Category: Homelessness

by Anna Daniels

One day last week I read that the City was disbanding its winter shelters, which not only provided protection from the elements but also linked people up with services they needed- health care, jobs, and housing. These shelters “housed” a very small percentage of the total homeless population but their importance shouldn’t be dismissed.

Last night I drove downtown to see firsthand San Diego’s own Tent City. And there it was, not necessarily in front of the main library, but along the west side of the Post Office, on the sidewalk, along Eighth Avenue.

Patty Mooney informed me that every night in front of San Diego’s downtown main library, a tent city pops up – right in front of the doors, and also across the street, in front of the Post Office.

by Patty Mooney

How many times have you passed up a sleeping figure underneath a blanket or tarp on the darkened streets of your city? Have you ever considered that this could be one of our war heroes?

As San Diego closes its winter shelter for our local homeless, nation-wide the homeless, joined by the jobless, are erecting tent cities. Among the cities which are grappling with an increasing number of tent city residents are Fresno, Sacramento and Los Angeles in California, New York City, Seattle and Olympia in Washington, and St. Petersburg in Florida.

Why is it that our society’s response to the tent cities that have sprung up of late been to send in the police who roust the inhabitants and slash up the tents?

Dozens of Ontario police and code enforcement officers descended upon the homeless encampment known as Tent City early Monday, separating those who could stay from those to be evicted.

Miami housing activists are organizing homeless people to illegally move into foreclosed homes. “We’re matching homeless people with people-less homes,” Max Rameau said with a grin. Rameau is part of a group of like-minded advocates who have formed Take Back the Land, which so far have moved six families into foreclosed homes, with nine on a waiting list. The organization also helps the new “tenants” with secondhand furniture, cleaning supplies and yard upkeep.

The Human Fallout from the Financial Crisis By Nick Turse / TomDispatch.com / October 19, 2008 On October 4, 2008,…