Tent Cities Full Of Homeless People Are Booming In Cities All Over America As Poverty Spikes

[lostinblue 1,989]

Tent Cities Full Of Homeless People Are Booming In Cities All Over America As Poverty Spikes

Just like during the last economic crisis, homeless encampments are popping up all over the nation as poverty grows at a very alarming rate. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than half a million people are homeless in America right now, but that figure is increasing by the day. And it isn’t just adults that we are talking about. It has been reported that that the number of homeless children in this country has risen by 60 percent since the last recession, and Poverty USA says that a total of 1.6 million children slept either in a homeless shelter or in some other form of emergency housing at some point last year. Yes, the stock market may have been experiencing a temporary boom for the last couple of years, but for those on the low end of the economic scale things have just continued to deteriorate.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-12/

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

This article has no proof of said "tent cities." That is a leap of (faulty and purposely misleading) logic.

[yuna628 9,530]

The article is whacky.. but tent cities is actually a real thing. We have them in our town. It is typically usually confined to smaller towns and on the outskirts of city limits, near problematic Wal-marts, but it's starting to move into suburbs of more prosperous areas too. The police don't really know how to deal with them, but it tends to run hand in hand with the heroin epidemic. A few of our resident homeless have upgraded tent life and have taken to squatting in abandoned homes these days.. but most locals here know exactly where the encampments are and can point them out easily. This has less to do with poverty overall though and a lot to do with drug abuse. Most of these men and women (some locals even have nicknames) could seek help if they wanted to, Not all of them beg either, and still collect a check to their PO boxes enough to pay for food, booze, and drugs every month. Another group here prefer to not live in tents, but maintain a living in small efficiency 'motels' along the I-95 corridor. It's certainly not the norm for the homeless I was accustomed to growing up for sure, and I wouldn't have given a thought to such things existing until I moved here and saw it firsthand.

[Rob L 3,811]

The article is whacky.. but tent cities is actually a real thing. We have them in our town. It is typically usually confined to smaller towns and on the outskirts of city limits, near problematic Wal-marts, but it's starting to move into suburbs of more prosperous areas too. The police don't really know how to deal with them, but it tends to run hand in hand with the heroin epidemic. A few of our resident homeless have upgraded tent life and have taken to squatting in abandoned homes these days.. but most locals here know exactly where the encampments are and can point them out easily. This has less to do with poverty overall though and a lot to do with drug abuse. Most of these men and women (some locals even have nicknames) could seek help if they wanted to, Not all of them beg either, and still collect a check to their PO boxes enough to pay for food, booze, and drugs every month. Another group here prefer to not live in tents, but maintain a living in small efficiency 'motels' along the I-95 corridor. It's certainly not the norm for the homeless I was accustomed to growing up for sure, and I wouldn't have given a thought to such things existing until I moved here and saw it firsthand.

I think the causes of these tent cities are complex, Issues getting folks in to rehab beds, underfunding in Mental health , pushing Mental and Drug issues through the criminal system, Veterans not being caught by the system. I can only go by what I see in my suburban Seattle neighborhood: I have never seen so many grown men sleeping in the woods and living out of shopping carts. Part of that has to be the economic boom we are seeing here which is driving housing costs through the roof.

Here is some historical context:

Median household income barely budged last year, edging up to $51,939 from $51,759 in 2012, the Census Bureau noted separately. Median income is still far from the $56,436 in 2007 and the all-time high of $56,895 in 1999. (Story continues after chart.)

In this regard, the typical American household has suffered from a lost decade, and then some, noted University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers. Stagnant income is a big reason why nearly half of all Americans think the recession is still going on, even though the National Bureau of Economic Research said it technically ended in June 2009.

Poverty always surges after recessions, as millions of people lose their jobs and incomes. In past recessions, poverty retreated fairly quickly from its extremes once the economy began to recover. That has not been the case in the past few recoveries, noted the Center On Budget And Policy Priorities, a think tank focused on poverty and inequality:

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

The article is whacky.. but tent cities is actually a real thing. We have them in our town. It is typically usually confined to smaller towns and on the outskirts of city limits, near problematic Wal-marts, but it's starting to move into suburbs of more prosperous areas too. The police don't really know how to deal with them, but it tends to run hand in hand with the heroin epidemic. A few of our resident homeless have upgraded tent life and have taken to squatting in abandoned homes these days.. but most locals here know exactly where the encampments are and can point them out easily. This has less to do with poverty overall though and a lot to do with drug abuse. Most of these men and women (some locals even have nicknames) could seek help if they wanted to, Not all of them beg either, and still collect a check to their PO boxes enough to pay for food, booze, and drugs every month. Another group here prefer to not live in tents, but maintain a living in small efficiency 'motels' along the I-95 corridor. It's certainly not the norm for the homeless I was accustomed to growing up for sure, and I wouldn't have given a thought to such things existing until I moved here and saw it firsthand.

From all you post about the bad neighborhood you live in... Move, girl!