 million dollars if the building is ever constructed. Now we get Droste shilling for developers once again. This time she wants to suppress that recent Nexus study until another study is completed – a stalling tactic to extend the developer give-a-way. 

Please vote NO on Agenda item 51.

Okay, let’s go over this again. Some people just can’t seem to lose that funny attitude they got from high school economics that the “law of supply and demand” always works. They keep trying to bamboozle us with those old sound bytes and abstract generalities: “There’s a housing crisis,” “We have a housing shortage,” “We need to build housing.” Build, build, build.

There is no “housing crisis.” There is only an “affordable housing crisis.”

To be sure, abstract generality has a certain flair. It appeals because it hides the collateral damage. Don’t get me wrong, abstract generality has its place – like on a mathematics department blackboard. Some mathematicians have quit that discipline, however, once they realized that what they discover abstractly could someday be used to build new weapons.

That "build" mantra actually constitutes a knowledge crisis because it is already a weapon. These days, it gets fired at random, to the detriment and destruction of truth, and historical experience, and real economic process.

After all, for whom is there a crisis? It isn’t a crisis for developers. It isn’t a crisis for the banks. And it isn’t a crisis for the high income people coming into town, bidding up the price of a home. It is only a crisis for low income families who suddenly find themselves looking for a affordable place to rent, and can no longer find any because it has been bid out of reach. Building market rate housing will not resolve their situation; indeed, it is its very cause.



Why doesn’t the supply-and-demand concept work?

The “S&D law” doesn’t work because there are two forms of demand, and they are contradictory.

There is an external demand, people coming into the area looking for housing. They are the ones willing and able to pay $4000 a month for an apartment. If we assume they are paying 30% of their income for rent (the HUD standard for affordability), it would imply that they are earning $160,000 a year. They are the ones jacking up the “market rate.” If they did not exist in large numbers, we wouldn’t be seeing the exorbitant elevation in rent levels.

But wait a minute. Did I just say "affordability" means 30% of income maximum? Yes, that is the HUD standard. "Affordable" housing is housing that rents for up to 30% of the tenants income, whatever that income might be. Remember that. It replaces "markets" with a principle of livability. And it falsifies the dogma of supply-and-demand thinking. 

The second form of demand is the internal demand. It is composed of people who live in the city and have been displaced from their housing by nefarious landlord machinations. At the new rent levels, they find other housing now unobtainable. The real name for the affordable housing crisis is "displacement." 

The cause of nefarious landlordism, which is the cause of displacement, is the external demand. The promise of six-figure-income tenants is what has led many landlords to drive out low income tenants in order to rent at higher rates. They do this legally and illegally – for instance, by doubling or tripling the rent, by cutting off electricity and water, by abandoning maintenance and then blaming the tenants for squallor. Et Cetera. Profit-hunger is often rich in its ability to humiliate and torture the unwary. 

Here’s the contradiction. The external demand, those six-figure-income arrivals, not only jack up rent levels, they are the contingent cause of low income families being displaced. This is what has created an internal demand of crisis proportions. It continues to do so. The “S&D law” serves as its political weapon, hiding the fact that massive displacement is the collateral damage wrought by building for that external demand. 

The external demand will always be able to satisfy itself. It has enough money to find a place to live whenever it wants. It can touch down temporarily, and move on quickly to other more permanent digs. The turnover in new buildings like the Avalon on Third St., or Parker Place on Shattuck (being run as a hotel now) is evidence of that mobility. 

The "internal demand" can never be satisfied because it is not created not by a shortage but by changes in price levels (rents). The people forming the internal demand already live here. Building affordable housing will not increase supply but replace units given over to wealthier inhabitants. The crisis they represent is an imposed crisis. 

If the real name for the affordable housing crisis is "displacement," the real name for displacement is "injustice." 

Some low income people succeed in maintaining themselves. They live in places they can afford, and no one harasses them. Nevertheless, though in no immediate crisis, many undergo the secondary trauma of their own uncertainty, sometimes with displaced friends sleeping on their couch, or a family they know moving into their garage. 

How do we know that the people forming the external demand are wealthier? Precisely because they are driving up “market rate” rent levels? Only high income people can do that. People who already live here are not going to go out looking for more expensive apartments to live in to an extent that would actually affect the “market rate.” Not even an S&D fundamentalist could make sense of that. 

 

What brought the new arrivals to Berkeley?  

Who are these six-figure-salary people? Where do they come from? 

They must already have high paying jobs in this area if they can afford $4000 a month? If they didn’t already have such jobs, they could not sign such leases. The fact that they do means they are already part of the Bay Area economy, while living somewhere else. 

Why are they moving here now? Okay, lets go over that again. This is the crux. [Cf. http://tinyurl.com/jy82bok] 

To set the stage, we have to go back to the 50s, when the first city dwellers started moving to the suburbs after the war. It accelerated during the 60s as tempestuous struggles for equality and justice spread over the nation. There were civil rights uprisings, youth anti-war movements, women demanding their place in the economy, and a recognition that we had to stop planetary despoliation. In their struggles to democratize this country, they changed the face of daily city life. So some people decided to move out of town, to escape the hurly-burly. It was called “white flight.” 

What we are seeing now is the inverse process. The project to bring them back into town was first broached in the halls of ABAG (Assoc. of Bay Area Governments) ten years ago. It came to fruition two years ago with the creation of Plan Bay Area, which has been written into California environmental law. ABAG presented its plan as "environmentalist," since it would eliminate the hours all these high-paid employees spent in traffic-jams on the freeways, thereby reducing the state’s carbon footprint. Thus, it was actually a plan to make “white flight” a round-trip ticket. 

But bringing the white flight "prodigals" back into town is not a “housing problem.” It is a “housing proposal.” The “housing problem” is what happens to others as a result of the proposal. Hundreds of families have been pushed out of town, impoverished by the process, and divested of cultural roots. They have had to relocate to other cities, like Martinez or Modesto or Stockton. Wherever they move, they then commute back to their old jobs, filling the freeways in place of the prodigals. ABAG’s environmentalism does nothing. It turns out to be a zero sum scam. 

Building more market rate housing won’t help those already pushed out of town. And it won’t stop those landlords still trying to get rid of low income tenants so they can make a bigger buck off the prodigals. Private institutions are raising money to assist those threatened with eviction and exile. But that is just a band-aid. The injustice persists as long as the ideology of “the S&D law” hides the root of the suffering. 

The real taproot of the suffering is the plan (Plan Bay Area). The plan allotted housing unit construction to Bay Area cities to house the people being brought in from distant suburbs (like Napa and Sonoma). It was the “magic incantation” that transformed a vacant apartment (from which the former tenant had been expelled) into gold. ABAG’s plans rapidly became a predatory political operation. 

If there had been better controls on what landlords could do, there wouldn’t have been so many people forced out of their homes by increased rents or turned-off utilities. But rent control is illegal in this state. So landlord greed went for the jugular, reinventing an “inner city” for the children of white prodigals. 

 

Why do we focus on renters?  

Renters are the substance of this crisis, just as home ownership was the substance of the 2008 predatory mortgages crisis. The supply problem is not a shortage of housing, but a shortage of affordability. That is why it is such an insult to simply repeat the idiotic mantra: build, build, build. If you don’t specify "what" and for "whom," you are part of the problem. 

Two thirds of all residents in Berkeley are renters. And the vast majority of them are low income, or very low income (according to HUD). HUD categorizes people according to their relation to the Area Median Income (AMI). For instance, you are low income if you earn less than 80% of the AMI. The AMI for Berkeley is around $65,000 a year. That means that half the population of Berkeley earn less than $65,000 a year. 

Ironically, HUD uses Alameda County AMI for its calculations. The AMI of Alameda County is $93,000. $65,000 is 70% of $93,000. That means that considerably more than 50% of the people of Berkeley are low income (on HUD’s calculations). The majority of Berkeleyans are renters, and the majority are low income. (The two overlapping categories do not totally coincide.) Yet the city continues to prioritize market rate housing. It can see its way to only requiring 10% of any new development to be affordable. 

Here’s an indication of how bad things are. People living in “rent controlled” apartments pay, on the average, 70% of their income for rent. That means that many pay more than 70%. The implications of paying (for instance) 90% of your income for rent are astounding, and often unmentionable. 

Poverty is not a trait or characteristic of a person. It is something done to people. Developers and banks and ideologues who chant “build, build” are all impoverishing people. To just say “we need more housing” is to make a destructive statement. 

The destruction happens to real people, though it is invisible because it happens in private. The stress of uncertainty, the worries about children uprooted, the income loss to sudden expenses, and the sense of powerlessness. Even the destruction of neighborhoods occurs out of sight – it is slow and unannounced. When small stores close, survival implies driving to distant shopping malls, increasing the cost of living. 

Eventually, the silent disintegration of a neighborhood even leads homeowners to sell and move – getting an unexpected price from speculators, perhaps. They lose community and friends. In the ironic limelight, however, the city council begs off, citing state law, penury, and a need for studies. They hire more police to hide their inability to protect their own constituencies politically. 

 

What’s the solution?  

At present, Berkeley has satisfied its ABAG requirement for market rate housing. When all the projects in the pipeline are built, that requirement will have been met twice over. That means the city can totally prioritize the internal demand, the people who already live here, the people who should have had priority all along. It can build 100% affordable housing. 

Here’s how. 

1) Pass a zoning law for the city that states that new development must contain 100% affordable housing units (divided among low income, very low income, and extremely low income units as defined by HUD). 

2) To insure that developers will put these affordable units in their buildings, institute a mitigation fee of $200,000 for each unit. The idea is to make the fee large enough to dissuade a developer from buying his way out of building affordable units. 

(The “in-lieu” mitigation fee was originally designed to permit developers to buy their way out of including affordable units in their building. It was a response to the Palmer Decision of 2009 [California Supreme Court], which held that cities requiring low rent units were liable for any loss of income for the developer. With the fee in place, the inclusionary requirement became voluntary. There is also an “impact mitigation fee,” which developers must pay to offset service disruptions or complications their buildings might incur.) 

3) If the developer decides not to build, he can sell the land to one or another existing Affordable Housing developers (SAHA, Resources for Community Development, or others that might form). They could build affordable housing. Its been done. The building on the northwest corner of Fulton and Kittredge is just such a building. 

If the crisis was spawned by political intention, only political intention will resolve it. 

A follow-up on last week’s story about three dangerous bills being pushed by State Senator Nancy Skinner: All three passed the Senate. SB 35 was approved by a vote of 25 to12, with no vote recorded for three senators; Skinner’s SB 167 was approved 30 to 10; and SB 595 passed 27 to 12, with no vote recorded for one senator. Skinner voted for all three measures, which now move on to the Assembly.

Also, AB 943, the bill that would raise the percent needed to pass citizen-initiated ballot measures to reduce density or stop a development from a simple majority to 55 percent, was approved by the Assembly by a vote of 72 to 2, with no votes recorded for six assemblymembers. Assemblymember Tony Thurmond, representing the 15th Assembly District, which includes Berkeley, voted Aye. AB 943 now goes to the Senate.

From July 21 to August 20 the State Legislature is in summer recess. The last day for each house to pass bills is September 15. The last day for the governor to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature is October 15.

If you’re part of the majority of Berkeleyans who voted to throw the rascals out in the recent November and March elections, Tuesday is your chance to speak up for what you voted for.

That would be, by most counts, to put an end to turning the prime downtown building sites, the ones close to BART and other transit opportunities, completely over to unbridled luxury market rate housing developers, the ones targeting San Francisco’s tech overflow, which are cleverly designed to absorb flight capital from Russia, China and elsewhere. If you think we don’t need any more of that kind of trash, you should show up on Tuesday to support just-seated Downtown Councilmember Kate Harrison’s proposal to , at least, exact a decent number of reasonably priced units from speculative developers to prevent wholesale gentrification of our city's core.

That would be Item 53 on Tuesday’s Council agenda, which requires developers to provide $34,000 per market rate unit or 20% of the total units in their buildings for affordable housing. That means genuinely affordable housing, accessible for low income people, not just for the well-heeled. The figures are based on a consultant’s study completed for the city of Berkeley in 2015 based on 2014 data. Even that study doesn’t even take into account that rents have risen by 22% to 28% since then, so it should be well within builders’ ability to comply.

The Berkeley Progressive Alliance, which backed the newly elected councilmembers, summarizes it thus:

• Sets the affordable housing fee that developers would pay at $34,000 per market rate unit if paid when construction begins, or $37,000 per market rate unit when the building is occupied (usually two to three years later.)
• Requires that 20% of all units be affordable to Low and Very Low income families if developers opt not to pay the fee.
• Adds an inflation adjustment to the fee based on the California Construction Cost Index every two years AND
• Requires that developers state upfront whether they will pay the fee or build the units. Currently, developers can wait until the project is almost complete to make this decision, making it difficult for the city and non-profit housing developers to plan.

This is a good start to reform the practices of the previous council, which have allowed a vast oversupply of unaffordable (and ugly) Big Boxes to be built all over Berkeley, luring affluent San Francisco commuters but doing nothing for strapped local renters .

Berkeleyans should be warned that the noxious Trickle-Down crowd, the San Francisco BARFers, a developer-funded group which masquerades under the faux flag of Bay Area Renters Federation, seem to be planning a full court press at Tuesday’s meeting, bringing in their arrogant supporters from elsewhere to lobby against the proposal. One would hope that the newly elected councilmembers and the mayor won’t be fooled, but Councilmembers Droste, Maio and Wengraf, holdovers from the last bunch, might be tempted to vote with BARF.

As we discussed in this space last week, the idea that market-rate (read pricey) developments eventually become available to the less affluent has been widely discredited, in disparate locations like London and India, not just in San Francisco and Berkeley.

It’s really too bad that it still seems to take a parade of public commenters to pass the simplest,most obvious reforms at the Berkeley City Council, but that seems to be the case. Showing up is half the battle. At least the new council is starting the meeting earlier, so it will be over by a reasonable hour. Come on down to speak up for Item 53.

Details:

Berkeley City Council Public Hearing

June 13; 6:00 p.m. (note earlier starting time)

Council Chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way

And if you can’t make it, please write to council@cityofberkeley.info to express your opinion. 

 

What happened in the Senate on Thursday?

1) Anyone on the Senate committee which interviewed James Comey who has been to law school, and Comey himself, has passed a course in the law of evidence. Various kinds of evidence are given various degrees of credibility in a courtroom, with a contemporaneous account near the top of the list, right up there with deathbed confessions. Smart fella that he is, Comey was expertly creating exactly the evidentiary record he will need for whatever happens next. Kamala Harris, another smart cookie and a former prosecutor as so many of them are,then asked a whole series of questions calculated to elicit the right record from Comey, unanswerable in open session but surely to be asked later in closed session. Trump and his obviously sleazy Vegas mouthpiece didn't have a chance against those two.

2) Anyone seen any Mafia movies lately? Dialogue: "a) Do you want to go on living? b) I hope you do what I want. c) Since you didn't do what I want, you're dead." Trump obviously made Comey "an offer he couldn't refuse", and when Comey refused, he was fired. QED. This was not a simple "hope".

And for the real story about what's been going on in Washington, watch this:  

Governor Brown has become a hero almost overnight. He harshly criticized President Trump for his "reckless decision" to pull out of the Paris Climate agreement. Moreover, he aims to do something about it. Committing himself to playing a leadership role, Brown vowed that he and others will not just stand by. "California will resist this misguided insane course of action. Trump is AWOL but California is on the field, ready for battle".

About the unusually favorable press he got, one prominent reporter refers to the California Governor as "one of the nation's foremost proponents to address climate change". Willie Brown, a former politician, who is now a free lance writer for the SF Chronicle also sings high praise. "Jerry Brown is in political heaven" and on the issue of climate change "Brown is going to be our premier".

Nevertheless, as an activist with a coalition of environmental groups complained, "It's hypocritical for Brown to call himself a climate leader". He supports fracking, which is a process that not only boosts fossil fuel production. It does so by polluting our air and water. Fracking also worsens climate change, which Brown agrees is very dangerous. In addition, even though Oakland's City Council voted against importing an estimated 10 million tons of coal per year, Brown refuses to oppose these efforts, which the investors are now appealing. The coal trains will impose substantial health hazards on those who live in west Oakland. The governor who complains about the long term risks of climate change nevertheless doesn't care about the destructive health impact the coal will have, particularly on children. . 

But although Brown and many other politicians are profiting from the advantage of criticizing Trump for pulling out of the Paris agreement, that does not adequately explain why many politicians support the climate agreement. It is important to take a closer look at the Paris agreement itself.  

630 businesses and investors signed a statement urging Trump to support the agreement. Exxon Mobil and Shell Oil are among them. Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company urged the White House to support the Paris agreement. It told the administration that "The Paris agreement is an effective framework for addressing the risks of climate change" Also, Shell Oil, another oil and gas giant, supports the Paris agreement because it "wants to do our part providing more and cleaner energy." 

But the record of these companies shows that their words speak louder than their actions. The fossil fuel industry has a history of lobbying against climate related actions. How do we explain their change of minds? They now support the treaty for the same reason that Nicaragua opposed it -- they realize that the agreement is toothless. There is no mechanism whatever to require a country to set a target by a specific date. To repeat, the accord provides no adverse consequences if countries do not meet their commitments. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and expert in climate change angrily complained that "the agreement consists of promises or aims and not firm commitments". Really, the accord does not require any nation to do anything significant. 

Still, isn't the accord at least a good beginning? It could be if it tackles our many current environmental problems right now. For it is now that the future begins. But that won't happen without a mass movement. Only a mass movement can successfully confront our opponents because of the tremendous resources they have available. Moreover those who are involved in addressing our day to day quality of life issues are much less likely to be fooled. They quickly learn who are our real allies and who are only pretending to be.  

Clearly, despite the media propaganda, Governor Brown's conduct on current issues, for example, reveals he is not one of us. So we shouldn't be fooled by his support for the Paris Climate agreement. Finally, we must do what we can to make sure that pie in the sky agreements do not lull us and others into passivity. On the contrary, these are wakeup calls that should mobilize us into action. 

In yet another bizarre twist in the Sunni-Shia divide, Saudi Arabia has declared a fatwa on neighboring Qatar accusing it of aiding and abetting (Shia) terrorism. Following Saudi Arabia’s lead, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen broke diplomatic and commercial ties.

What profound Saudi hypocrisy! For decades, Saudi Arabia, home of 15 of the 19 9-11 hijackers, have used their oil money in funding madrassas (religious schools) all over the world which serve as launching pads for terrorism. They have waged war on neighboring Yemen using British and US weapons slaughtering thousands of civilians making us complicit in Saudi war crimes.

Never losing an opportunity to be at the center of attention, Trump thrust himself into the bitter Persian Gulf dispute boasting that he had orchestrated the Saudi-Qatar divorce proceedings unaware that Qatar is a US military partner, headquarters of the US Central Command. It serves as a major intelligence hub in the Middle East and the base where the US plans and carries out airstrikes on the Islamic State. Qatar also has strong academic ties to American Universities providing funding for six prominent university Middle East campuses. “Professionals” at the Pentagon and Defense Department were stunned at Trumps’ insistence on hurling a nasty curve ball at a close strategic partner. Meanwhile, news reports cite Russia might have planted false articles exaggerating friendly ties between Qatar and Iran. Saudi Arabia is also trying to neutralize Qatar’s enormously popular Al Jazeera Arabic media.

Lurking below the surface of the latest attack is a serious problem. In a British-Muslim population of 3m there is a staggering number who are in danger of committing violence. According to British security services, there are 23,000 Muslims who are in serious danger of becoming radicalized. That is a very sobering number.

May’s government is under intense criticism for her decision to cut 20,000 police (1/6 of the police force) including 1,300 armed officers who were sent to Libya. The British and the US are committing the same blunders over and over again. Attacking or sending arms to Muslim countries will invariably cause a backlash. Remember, the bomber of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester was a British Libyan. Weston governments, including the US, have flooded the Middle East and Afghanistan with billions of weapons to enrich their defense contractors. The Trump administration has boasted signing a $110 billion of weapons with Saudi Arabia which exports its extreme Sunni ideology all over the Muslim world. This is sheer madness and must stop. May also visited Saudi Arabia and signed a huge weapons deal, the details have been buried by British authorities.

What other factors drives young Muslims to violence? There are two principal sources – the Internet and the harsh passages of the “kill infidels” religious texts. The British would do well to elicit the help of Muslim religious leaders (perhaps a simple survey requesting an anonymous feedback on the root causes of radicalization might be helpful).

When I was in my mid-twenties, in one job, among of the half dozen or so jobs I'd had in which I was reasonably successful, my disclosure of my psychiatric disability came about because I was suspected of being high on something. I had been at the job about two weeks or a month. The employer, in observing me, believed I appeared drugged in some way. The job was delivery driving. When the employer confronted me, I disclosed that I have to take psychiatric medication and I am schizophrenic. That was sufficient for the employer, who didn't fire me and instead was somewhat more helpful in accommodating me to the position.  

(Psych meds in some instances can give the appearance of being drugged, even though the meds aren't usually a pleasure to take.)  

In another job situation, I was doing television repair for a "mama-papa" (small) television repair shop. I impressed the sole proprietor by messing up on something, and then painstakingly fixing the blunder. I performed several other repairs that impressed him. Then, I quit because I felt overwhelmed by the pressure of the position. 

Either the same day or the next day, the employer phoned me to tell me that I had left behind some of my tools. I went back to get them, and at that point, the employer offered me part time work instead of full time, and said that if the pressure was too much, I could go next door to the "mama-papa" sandwich shop and take a break. He said he was impressed by some of the repairs I'd done.  

In both of the above positions, my work was adequate or more than adequate, and this prompted the employers to adjust to my problems. In the case of working for the small TV repair shop, no psychiatric diagnosis was discussed or disclosed, and that employer adjusted on the basis that I appeared nervous or easily stressed out.  

Bosses can be harsh and usually don't sugar coat anything. When something gets sugar coated, it tends to be done by an employer who isn't straightforward, and that to me is worse than overt harshness.  

(I can live with someone being direct toward me, and telling me what, specifically, needs to be done differently or better. I can even withstand a little bit of "abuse." What I can't handle is where I'm dealing with someone who won't come out with the truth. Moreover, I can smell it when someone doesn't want to tell me what is really going on, although I have no way of knowing what, specifically, is being omitted.)  

When someone with mental illness acquires employment, it is of the utmost importance that we do not stand out as a disabled person. We have probably obtained the job at least partly in the vein of boosting self-esteem; and to have the mental health system attempt to intervene and set up special conditions can end up making us feel more stigmatized than we did before taking the job.  

In both of the examples above, I'd proven that I could do the work, and that I could do this work at a level that exceeded that of an average nondisabled person. I did not have intervention of the mental health treatment system. The accommodation and/or disclosure occurred after the point at which I'd "proven myself."  

Performing at a job at the same level as that of "normal" people is a chance for us not to be entirely defined by our diagnosis. When the mental health treatment system enters the picture and tries to set up everything "special," it can sabotage a job offer.  

There was an instance in which the above happened to me. I had interviewed at a television repair shop, and then I'd allowed mental health professionals to talk to the prospective employer, at which point I didn't get offered the job. Before mental health professionals intervened, I felt that I was very close to obtaining that job.  

If mentally ill, it can be very difficult to be employed. We have a number of factors that may detract from being hired and from being able to do the job after being hired. Yet, even if we only "succeed" at one or two jobs, and even if it is only for six months or a year, at least during that time we can get a break from being a mentally ill person and having that as our identity.  

This is my take: When the mentally ill individual is the one doing the job-seeking, and when an accommodation is made without the mental health treatment system as part of the equation, the employee is more likely to be successful in that position, and stigma may be absent. However, when you have "treatment professionals" setting up a "special situation" for the mentally ill prospective employee, it doesn't help the identity of the mental health consumer, and the job situation may not work as well.  

When I worked in my twenties, I usually did much better in informal situations and could not adapt to a corporate environment, or to working for a large company. Dealing directly with an owner/ proprietor of a small company often worked for me, and the type of work to be done may have been a secondary factor, since I could do most tasks that a typical person "off the street" can do.  

By the time I was thirty, being medicated long-term had taken a toll, and it was also much more difficult to get hired because employers were starting to routinely do computerized background checks. I had a couple of jobs in my thirties that weren't very demanding, but I no longer felt a strong desire to have a conventional job. By then I was receiving Social Security Disability, so luckily I am not forced to have a job, something that at this point would be a huge hardship.  

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A friendly reminder--please check out my selection of books available on Amazon, including, "Instructions for Dealing with Schizophrenia: A Self-Help Manual," and other titles.  

Five months into the Trump presidency, Donald's erratic behavior has spawned an avalanche of "what's wrong with Trump" theories. Rather than speculate on his psyche, it's sufficient to label Trump: an angry man whose actions are fueled by the anger of his supporters. For many observers, Trump's psychological profile matches that of individuals afflicted with the so-called "Dark Triad." Writing in Psychology Today, Glenn Geher considered whether Trump met the three criteria: "Psychopathy: The tendency to show little regard for the thoughts, feelings, and outcomes of others. Narcissism: The tendency for one to show a particularly high focus on oneself. Machiavellianism: The tendency to manipulate others for one’s own personal gain." Geher concluded: "Does Donald Trump demonstrate the features of the Dark Triad? ... Absolutely and unequivocally." 

This opinion doesn't help us cope with the facts that Trump is President of the United States and enjoys the support of millions of Americans. Moreover, the Trump base doesn't regard him as crazy; they see Donald as their last chance to save America. What unites Trump and his base is anger. 

There are two elements of Trump's angry perspective. Both were displayed in his June 1st speech pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords. 

The first is his belief that the U.S. is being disrespected: "The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement. They went wild. They were so happy." Trump contends this happened because the rest of the world believed the U.S. had signed a bad deal. "At what point does [the rest of the world] start laughing at us?" 

This is the cornerstone of Trump's perspective: The U.S. is losing everywhere. The rest of the world is laughing at us. 

When Trump talks about "the rest of the world," he often implies people-of-color and non-Christians. He's overlaid "the world community outside the United States" with bigotry. Trump's racially-tinged xenophobia is shared by his base -- which is predominantly rural, White, and Christian. 

The second element of Trump's angry perspective is his contention that the United States is being taken advantage of. "We're losing everywhere." During his June 1st speech, Trump frequently used this imagery: 

The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States, to the exclusive benefit of other countries. This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States... the obvious reason for economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted, major economic wound. 

The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States’ wealth to other countries... Our businesses will come to a halt, in many cases, and the American family will suffer the consequences in the form of lost jobs and a very diminished quality of life. 

The same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and, in many cases, lax contributions to our critical military alliance. 

Beyond the severe energy restrictions inflicted by the Paris accord, it includes yet another scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States through the so-called Green Climate Fund... Foreign leaders in Europe, Asia and across the world should not have more to say with respect to the U.S. economy than our own citizens and their elected representatives. 

Exiting the agreement protects the United States from future intrusions on the United States’ sovereignty and massive future legal liability. 

These assertions are lies, but that doesn't matter to Trump's supporters. They believe him. Trump's message is consistent: America is losing. The rest of the world is taking advantage of us. Trump alone can save the U.S. 

One of the characteristic of a narcissist, such as Trump, is psychological projection: Donald takes an uncomfortable feeling about himself and attributes it to others. Thus, Trump believes he is being disrespected and turns this belief into "the U.S. is being disrespected." Trump feels that others are laughing at him and projects "the rest of the world is laughing at the United States." 

It's relatively easy to understand Trump's dysfunctional behavior but more difficult to understand that of his loyal followers. After the election, many polls noted that Trump supporters voted for him because they believed it to be their last chance to save the country and to regain power over their lives. Many Trump voters are angry because they believe the American dream is slipping away. 

In her landmark study, "Stranger in their own Land," sociologist Arlie Hochschild detailed the shared narrative, "deep story," of Trump voters who feel that, in their pursuit of the American Dream, they have been pushed aside by "women, immigrants, refugees, public-sector workers..." Trump has given voice to the resentment of his base. 

Trump may be a narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopath but that's not what determines his support. His base believes the American dream is slipping out of their reach. 

Bill Clinton famously remarked, "I feel your pain." Trump's motto should be, "I share your anger." 

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