Homeless near Venice Beach by Lewisha Jones, Some Rights Reserved
As I said in my last post, here in southern California, apart from communities like Riverside hard hit by the housing crisis, it's not immediately apparent the economy is on the rocks. Homelessness is a chronic problem in the US. I lived in Washington DC for almost seven years, andyou'll see people sleeping in many areas of downtown and even near the White House.
Joel John Roberts is the CEO of the housing development organisation PATH Partners, and he also writes the LA Homeless blog. The federal government says that homelessness is down, but he says that all you have to do is read local newspapers across the US to realise that the economic crisis is driving people onto the streets and into new tent cities and shanty towns.
The rise in foreclosures and a rise in homelessness could affect the election because Republicans have moved to challenge voters who are registered at the addresses of foreclosed homes.
Joel said that many of the homeless of LA are hidden. They disappear along the freeways, under bridges, bushes and in parks. It's difficult for him to estimate whether the homeless organisation that he heads is seeing an increase in homelessness. "We're always maxed out," he says.
Nationally, 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've seen a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless.
About 1% of the US population is homeless, in a large urban county like Los Angeles that means tens of thousands of people. The US government has targeted chronic homelessness, spending more than a billion dollars to reduce chronic homelessness by 15-20%. In 2005, the US government counted 80,000 homeless people in a three-day count in Los Angeles County, and two years later, they found 72,000. Joel calls this a "homeless numbers game" and said that government had just perfected their counting. Even with the reduced number, there are only 15,000 shelter beds in LA. And that count was last year before the housing crisis really gathered steam.
The count is also might misrepresent the problem of homelessness. Social services departments in LA say about 225,000 people say they were homeless at one point in time over the last year.
"To me, it's very disgusting to be a part of a country that allows this. I get angry when political people tell me that it's getting better. I see people losing homes right and left," he said.
However, most people who have lost their homes to foreclosure are not ending up on the streets, Joel said. Most of them are returning to the rental market. What he worries is that affordable housing has not kept pace with demand in the Los Angeles area. If large numbers of people are forced back onto the rental market, it might cause prices to increase, which would force people at the lower end of the market into homelessness.
Banks loaned money to people who couldn't afford their mortgages in the first place, he said. In late 2006, some families with sub-prime mortgages defaulted on their loans without ever making a payment. He advocates taking foreclosed homes and turning them into affordable housing.
A rise in tent cities
Shanty towns have existed for decades in American cities, but with anxiety about the economy, people are watching to see if large scale camps develop like the 1930s Hoovervilles, named after President Herbert Hoover who was blamed for causing the Great Depression.
Joel says that while shanty towns may have existed in US cities that his monitoring of local media across the country shows a spike in stories about them. "I don't buy the political perspective that homelessness is getting better when local papers are writing about more tent cities around," he said.
In Reno Nevada, joblessness has jumped 60% and a tent city of 170 people grew. Reno is trying to shut down the tent city and move people to newly opened shelters. CBS News has reported tent cities in Seattle, Portland, Fresno, Columbus, and Chattanooga. There are also reports of encampments in Seattle, San Diego, and Columbus, Ohio, Santa Barbara and Fresno California.
How does this impact the election?
The chronic homeless usually don't vote. They have no fixed address to register. Some states such as Ohio have tried to help homeless to vote, but Republicans challenged the voter registration drive even though the law that allowed it was passed by the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature in 2006.
The wave of foreclosures, which in some areas of the country disproportionately affect black voters, could also come into play. The Republican Party of Macomb County Michigan, one of three counties that make up Detroit, is planning to use list of foreclosed homes to challenge people who try to vote using those addresses.
Republicans claim that they are trying to prevent voter fraud. Homeless and voting rights advocates are trying to make sure that people don't lose their homes and their right to vote.
Technorati Tags: politics US elections economy homelessness
Related posts for polo shirt sale:
discount skateboarding shoes
for the blue jackets
men's french cuff shirts
saks shopping
mens warehouse new york
See also for polo shirt sale:
men's thong swim
women motorcycle jackets
underwear
can you buy blue
sunglasses rayban
Žádné komentáře:
Okomentovat