Aside from which, though may it never be said I am callous, I have a hard time seeing how people can be foreclosed out of a house unless they were messing around with things they should not have. Like setting up second mortgages on their homes for cash or something, and then finding that the falling housing prices meant their homes weren’t worth the charges anymore. Not very good for them, but not something I get misty-eyed sympathy for.
But since this is GD, perhaps someone can “larn me.”
I find info about tent cities in Seattle,Ontario,And other places in rich America. I see no one has taken a survey to determine how many foreclosed are in there. The cities are growing larger as foreclosures increase. I suppose it must be coincidence.
We are having a lot of squatters in the Dearborn Hgts, area. That of course is a manifestation of brilliant housing economics. So many empty houses to choose from. Wonder where all the people went.
What a garbage piece of journalism-- even worse than the first one:
So, they go out looking for foreclosure victims in the tent cities, can’t find any, but still claim they must be there.
I think I’ll let this thread die. Debating here just doesn’t feel sporting.
But… but… according to the article, “local housing experts” say it’s just a matter of time! And never mind that the article is three months old…
You know that this sentence is not true, right? It is a false sentence. It is baseless. It has no support. It is not true.
Let me repeat that. It is not true.
Did I mention that it is not true?
Yes. Yes, I did mention that it is not true.
Do you know why I said it isn’t true?
Because it isn’t true, that’s why.
It probably is true, Lemur. He didn’t say there was a causal relationship. 
And you know, in all honesty I’m sure there are people who are homeless due to foreclosure. I’m sure that was true 10 years ago and 20 years ago, too. What the hell is the debate supposed to be here, anyway?
I’m not at all surprised that, if there were tent cities in the US, they would be in California. It was hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis, and it’s got a good climate for that sort of thing.
I didn’t know anyone among my friends in the Bay Area, except for the ones who bought their houses years ago, who had a standard 20% down fixed-rate mortgage. 20% of those sky-high-and-climbing-20%-a-year home prices just wasn’t feasible for anyone who wasn’t a dot-com millionaire. And of course people who buy houses on the assumption that real estate prices are going to keep going up are going to buy the houses in places where real estate values are actually going up rapidly, and that generally happens in rich areas.
If you’re going to live in a tent city, California (at least the coastal and inland valley parts of it) is a good place to do it. There’s no snow and temperatures don’t go much, if at all, below freezing.
With respect to the OP, there is quite a bit of news coverage in Los Angeles about the tent city in Ontario. The focus hasn’t been the relationship between the mortgage crisis but on the response by Ontario. Ontario has now passed out wristbands to Tent City residents and will only allow residents who have a link to Ontario to stay.
cite: LA Times story
This paragraph may be somewhat instructive:
My opinion is that Tent City didn’t “spring up” because of the mortgage crisis. It “sprung up” because Ontario provided services to everyone and it acted like a magnet for homeless.
I just talked to my Dad about the tent city – he lives in Rancho Cucamonga, just north of Ontario. He’s told me basically the same thing bleach just said, and that things have starting hitting the fan in the last month or so, as the population has grown.
I agree. Now, did Ontario provide these services to “everyone” and create a “magnet for homeless” because it, well, had nothing better to do with its money?
Did everyone forget about the 1980’s? At one point in the mid to late 1980’s, homelessness was the cause of the day. That wouldn’t be so bad because homelessness has always been a problem. The issue in the 1980’s became that homelessness wasn’t primarily caused by mental health problems, substance abuse issues, or teenagers running away from their homes. Instead, it was played up highly as an economic problem and a housing crunch both of which were almost entirely untrue although you could did up poster families if you tried hard enough.
Made for TV movies, newspaper articles, and magazine covers made it clear that homelessness could infect any family especially mothers with small children. It was offensive to suggest that homelessness could be caused by anything other than an economic downturn and just regular people were the hardest hit. That was viewed as blaming the victim.
In the early 1990’s, the issue simply went poof and disappeared from the public consciousness. Nobody said anything but it seemed like everyone viewed the presented problem as a sham and vanishingly few single mothers were living in alleys with their young kids. Most of the public realized that most homeless people had mental illnesses or substance abuse issues. That doesn’t make it right but it is a very different problem than the one being presented.
It looks like we just warped back to 1986 although the SDMB sever timestamps seem to be screwed up.
Are you kidding me? Do you really think homelessness in greater San Francisco is something new? Or that it is tied in any way to the current problems?
Sorry, but nope.
I have heard nothing about the tent city in Ontario, but wouldn’t really be surprised by it. The city is trying to help some homeless folks. Great.
Are you capable of understanding the news.? Did it say to you that this man,is the only one in tent city that was there due to foreclosure ?. He was selected as a representative of the people in the city. You guys are so obdurate .
What do you think happens to people evicted from their home.? They finally have a chance to take that European vacation they have been promising themselves. ?
Yes. Are you? I actually read the article. Did you?
Yes, it did:
And since the article quotes no one else, it’s pretty clear that he was the only one they could find who was saying this (and it’s far from being certain that he was telling the truth).
Please show us any evidence from that article that indicates this.
No, we actually read the article. You clearly did not.
They become renters, I’ll bet. That’s the sense I get from my wife, who is a Legal Aid lawyer and who works on housing cases.
But if you think that people who go through foreclosures become homeless, then please provide a cite. Your BBC story has been thoroughly debunked here.
The real issue with homeless individuals is that thre’s very little to be done with them. Due to drug and/or mental illness issues, they can’t participate in the economy in any meaningful fashion. They can’t rent because they’re seriously troubled; they either won’t work or simply don’t pay the rent. Furthermore they really can’t be trusted not to wreck up the place - look at the problems landlords have with “ordinary” renters and think of how much worse it would be.
So, what does the Dope think we should do? Build wrecker apartments? (Cheap apartments which can be trashed with no loss.) If so, where? Try and afford the staggering cost of institutionalizing them, probably in miserable filthy conditions? Should they be concentrated where authorities can look after them or dispersed? City centers of quiet outskirts?
Y’know, I’m not sure there is a good answer.
That is true it has gotten much bigger.
Since your interpretation of this BBC story has been thoroughly debunked, let’s see a cite that increased foreclosures are leading to bigger “tent cities.”
:eek: Are…gulp…are you saying it HAS doubled?!? There are now 2(!!) (unidentified) men there due to the Great Foreclosure Crisis™??? Or maybe…gods, it hurts to even think it…maybe… … … 3???
-XT
And increasing foreclosures will result in more families put in the streets. You will admit that foreclosures are on a huge increase,wont you. ? Therefore many more homeless.