(11:00AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
The economy sucks! Yes, we are in a recession! No, the fundamentals DO NOT look good for the economy to bounce back later this year (as per Bumbling Ben Bernanke).
As people over the past few years have lost their employment and due to that lack of income have also lost their homes, they have taken to moving into their cars, vans, RV’s, mobile camper trailers and anything up to and including a nicely appointed cardboard box.
Yes. Even a person now living in their Camper-Van is not considered to be Homeless. Their mobile vehicle is now considered to be a home. Only in George W. Bushs’ America.
In George W. Bushs’ vision of America, this is OK. No problem. Business as usual, you know. We have the “HAVES” and the “HAVE NOTS” and never the twain shall meet, right? I mean, they will pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they REALLY want to re-join regular society. Right? (Insert much foul language directed at Neo-Con’s here).
From Associated Press:
Having lost her job and her three-bedroom house, Darlene Knoll has joined the legions of downwardly mobile who are four wheels away from homelessness.
She is living out of her shabby 1978 RV, and every night she has to look for a place to park where she won’t get hassled by the cops or insulted by residents.
“I’m not a piece of trash,” the former home health-care aide said as she stroked one of five dogs in her cramped quarters parked in the waterfront community of Marina del Rey.
Amid the foreclosure crisis and the shaky economy, some California cities are seeing an increase in the number of people living out of their cars, vans or RVs.
My emphasis
See what I mean from above? Only four wheels away from homelessness?
Are you friggin’ kidding me? These people ARE HOMELESS!
Even the Media is buying the Bullsh*t that if they have a roof over their head, even if they don’t have a piece of land to park said “roof over head” on, they aren’t homeless. ASTOUNDING!
So, as I mentioned above, if you have a nicely appointed cardboard box that is mobile, does that mean you aren’t homeless either? I mean, the logic is the same. Grrrrrrrrrrr!
Back to the “piece of land to park said “roof over head.” There is an issue here. You will find that the good people of Los Angeles have real heart and care very much. See my emphasis below.
Overnight parking restrictions
Acting on complaints from homeowners, the Los Angeles City Council got tough earlier this year by forbidding nearly all overnight parking in residential neighborhoods such as South Brentwood.
But some people are just crowding into other parts of the city, including the seaside community of Venice, where dozens of rusty, dilapidated campers can be seen lined up outside neat single-family homes. The stench of urine emanates from a few of the vehicles, and some residents say they have seen human waste left behind.
“They’re nasty and gnarly,” said Venice resident Jeff Scharlin. “We’ve heard about drug dealing and prostitution in them. I’ve never seen it, but visually they’re a blight and they take up parking space.”
In Los Angeles, as in many other cities, it is illegal to live in vehicles on public streets. But the law is not easy to enforce. Police have to enter a vehicle to find signs that people are living there, such as cooking or sleeping, and occupants often refuse to answer when cops knock.
Yep. Taking up parking space is a real bitch in the city. HOW could anyone do such a thing to the people that have REAL HOMES and need a place to park Their Non-Lived-In Vehicle? Sheesh, the nerve!
The entire baby has been thrown out with the bath water since the Republican’s came into power back in 1994. What ever happened to a society that is caring and understanding? Where is the brotherly and sisterly love? How did it ever come to this?
Profit. The Have’s had a much better Public Relations Department than the Have Not’s.
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and helpful society. The Republican version of America is destroying this country, one have not person at a time.
I just heard Dick Morris on tv (yeah, I somehow managed to listen without throwing up). He said Obama tax increases would cause a recession (gasp!!!). As if we weren’t experiencing one right now.
A few weeks ago I heard Van Johnson talk about the reality that we are probably headed for stagflation (rising inflation with lowering employment), exactly what ended Carter’s first term and brought us Ragun.
Can we override the spin about who should be held accountable??? We’ll see.
with charges of “Bush’s Hooverville”?
“But for the Grace of God…” is what I keep saying to myself when I hand my pocket change to the woman standing in the median at a red light with a sign saying “Please Help”.
It breaks my heart to see these people, and I wonder what it will be like when the next poor bastard to lose his home is a few pounds bigger than the 150lb. guy currently standing on a busy corner begging for change. (he gets there before 7am when I’m on my way to work, and he is still there at 4:30 when I’m on my way home).
Right now, in the “Red” states along the Mississippi, people are being just as ignored during their flooding as the people of the Gulf Coast were ignored three years ago.
How much longer can we endure the policies of the Bush Administration? Ignorance is no excuse, Apathy is intolerable, but the twin evils of governmental ignorance and apathy have brought us a decidedly Un-United America.
Bumper sticker of the day:
.. the creation of a permanent underclass that will work and do menial labor for a survival wages.
You can’t have extraordinary wealth without extraordinary poverty. Let’s call it what it is : theft of labor by the ruling elites.
Don’t like what the people who are parked on your block at night look like, smell like, do with their garbage or need? Don’t help them out. Just pass an ordinance forbidding them from parking there. That’ll solve the problem. Not.
As homelessness (including the working people living in the 20 year old RVs) increases, local governments’ official policy is to make these people invisible. No parking over night. No staying in the park after dark. No cooking in the park. No loitering. No sleeping. On and on. And the national government’s response? Crickets. How could they respond to something that just doesn’t exist?
America: a nation on the move!
I lived in Houston I used to refer to the homeless people’s shopping carts as Republican mobile homes, making lots of Rs mad at me. I had to leave Houston because of the “stable population” of homeless in my neighborhood. I could never teach myself to step over them and ignore, the need was too great. I know leaving didn’t solve anyone’s problem but my own, but I just got to the point where I couldn’t stay and feel helpless. My small town has extreme poverty but no homeless–so far. It will come to it and then I’ll be faced with my own inaction.
reminded me of a similar article I saw a few weeks ago on CNN: Mom forced to live in car with dogs.
The bright side of her situation (if there is such a thing) is that in her town, Santa Barbara, an outreach organization has arranged for “Safe Parking” for those forced to live in their cars. There’s even a lot for women only.
It’s really sad that it’s come to this but I hope that other cities will offer similar services.
Thanks for the excellent essay brobin.
http://a-list.msn.com/
a solution for all these empty 100+ lot subdivisions sitting around me, with no houses built, but sewer and water available, could be used by the homeless. I understand these are being sold to overseas investors as the developers are going bankrupt. Absentee ‘landlords’. Just kidding…not.