Tent Cities Grow in California as Foreclosures Increase

Tent cities are cropping up in southern California, one of the regions hardest hit by the sub-prime mortgage and foreclosure crisis. Various news reports estimate anywhere from 300 to over 1,200 people, many of them whole families, living in tents in Sacramento. With homeless shelters full, many of the homeless are victims of job losses or foreclosures and have nowhere else to go.

The makeshift tent city, which lies within sight of Sacramento’s skyscrapers, has no electricity or plumbing.

Residents include a husband and wife who worked for the same company and who were both laid off on the same day¹, as well as a Vietnam veteran whose leg operation allowed him to walk after years in a wheelchair, but which also caused his disability payments to stop. Once the payments dried up, he could no longer afford to pay his rent.² Other residents said they were there because they could no longer afford their mortgage payments. Many of the homeless include those who worked in construction.

The state of California, faced with its own budget crisis, believes the tent city may be a permanent structure.³ Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson said, “Our shelters have seen an increase, four-fold, there are not enough shelters, and I believe as a city, we need to look at every option, and tent cities are something we should consider.”⁴

Another tent city has existed in Ontario, California, since 2007. While the city pays for trash pickup and portable showers, city officials decided to limit residents there to Ontario residents only after hundreds of people flooded in from other areas, threatening to overwhelm facilities. Dog bites, theft and access to drinking water are problems.

It’s shocking to see one of the world’s wealthiest nations unable to stem the rising tide of homelessness exacerbated by the recession’s lethal one-two punch ⎯ foreclosures and unemployment. The homeless people’s tents of 2009 look eerily similar to the old photographs of shantytowns that cropped up on the fringes of American cities during the Great Depression.

Homelessness has always existed in America, and while government provides shelters with a warm bed and a hot meal, many homeless people prefer the relative safety of life on the streets to sharing shelter space with addicts and mentally unstable roommates.

Should the government step in to do more? Where does our responsibility begin and end?

Footnotes

¹ “Struggling Americans Call Tent Cities Home,” ABC News, March 12, 2009
² “Tent City Highlights U.S. Homes Crisis,” BBC News, March 14, 2009
³ “Pictured: The Credit Crunch Tent City Which Has Returned to Haunt America,” Mail Online, March 6, 2009
⁴ “Tent Cities Pop Up in Area Hard Hit by Economy,” ABC News, March 10, 2009

Tags: Economy, effects of high unemployment, effects of recession, tent cities

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