The Great depression had Hoovervilles! the great Recession is bringing tent cities

Homeless in America!



During the Great Depression, many families lost their homes because they could not pay their mortgages. These people had no choice but to seek alternative forms of shelter. Hoovervilles, named after President Hoover, who was blamed for the problems that led to the depression, sprung up throughout the United States. The following photos provide a glimpse of some Hoovervilles. In what ways do you think life changed for people who lost their jobs, life savings, and homes, and ended up living in Hoovervilles? Do you think most Hooverville residents had a choice about how they lived? Can you think of anything similar to Hoovervilles in the United States today? If so, how are they different or similar to the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression? click on the pictures, here we go again!

Two years ago I updated my rant about the homeless because as bad as things were getting all of a sudden how they count the homeless was changed and we were told the homeless situation in the country is improving.WTF! I am so sick of the lying the fact manipulation by these scum running the country! I have written so many stories about Homeless dumping by hospitals that is still going on. Stories of increasing homelessness of our veterans that is now around 25% of the total homeless.

I did a post on cities, San Diego in particular opening public lots and guarding them so those increasingly losing their homes can at least have a safe place to sleep in their cars that they increasingly can't afford gas for. I did a story on home foreclosures being up 121% nation wide from a year ago and 330% here in Massachusetts, there is no end in sight. Where are those people going? This is just the beginning as these people most often cannot afford health care and are increasingly faced with food kitchens closed because they have no food are there are too many to feed. THIS REALLY IRKS ME! Wait until the Republicans get their hands on things!

* Well now we hear the truth and it will get a lot worse! Back when I first wrote this and things were better A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer. Then others appeared -- people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring. Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" -- an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go. From Seattle to Athens, Georgia, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.

Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening. iReport.com: What are tough times forcing you to give up?

"It's clear that poverty and homelessness have increased," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the coalition. "The economy is in chaos, we're in an unofficial recession and Americans are worried, from the homeless to the middle class, about their future." The phenomenon of encampments has caught advocacy groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up. "What you're seeing is encampments that I haven't seen since the 80s," said Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, an umbrella group for homeless advocacy organizations in the California cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland -- and in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.

The relatively tiny city of Santa Barbara, California, has given over a parking lot to people who sleep in cars and vans. The city of Fresno, California, is trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood. In Portland, and Seattle, homeless advocacy groups have paired with nonprofits or faith-based groups to manage tent cities as outdoor shelters.

Other cities where tent cities have either appeared or expanded include include Chattanooga, Tennessee; San Diego, California; and Columbus, Ohio. As we said, The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently reported a 12 percent drop in homelessness nationally in two years, from about 754,000 in January 2005 to 666,000 in January 2007. But the 2007 numbers omitted people who previously had been considered homeless -- such as those staying with relatives or friends or living in campgrounds or motel rooms for more than a week.

In Seattle, which is experiencing a building boom and an influx of affluent professionals in neighborhoods the working class once owned, homeless encampments have been springing up -- in remote places to avoid police sweeps. "What's happening in Seattle is what's happening everywhere else -- on steroids," said Tim Harris, executive director of Real Change, an advocacy organization that publishes a weekly newspaper sold by homeless people.

Homeless people and their advocates have organized three tent cities at City Hall in recent months to call attention to the homeless and protest the sweeps -- acts of militancy, said Harris, "that we really haven't seen around homeless activism since the early '90s." In Reno, officials decided to let the tent city be because shelters were already filled. Officials don't know how many homeless people are in Reno. "But we do know that the soup kitchens are serving hundreds more meals a day and that we have more people who are homeless than we can remember," said Jodi Royal-Goodwin, the city's redevelopment agency director. tent cty's cropping up all across the country Things are not getting better!

** Those have you that have followed me for a while know I keep saying this is just beginning and will dwarf the Great Depression call it what you want and it gets worse but I will shut up!We are already seeing the Hoovervilles of the 21st century thanks to Bush's success and this is just beginning okay I better shut up!  More than 3 years into this they say things are getting better but this too is still just beginning!

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com