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For more hard-pressed Americans, a campsite is home
csmonitor.com ^ | 8/31/09 | Patrik Jonsson

Posted on 09/01/2009 2:55:56 PM PDT by Kartographer

A gravelly campground off Interstate 40 in central Tennessee is a last refuge for a hodgepodge of Americans: Here you can get a $275-a-month camping spot with a 30-amp electric outlet and a scratchy Wi-Fi signal emanating from “the bathhouse” down the lane.

“It’s my permanent home – for now,” says Terry Lee Ballard, who says he runs a small record label from his “tent condo,” which is replete with “redneck engineering” such as a tent-flap air-conditioning unit.

As cities from Sacramento, Calif., to Tampa, Fla., debate the merits of tent cities to house newly homeless people (many of them young families), this recession is starting to yield scenes that evoke the Great Depression, especially at places like Timberline Campground in Lebanon, Tenn.

(Excerpt) Read more at features.csmonitor.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: Tennessee
KEYWORDS: homeless; unemployment
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That's OK Obama well soon have some nice comfortable FEMA camps for them to move into.
1 posted on 09/01/2009 2:55:57 PM PDT by Kartographer
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To: Kartographer

Some campsites are better than my house!

If we need to leave MI, we will be doing this. Better than the people living in Storage Units. At least they have toilets and showers.


2 posted on 09/01/2009 2:57:51 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Psalm 109:8 - Let his days be few; and let another take his office)
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To: Kartographer

I’ve always wanted to buy a fifth wheel and a pickup truck and live on the road.


3 posted on 09/01/2009 2:57:55 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist ("It (Gov't) can't make you happier, healthier, wealthier, and wise" - Sarah Palin 07/26)
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To: Kartographer

“It’s my permanent home – for now,” says Terry Lee Ballard, who says he runs a small record label from his “tent condo,”

...wouldn’t want to consider switching careers there now would you?


4 posted on 09/01/2009 2:59:07 PM PDT by albie
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To: Kartographer

Are these Obamavilles?


5 posted on 09/01/2009 3:00:43 PM PDT by stevem
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To: Kartographer

I’m not clicking the link.

Probably somewhere this article will lead us to remember this one basic liberal fact.

It’s Bush’s Fault.


6 posted on 09/01/2009 3:01:10 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (I am Legend)
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To: Kartographer
he runs a small record label

I feel his pain. My 8-track tape business is totally flatlining. Can any one spare some ramen noodles?

7 posted on 09/01/2009 3:01:13 PM PDT by Huck ("He that lives on hope will die fasting"- Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac)
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To: Kartographer
"OBAMAVILLE"
8 posted on 09/01/2009 3:01:49 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie ("UPS and FEDEX are doing fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems." - 0bummer)
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To: Kartographer

The new Obamavilles.


9 posted on 09/01/2009 3:02:37 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: stevem
If it's good enough for the president's brother, it's good enough for you, prole...


10 posted on 09/01/2009 3:03:04 PM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum)
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To: Kartographer

Hope and Change.

5% unemployment under Bush and a Repub Congress.


11 posted on 09/01/2009 3:03:58 PM PDT by Frantzie (Lou Dobbs & Glenn Beck- American Heroes! Bill O'Reilly = Liar)
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To: Kartographer

Obama’s fault.


12 posted on 09/01/2009 3:04:51 PM PDT by Hattie
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To: Huck

What a perfect Ben Franklin tagline!!!


13 posted on 09/01/2009 3:05:28 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Obama Targets Medicare Advantage Plans (Seniors Are Getting Screwed!!!))
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To: Kartographer
“It’s not quite Hoovervilles, but it’s getting there,” says Leonard Heumann, a housing policy professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Actually, they're called "Obamavilles".

14 posted on 09/01/2009 3:05:35 PM PDT by Oatka ("A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." –Bertrand de Jouvenel)
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To: Kartographer

Let’s call Tent Cities “obamaville”


15 posted on 09/01/2009 3:09:34 PM PDT by NavVet ( If you don't defend Conservatism in the Primaries, you won't have it to defend in November)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
I’ve always wanted to buy a fifth wheel and a pickup truck and live on the road.

It's the most freedom you'll ever experience, except maybe base jumping from orbit...

16 posted on 09/01/2009 3:12:34 PM PDT by John Titor
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To: Kartographer

I keep telling the wife that we should sell the house and live in the Airstream full-time. She eyes the available closet space and says “No.”


17 posted on 09/01/2009 3:14:16 PM PDT by ReeseBN38416
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To: Kartographer

I will not poke fun at these people.
Some are there for poor decisions in life
others are there due to layoffs or
for some other financial disaster.
This is only going to get worse.
All of the campsites at the state parks
that I have visited lately have been set
up to look like permanent residences.
At some point we will reach critical mass.


18 posted on 09/01/2009 3:17:20 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (I AM JIM THOMPSON!)
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To: albie

To what?


19 posted on 09/01/2009 3:18:30 PM PDT by autumnraine (You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out!)
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To: Kartographer

Campers are going pretty cheap right now.
Might be a good time to pick one up.
My house is only half paid off.


20 posted on 09/01/2009 3:20:58 PM PDT by mowowie
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