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Homeless people die all the time, doesn't make the news much.

Conversely, I live in a heap of homeless cadavers, emerging only at midnight to quiet my hunger for living flesh.

Still, it's in Islington, so the rent's a couple thousand a day.

Is a heart still a heart if it no longer beats?

If I have to pay all that money to the street dept. they sure as hell better be scraping them off the road in a timely manner!

Only if you flash sear them with a bit of cumin and garlic.

I always assumed that a lot of those lower low-income neighborhood houses were owned. As in, they've been in the family a few generations and the neighborhood's taken a bad turn around them. Now they can't be sold because no one wants to live there. Probably a nice big tax lien on them though.

Doesn't matter how often it's billed... still the same amount...

Your water bill isn't something unexpected though, so it's not like they are getting hit with a 60 dollar unexpected bill. And the person paying 20 dollars every month isn't paying any less than the person paying 60 dollars every 3 months.

So what exactly did to spend the extra 20 dollars a month on? Seems like if they have to decide between food and 60 dollars every 3 months, that they'd be deciding between food and 20 dollars every 1 month. Seems like if they can't afford one they'd still struggle to afford the other.

Nothing that they wouldn't be needing to spend it on, regardless of whether they were paying 20 a month or 60 a quarter, right? So how exactly are they better off either way, beyond the "20 is smaller than 60 so I my brain is tricked into thinking it's less".

Or, you know, if they are really poor and cannot afford the 60 dollars because they are needing to spend the money elsewhere, that they won't be able to afford the money anyway... like I said. They are going to be hurting with that 20 dollar bill no matter how they pay it, or don't pay it, since it's the same amount of money.

I really don't know how else to explain it so I'll take one last stab and call it done since I suppose it's not that important to me that you get it.

You have an income of, let's say for round numbers, $100. You have expenses of $400. That's food, utilities, clothes, booze, scratch-off tickets, whatever. No matter what, something is going unpaid and pushed off (not paying a bill, not buying new glasses, etc) If, in a single month, someone hits you up for $20, you reshuffle your spending to account for 20% of your income disappearing. It hurts but you can potentially get by on the other 80%. If no one hits you up, that $20 is immediately soaked into other stuff out of the $400 you need to cover.

If no one hits you up for three months and each month you use that $20 for other expenses then you get to the month where you owe $60. Now, in a single month you need to give up 60% of your income. This goes from "This sucks" to "No goddamn way in hell". So you just don't pay it because the threat of Mr. Water Man coming to your door in another six months of non-payment is less of a concern than having $40 to spend trying to fill that $400 hole. That's how a quarterly bill can be more painful than a monthly bill even when both come to the total sum.

There. That's the best I can do. God bless.