Posted on 09/12/2016 11:05:04 AM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
Just like during the last economic crisis, homeless encampments are popping up all over the nation as poverty grows at a very alarming rate.
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than half a million people are homeless in America right now, but that figure is increasing by the day. And it isn’t just adults that we are talking about. It has been reported that that the number of homeless children in this country has risen by 60 percent since the last recession, and Poverty USA says that a total of 1.6 million children slept either in a homeless shelter or in some other form of emergency housing at some point last year. Yes, the stock market may have been experiencing a temporary boom for the last couple of years, but for those on the low end of the economic scale things have just continued to deteriorate.
Tonight, countless numbers of homeless people will try to make it through another chilly night in large tent cities that have been established in the heart of major cities such as Seattle, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis. Homelessness has gotten so bad in California that the L.A. City Council has formally asked Governor Jerry Brown to officially declare a state of emergency. And in Portland the city has extended their “homeless emergency” for yet another year, and city officials are really struggling with how to deal with the booming tent cities that have sprung up…
There have always been homeless people in Portland, but last summer Michelle Cardinal noticed a change outside her office doors.
Almost overnight, it seemed, tents popped up in the park that runs like a green carpet past the offices of her national advertising business. She saw assaults, drug deals and prostitution. Every morning, she said, she cleaned human feces off the doorstep and picked up used needles.
“It started in June and by July it was full-blown. The park was mobbed,” she said. “We’ve got a problem here and the question is how we’re going to deal with it.”
But of course it isn’t just Portland that is experiencing this. The following list of major tent cities that have become so well-known and established that they have been given names comes from Wikipedia…
Camp Hope, Las Cruces, New Mexico [1] Camp Quixote, Olympia, Washington State[2] Camp Take Notice, Ann Arbor, Michigan[3] Dignity Village, Portland, Oregon Opportunity Village, Eugene, Oregon Maricopa County Sheriff’s Tent City, Phoenix, Arizona New Jack City and Little Tijuana, Fresno, California[2] Nickelsville, located in Seattle[2][4] Right 2 Dream Too, Portland, Oregon[5] River Haven,[6] Ventura County, California[7][8] Safe Ground, Sacramento, California[2] The Jungle, San Jose, California[2] Temporary Homeless Service Area (THSA), Ontario, California[2] Tent City (100+ residents) of Lakewood, New Jersey[9][10] Tent City, Avenue A and 13th Street, Lubbock, Texas[11] Tent City, New Jersey forest[12] Tent City, Bernalillo County, New Mexico[13] Tent City, banks of the American River, Sacramento, California[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Tent City 3, Seattle Tent City, Chicago, Illinois [1] Tent City 4, eastern King County outside of Seattle The Point, where the Gunnison River and Colorado River meet[23] The Village of Hope and Community of Hope, Fresno, California[2] Transition Park, Camden, New Jersey Tent City, Fayette County, Tennessee, [2] Camp Unity Eastside, Woodinville, WA [3] China Hat Road, Bend, Oregon
Most of the time, those that establish tent cities do not want to be discovered because local authorities have a nasty habit of shutting them down and forcing homeless people out of the area. For example, check out what just happened in Elkhart, Indiana…
A group of homeless people in Elkhart has been asked to leave the place they call home. For the last time, residents of ‘Tent City’ packed up camp.
City officials gave residents just over a month to vacate the wooded area; Wednesday being the last day to do so.
The property has been on Mayor Tim Neese’s radar since he took office in January, calling it both a safety and health hazard to its residents and nearby pedestrian traffic.
“This has been their home but you can’t live on public property,” said Mayor Tim Neese, Elkhart.
If they can’t live on “public property”, where are they supposed to go?
They certainly can’t live on somebody’s “private property”.
This is the problem – people don’t want to deal with the human feces, the needles, the crime and the other problems that homeless people often bring with them. So the instinct is often to kick them out and send them away.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t fix the problem. It just passes it on to someone else.
As this new economic downturn continues to accelerate, our homelessness boom is going to spiral out of control. Pretty soon, there will be tent cities in virtually every community in America.
In fact, there are people that are living comfortable middle class lifestyles right at this moment that will end up in tents. We saw this during the last economic crisis, and it will be even worse as this next one unfolds.
Just like last time around, the signs that the middle class is really struggling can be subtle at first, but when you learn to take note of them you will notice that they are all around you. The following comes from an excellent article in the New York Post…
Do you see grocery stores closing? Do you see other retailers, like clothing stores and department stores, going out of business?
Are there shuttered storefronts along your Main Street shopping district, where you bought a tool from the hardware store or dropped off your dry cleaning or bought fruits and vegetables?
Are you making as much money annually as you did 10 years ago?
Do you see homes in neighborhoods becoming run down as the residents either were foreclosed upon, or the owner lost his or her job so he or she can’t afford to cut the grass or paint the house?
Did that same house where the Joneses once lived now become a rental property, where new people come to live every few months?
Do you know one or two people who are looking for work? Maybe professionals, who you thought were safe in their jobs?
Don’t look down on those that are living in tents, because the truth is that many “middle class Americans” will ultimately end up joining them.
The correct response to those that are hurting is love and compassion. We all need help at some point in our lives, and I know that I am certainly grateful to those that have given me a helping hand at various points along my journey.
Sadly, hearts are growing cold all over the nation, and the weather is only going to get colder over the months ahead. Let us pray for health and safety for the hundreds of thousands of Americans that will be sleeping in tents and on the streets this winter.
GMTA. One minute apart.
Obozo’s ‘legacy’
Obama/Clinton causation Deplorable.
Odungovilles
ZeroHedge just reprints what others post.
Elect Hillary Clinton and the problem will be solved. The people who were working will be homeless and the ones who weren’t working will be living in the working peoples’ houses. Then after that, even less people will question Hillary.
it’s called hope and change..
But you can’t say ZH doesn’t pass along interesting tidbits! To wit:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-16/where-worlds-unsold-cars-go-die
I myself will be homeless after Thanksgiving this year due to the horribly high property taxes where the house is located. The county has foreclosed and will auction the house December 2nd.
Funny, it doesn’t lead in the news the way it did for every day of the Reagan administration.
Yes, here we are at the breaking point. We have thousands of homeless on the streets, and more and more, they are committing crimes, defecating in public, etc. etc. etc. Lots of neighborhoods you now have to have bars on your windows.
MSM: SHHhhhh!!! The moratorium on homeless reporting isn’t lifted until at least 1 month into the next Republican administration.
There are at least two tent cities in our Maryland county: one in the woods behind a Walmart and the other near a trailer park close to one of the county libraries where my daughter works. She says they have at least twenty or thirty people in the library every day from the tent city. They usually don’t cause problems and spend most of their time on the computers filing out job applications.
“I myself will be homeless after Thanksgiving this year due to the horribly high property taxes where the house is located. The county has foreclosed and will auction the house December 2nd.”
My deepest sympathies.
The carpetbaggers did a lot of that during Reconstruction, too. One of the things that led to the first KKK.
Hired at an insurance agency?
If as a sales agent on straight commission, ugh! Been there, done that. You bust your butt 60+ hours per week and earn negative income. I don’t mean zero income, I mean negative. IOW, you’re paying to work.
You can easily spend more money out of your own pocket than you earn. I’d take minimum wage clerking at the dollar store before insurance sales.
but heroin use by consenting adults is apparently victim less...so there's that..
“All in southern or otherwise temperate areas.”
Honolulu is overrun with these people-—and they love the airport for overnights because of benches and bathroom facilities.
Nice,huh?
.
My sympathies. But is there nothing you can do? No way to pay the back taxes? No way to mortgage the property to pay taxes so you can still live there?
Please pardon me, no disrespect intended. But I am alarmed that you will lose your home Dec 2nd, and saddened if you truly have no alternatives. Take care.
But the economy is rebounding and unemployment is down ... so no worries, right? o.O
Yep. Exactly right.
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