FRESNO, Calif. — As the operations manager of an outreach center for the homeless here, Paul Stack is used to seeing people down on their luck. What he had never seen before was people livingin tents and lean-tos on the railroad lot across from the center.Untold others are living in their cars - the only shelter they can have.
“They just popped up about 18 months ago,” Mr. Stack said. “One day it was empty. The next day, there were people living there.”
Like a dozen or so other cities across the nation, Fresno is dealing with an unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles, illegal encampments of homeless people that are reminiscent, on a far smaller scale, of Depression-era shantytowns. At his news conference on Tuesday night, President Obama was asked directly about the tent cities and responded by saying that it was “not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.”
It's just after sun-up. The streaks of light shimmer off the car windows. In the back of the Ford Explorer John Nilsen stirs. This is home. Clothes are kept in a suitcase. Food is wherever they can find it.Clearly cities are struggling to find ways of housing and helping the growing number of homeless people. But I fear this problem will only continue to grow, reflecting increasing unemployment. And the tide will turn only when the stimulus really kicks in and jobs become more available. Until then, thank goodness good weather is coming.
"It's definitely not something that you ever see yourself being, homeless," Nilsen says.
But homeless they have been for the past six weeks, ever since the money ran out and they were evicted from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, apartment they shared. Nilsen had lost his job, and Barboza is waiting for disability checks to start arriving.
Utahns, remember the Boy Scout Food Drive this weekend. If you are lucky enough to have plenty of food for your family, be generous in sharing with those who don't.
(Or you might prefer another tune of the same title by the late, great Utah Phillips.)
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4 comments:
I have an apartment attached to my house that I used to rent. The last two tenants have cost me money. I am still trying to get the last one out. They have not paid rent for 3 months. I frankly am not renting it out again.
When you consider the cost for upkeep and that I suddenly can take off only have of the mortgage interest on taxes it is not worth it. I wrote Obama's staff about the need to have some program that guarantees landlords rent when their tenants lose their jobs.
I saw a CNN report about people renting out rooms because people cannot afford deposits and first and last months rent, but I am unwilling to take on a tenant without that. So I am living on a lot less because it is better than losing money.
That's unfortunate, Jacqui, but you sure can't subsidize your renters. I think your experience shows another impact of the rising unemployment and homelessness.
Oh, it definitely does. And because of my studio business I have a merchant account which would allow me to do deposits and rent with a credit card. But more and more people do not have those.
No backlog of money for rent and deposit either. The government needs to subsidize more rentals in order to give people some place other than tent cities to live.
I dare say there are rentals everywhere not being let (in my immediate area there seven) because of no "newly homeless" with the money to move in.
What a bummer. Hundreds of people here at IBM and Mayo Clinic have lost jobs. Just a thought: I think it would easier for a woman to talk to the noise garbage man. Much less likely to turn into a confrontation if done right. If that doesn't work round up the neighbors and demand the authorities do something about it.
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