Fish? 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/kissimmee-star-motel/?tid=ss_tw
The aging motels along Florida’s Highway 192 have long been barometers of a fragile economy. In good times they drew budget-conscious tourists from China, South America and elsewhere, whose dollars helped to pay the salaries of legions of low-wage service workers; the people who made one of the world’s largest tourism destinations — “the most magical place on earth” — run.
In tough times, the motels degenerated into shelters of last resort in a city where low-income housing shortages were among the most severe in the nation and the social safety net was collapsing. Now they were fast becoming places where it was possible to glimpse what a complete social and economic collapse might look like in America.
The pandemic had heaped crisis on top of crisis. The 2008 housing collapse and recession had caused the tourist market to tank at the exact moment the foreclosure crisis was forcing thousands of homeowners and overburdened renters from their homes. Struggling motel owners began renting rooms to the only customers they could find, those who had no place else to go.
In the decade that followed, the tourists returned to Orlando by the millions. Executive salaries at companies such as Disney and Universal soared. So did local real estate prices, buoyed by a booming market for gated, luxury vacation homes.
But almost nothing was done to address the reality that many service workers had emerged from the recession saddled with stagnant wages, bad credit or eviction records that made it nearly impossible for them to rent an apartment and return to a normal life. Many spent much of the past decade stuck in motels with restful names — the Paradise, the Palm, the Shining Light, the Star, the Magic Castle — that belied an increasingly grim reality for both the owners and tenants who found themselves trapped together.
This article is incredible.
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Do you eat vegetarians?
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No, I only hunt them for sport.
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So you throw em back when you’re done?
Catch them by the pony tail, take a picture, release.
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Just by a hare
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Some good news about this story. The story mentions a gofundme that Rose, the 17-year-old trying to go to high school with ROTC and take care of her mother and grandmother at the same time, set up a while back which got no donations. I checked this morning and it was at $2k. Now it’s at $22k.
Hopefully this will help them get out of these post-apocalyptic zombie motels and into a decent place, and help Rose make a life for herself. You can’t save everyone (well we can’t, the govt sure could be helping more). But at least one person who deserves a better shot at life should get it.
I watch a film wrt these motels just over a year ago but forget the name of it… About a single mother with a 6/7 year old girl staying there trying just to get by beside the most wonderful place in the world.
@RiskyFlush might help me remember the name.
It hit a nerve with me also, it’s a sad.
Was it fiction or a documentary?
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Here’s the film:
The minimum wage in this country is criminal.
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This is a great movie as is his first film about transgender sex workers.
Thumbs up for The Florida Project. Iirc zikzak also have it high praise so it must be good.
@suzzer99 got it… The Florida Project…
It’s a great film and the young girl in it is excellent for such a young age.
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I want to read that thing and I want to watch The Florida Project, but I can’t handle too much while Trump is president.
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Manatee
Yeah, Florida Project is great, as is Tangerine, which I think is the one clovis is talking about. Sean Baker keeps finding amazingly empathetic stories to tell about people who don’t usually get their stories told.
Tangerine is an incredible movie. If you have not already seen it, may I recommend the also-excellent Lingua Franca? Streaming on Netflix US.
It is the first movie Isabel Sandoval made after her transition, and it is exquisite.
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Yes tangerine. Shot on an iPhone and still looks amazing. Such a good film.
Lingua Franca is so good. Nice recommendation.