They're spreading across the country, as the ranks of the chronically homeless are joined by the victims of the recent economic catastrophe. Awhile back, I talked about Sacramento tearing down their tent-city after it netted them a lot of bad international publicity. However, that measure proved to have all the usefulness of a finger in a dike. From USA Today's cover story this morning:
For the economic homeless, the American ideal that education and hard work lead to a comfortable middle-class life has slipped out of reach. They're packing into motels, parking lots and tent cities, alternately distressed and hopeful, searching for work and praying their fortunes will change.
"My parents always taught me to work hard in school, graduate high school, go to college, get a degree and you'll do fine. You'll do better than your parents' generation," Marshall says. "I did all those things. … For a while, I did have that good life, but nowadays that's not the reality."
Tent cities and shelters from California to Massachusetts report growing demand from the newly homeless. The National Alliance to End Homelessness predicted in January that the recession would force 1.5 million more people into homelessness over the next two years. Already, "tens of thousands" have lost their homes, Alliance President Nan Roman says.
The $1.5 billion in new federal stimulus funds for homelessness prevention will help people pay rent, utility bills, moving costs or security deposits, she says, but it won't be enough.
"We're hearing from shelter providers that the shelters are overflowing, filled to capacity," says Ellen Bassuk, president of the National Center on Family Homelessness. "The number of families on the streets has dramatically increased."
Jim Marshall, mentioned above, was a Detroit autoworker. Other inhabitants of Pinella's Hope, a Florida tent city run by Catholic charities were waiters or involved in construction or real estate. As the tent cities bump up against already fearful subdivisions, conflicts spark.
In addition to the usual stresses of being homeless, there's the fact that people like Marshall used to be making $50,000 a year, with their own homes and careers. Now he's selling plasma to get by.
At this point, he has lowered his expectations. "I don't expect ever to make $50,000 a year working in the auto industry, but just enough to survive, have my own place, buy my own food, my own clothes," he says. "What every American would expect."
There are 7,500 homeless people in Pinella County, 1,300 of them are children.
7,500 angry, desperate people is no longer just a problem: it's an army waiting to happen.
Well, we all saw this coming. But it's still scary..
..enter a charismatic leader?
Posted by: m1k3y | May 05, 2009 at 11:25 PM