Left News and Views

From Radio Havana Cuba:

Washington, October 3 (RHC)– Throughout the United States, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments — or Tent Cities — in recent years. According to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless, nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they’ve experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007.

The coalition says the problem has worsened since the report’s release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening. Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said that it is clear that poverty and homelessness have increased, adding that “the economy is in chaos, we’re in an unofficial recession and Americans are worried, from the homeless to the
middle class, about their future.”

According to media sources, the phenomenon of encampments has caught assistance groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up.

Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project — an umbrella group for homeless advocacy organizations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, California, as well as Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington — said that the relatively small city of Santa Barbara in California has designated a parking lot for people who sleep in their cars or trucks.

Boden also said that the city of Fresno, California is trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood. In Portland and Seattle, homeless advocacy groups have
paired with nonprofits or faith-based groups to manage tent cities as outdoor shelters.

Other cities where tent encampments have either appeared or expanded include Chattanooga, Tennessee, San Diego, California and Columbus, Ohio.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently reported a 12 percent drop in homelessness nationally in two years, from about 754,000 in January 2005 to 666,000 in January 2007.

But the 2007 numbers omitted people who previously had been considered homeless — such as those staying with relatives or friends or living in campgrounds or motel rooms for more than a week.

In Seattle, which is experiencing a building boom and an influx of affluent professionals in neighborhoods the working class once owned, homeless encampments have been springing up in remote places to avoid police sweeps. Homeless people and their advocates have recently organized three tent camps at City Hall in Seattle in acts of civil disobedience. The camps are to call attention to the homeless and protest the sweeps.

According to media sources, the phenomenon of encampments has caught assistance groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up.