Katrina's Ruins Home to Thousands of Homeless

At an abandoned 100-year-old factory, they find a few squatters. The factory has become a spot for day laborers working for temp services, restaurants, construction crews. The wages and tips, plus side tricks like collecting aluminum cans, aren't enough to get them into an apartment since rents skyrocketed after the storm.

www.msnbc.msn.com...


Okay, so here we go again. Homelessness is on the rise in the New Orleans even as there is supposedly growth in the city. The expansion of government programs to help them is just mind-boggling. Where there was once hope for New Orleans,there seems to be more doom on the horizon now the effects of Gulf oil spill are still unfolding.

It's not just New Orleans that is going under either. Many of you ATS'ers have been following the plight of many 'dead' or 'dying' cities across the U.S. so we understand that New Orleans isn't just an isolated event on this issue.

One thing that gets me is how under-reported tent cities have been in the news. One particular story I remember seeing came out of Florida awhile back. Apparently,there's a controversial plan now for the city to start planning and building tent cities as the growing number of homeless continues to grow.



There are many more examples of tent cities found on YouTube and most of them seem to be in California although there are reports of large ones in places like Texas and New Jersey also. What gets me is that the governments have money to waste on tent cities but they lack the will to put these people into all the abandoned or foreclosed homes which are literally rotting with each passing year. There are something like over 800,000 empty homes in the U.S. and they want to instead build tent cities and waste money on homeless shelters.

Welcome to the slow decay of the American landscape at the hands of a system gone awry.

Welcome to post owebummer America. This will continue and spread to all major cities and towns.

Deleted and moved to original post.

If anyone is going to be given a free home of those hundreds of foreclosed homes, first in line should be those of us who have worked hard, followed laws, respected others, but have never been able to own a home.
Then the government could take those apartments we have had to live in and let the homeless live there.

I would love to own a home..never been able to and have worked since I was 17years old, am now 54.

Originally posted by sharintexas
If anyone is going to be given a free home of those hundreds of foreclosed homes, first in line should be those of us who have worked hard, followed laws, respected others, but have never been able to own a home.
Then the government could take those apartments we have had to live in and let the homeless live there.

I would love to own a home..never been able to and have worked since I was 17years old, am now 54.

Yes,absolutely. More homeless people today are former homeowners themselves who have done their best to play by the rules but have been left out in the cold regardless. It's a sad scenario that being played out right now. Everyone's starting to feel the pinch.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon


You know I wondered the exact same thing the first time I heard about tent cities going up in the mid-west. Now keep in mind it has been a few years since I heard the reports and I only heard it once and then it dropped off the face of the news planet. Older Tent City Article I'm sure you've seen this article by now, but I believe this is the one I read a while ago.

These are stories that we will be hearing more and more of in the near future. With the housing situation being what it is and the job situation on top of that, this is the stark reality of life today. It sucks. It hurts. I wish it wasn't this way, but it is. People have become disposible because of their inconvenience and their sheer audacity to have fallen to a system that never gave 2 shakes about them in the first place. I try to be optomistic and not so doom and gloom but at times its just unrealistic when your eyes are open wide and you see things for what they really are.

Thank heavens for the workers of NOLA and those all over the country that do their best day in and day out trying to save those folks that most would, and do, look right through without a second thought.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon


Give them time. FEMA will probably whip up a new storm and wipe them out too. Or just wait on another to come blowing in and they'll "not realize it was that bad" and will be slow to respond or not respond until hundreds are already dead. Not that I'm 100% convinced that depopulation is happening, but it really wouldn't surprise me AT ALL.

Originally posted by MyMindIsMyOwn
reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

 

You know I wondered the exact same thing the first time I heard about tent cities going up in the mid-west. Now keep in mind it has been a few years since I heard the reports and I only heard it once and then it dropped off the face of the news planet. Older Tent City Article I'm sure you've seen this article by now, but I believe this is the one I read a while ago.

These are stories that we will be hearing more and more of in the near future. With the housing situation being what it is and the job situation on top of that, this is the stark reality of life today. It sucks. It hurts. I wish it wasn't this way, but it is. People have become disposible because of their inconvenience and their sheer audacity to have fallen to a system that never gave 2 shakes about them in the first place. I try to be optomistic and not so doom and gloom but at times its just unrealistic when your eyes are open wide and you see things for what they really are.

Thank heavens for the workers of NOLA and those all over the country that do their best day in and day out trying to save those folks that most would, and do, look right through without a second thought.

The cruel irony is that most,if not all, the tents these people are forced to live are made in China. How's that for globalization? I remember when I was growing that pretty much all the good camping gear used to be made in the U.S.A. Most things had nice,big tags on them or the boxes were clearly marked as such.

Originally posted by gemineye
reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

 

Give them time. FEMA will probably whip up a new storm and wipe them out too. Or just wait on another to come blowing in and they'll "not realize it was that bad" and will be slow to respond or not respond until hundreds are already dead. Not that I'm 100% convinced that depopulation is happening, but it really wouldn't surprise me AT ALL.

Given that America supposedly needs around $2 trillion dollars for infrastructure repairs (not upgrades),it probably won't be long before something else wonky happens. Things seem to be decaying on their own quite quickly. We can only hope they fix the things at the right time to prevent any more major problems.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon


I remember those times too! I'm not too much for TV these days and usually prefer alternate background distractions when not playing here on ATS, but yesterday I was a bit under the weather, reading a book was not too appealing, nor was the stereo so I tuned in the "Idiot Box" and watched some "American Pickers".... and something that was said on that show knocked me backwards. One of the hosts of the show actually said that all school children should be required to take a field trip to a junk yard just so they could see first hand that once upon a time in America we were self sufficient and were not always just consumers but were manufacturers as well.

I could hardly believe my ears! But in thinking about it, he was absolutely correct. We have zoos to protect wildlife so our children will see that we did at one time actually have space for all these wonderful animals to roam free and we have junk yards to prove that once upon a time America was self reliant and proud of it!

I'd love to know whatever happened to the Billions of dollars the federal government promised New Orleans to help them rebuild their city. As recently as late 2007, they were still saying they had seen a couple millions bucks total and were getting tired of begging the feds to make good on their promises. Seems like as soon as Obama was elected, Nagin went completely silent about those broken promises and decided to just let his city rot.

My meighbor has been working for the US census. they are instructed to seek out everybody, no matter where they may be living, even squarters. In fact, he was retained after the main effort. His job was to revisit those refusing the first census taken and convince them to partake. (Actually, it was not continuous employment. He was let go and rehired three times. Part of that move to make the employment numbers look good, so I understand.)

Undoubtedly, there will be many folks that fall through the cracks, but yet the totals will give us an accurate number of the dispossessed. The question is IF the results are really bad news for the government (and of course the current administration) will we get the honest numbers, or will they cook the books as they continually do with the unemployed numbers?

Originally posted by MyMindIsMyOwn
reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

 

I remember those times too! I'm not too much for TV these days and usually prefer alternate background distractions when not playing here on ATS, but yesterday I was a bit under the weather, reading a book was not too appealing, nor was the stereo so I tuned in the "Idiot Box" and watched some "American Pickers".... and something that was said on that show knocked me backwards. One of the hosts of the show actually said that all school children should be required to take a field trip to a junk yard just so they could see first hand that once upon a time in America we were self sufficient and were not always just consumers but were manufacturers as well.

I could hardly believe my ears! But in thinking about it, he was absolutely correct. We have zoos to protect wildlife so our children will see that we did at one time actually have space for all these wonderful animals to roam free and we have junk yards to prove that once upon a time America was self reliant and proud of it!

That is a brilliant idea if people are really wanting to change how future generations looks at things. However, this sort of mentality runs counter to the entire system of endless cyclical consumption at large. It would likely be met with resistance in some fashion if it took off and got too big. Companies, and in turn consumers who are employed by these companies, only care about the bottom line at the expense of the environment and the people who have to live in it. After all,you have to make money to pay all of those bills that pile up every month and to buy the latest and greatest must-have junk that will be out-of-fashion or obsolete in six months to a year.

Originally posted by Aliensun
My meighbor has been working for the US census. they are instructed to seek out everybody, no matter where they may be living, even squarters. In fact, he was retained after the main effort. His job was to revisit those refusing the first census taken and convince them to partake. (Actually, it was not continuous employment. He was let go and rehired three times. Part of that move to make the employment numbers look good, so I understand.)

Undoubtedly, there will be many folks that fall through the cracks, but yet the totals will give us an accurate number of the dispossessed. The question is IF the results are really bad news for the government (and of course the current administration) will we get the honest numbers, or will they cook the books as they continually do with the unemployed numbers?

Wow, I had totally forgotten about all of that. If this is the case, then the problem could be far worse than people realize. Maybe with New Orleans,they decided to just cut their losses. Perhaps they think it would just be a waste of time and money given the overall state of things.