I also mentioned in my post then, that I had seen this done in Florida, before, when they sent the police in to cut up the tents and move them forcefully out. Well, they have moved them out of the area near the American River in Sacramento, CA. Watch here.
Yet, there are still others growing up in other areas yet again. Near Ontario, CA, which is just outside LA, as reported by the BBC.
Another Tent City is growing near Phoenix, AZ, and when I find some pictures of it I will post them.
4 comments:
Oprah ran the tent city story on her show, so locals might be pissed off that their city is being highlighted as this mecca for homeless.
The place I live tried a few different versions of tent cities.... winters are too rough- wet, cold.
Another huge problem is people do have to foot the bill for port-a-potties, and garbage.... they wound up
having a mish mosh of day facilities, and doing rotating churches for people to stay at.
Living in a tent is no way to go either.
A lot of these people are 50+ years old & chances are if you don't have a place to live, you probably don't have health care either.
It's overwhelming. On the rise & makes the Wall Street mess even more seriously aggravating.
Those idiots do not need bonus money (for screwing up!)... and these people are living in the most harsh squalor.
Where do the people go when their tent cities are forcefully broken up? It's very similar to the illegal problem I saw in San Diego where big encampments were hidden in ravines. Periodically the city would go bulldoze over the "nests". The people would scatter, but of course they don't disappear. They just move to another spot & set up again. That's what will happen with the temporarily disposessed tent city dwellers because the underlying problem of housing has not been addressed.
In St Pete when they cut up the tents the Catholic charities moved them over to an empty lot they had. There was so much protest over it the city finally had to end up moving them back into another area and it ended up costing them more than if they had left them alone in the first place.
What they had done was disgusting. They went in with knives and just literally cut their tents so they couldn't live in them, then threw their stuff, clothes and everything into dumpsters. That's what really fueled the outrage.
Even if they were homeless, it was their belongings, this was in 2007 and was just the beginning of the foreclosure mess in Florida. There were Families with small children there and people were really upset over it.
So, like I said the church moved them into the parking lots and a lot they had right next to the churches. Then the city opened an area for them to move back into and had to replace all their tents and belongings.
thanks for posting this, and all of the Homeless info and esp about the Tent Cities...it's really amazing how little regular media covers them...
Chris Hanson on Dateline has been covering evictions all over the country.....( big step for NBC)....I think I will write them and ask that he do Tent Cities too...
Here in Ohio esp Cleveland...the Catholic Church is closing 58 churchs- yes,the urban ones that care for the homeless and the suffering..and the elderly...and where they feed alot of people ( I am posting on it tomorrow...)
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