Tent Cities Forming on the outskirts of the major cities.

[stephendare]

http://crooksandliars.com/node/26533

MSNBC has been reporting on the huge tent city forming outside Sacramento, including a remarkable photo essay on the encampment. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29528182/displaymode/1107/s/2/) Similarly, a Daily Mail piece offers more detail:

Mikkel Fishman at The Moderate Voice has more details on the economic and political background.

As Chris Jansing reports, this isn't the only "tent city" gaining in size: So are similar encampments near Seattle, and Reno, and Nashville. Down in Dallas, the need for an encampment is rising quickly.

In other words, by mid-summer, we may see these encampments around the country. And they deserve a name:

Bushvilles.

When Americans had to endure such hardships 80 years ago -- forming shantytowns made of wood shacks and canvas tents -- they named them in honor of the president who had done nothing to prevent the oncoming recession and ultimately Depression into which he had led them.

They called them Hoovervilles:

hooverville_bb9c1.jpg

    A Hooverville was the popular name for shanty towns built by homeless men during the Great Depression. They were named after the President at the time, Herbert Hoover, because he allegedly let the nation slide into depression. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee.[1] The name Hooverville has also been used to describe the tent cities commonly found in modern-day America.

    Homelessness was present before the Great Depression, and hobos and tramps were common sights in the 1920s, but the economic downturn increased their numbers and concentrated them in urban settlements close to soup kitchens run by charities. These settlements were often formed on empty land and consisted of jerry-built shacks and tents. Authorities did not officially recognize these Hoovervilles and occasionally removed the occupants for technically trespassing on private lands, but they were frequently tolerated out of necessity. The New Deal had special relief programs aimed at the homeless, the Federal Transient Service (FTS), which operated 1933-35.

    Some of the men who were forced to live in these conditions possessed building skills and were able to build their houses out of stone. Most people, however, resorted to building their residences out of box wood, cardboard, and any scraps of metal they could find, together with a stove, bedding and some cooking utensils.

    Most of these unemployed residents of the Hoovervilles used public charities or begged for food from those who had housing during this era. Democrats coined other terms, such as "Hoover blanket" (old newspaper used as blanketing) and "Hoover flag" (an empty pocket turned inside out). "Hoover leather" was cardboard used to line a shoe with the sole worn through. A "Hoover wagon" was an automobile with horses tied to it because the owner could not afford gasoline; in Canada, these were known as Bennett buggies, after the Prime Minister.

[Sigma]

I like "Union Crossing" myself.   

[Jason]

More reason to move the support facilities out of the core.

[Deuce]

I agree with our esteemed Global mod.

The "streets" in the tent towns should be named after all the politicians since they all played a part in setting the stage for this to happen.

[Johnny]

Are they on the corner of Fannie Mae Blvd & Freddie Mac Ave? You can probably get there by Bush Warning 2002 St.

[jaxnative]

Maybe they should be called Barneyvilles and Chris "Country Wide" Dodd can be the Grand Mayor.  The weasels who are now ready to right the hen house.

Let The Inquisition Start With Frank
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, March 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Oversight: Congressman Barney Frank says he wants some of those responsible for our current financial meltdown to be prosecuted. And we couldn't agree more. First up in the court dock: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.


Even by the extraordinarily loose standards of Congress, it takes some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he'll seek prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crunch and for what he called "a strongly empowered systemic risk regulator."

Frank: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's point man in Washington.
For Frank, perhaps more than any single individual in private or public life, is responsible for both the housing market mess and subsequent bank disaster. And no, this isn't partisan hyperbole or historical exaggeration.

But first, a little trip down memory lane.

It was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two so-called Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), that lay behind the crisis. After regulatory changes made to the Community Reinvestment Act by President Clinton in 1995, Fannie and Freddie went into hyper-drive, channeling literally trillions of dollars into the housing markets, using leverage and implicit taxpayers' guarantees.

In November 2000, President Clinton's Housing and Urban Development Department would trumpet "new regulations to provide $2.4 trillion in mortgages for affordable housing for 28.1 million families." The vehicles for this were Fannie and Freddie. It was the largest expansion in housing aid ever.

Still, from the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie.

Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other Democrats) stood athwart efforts by regulators, Congress and the White House to get the runaway housing market under control.

He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another attempt bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank responded it wasn't needed because there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."

In 2002, Frank nixed reforms again. See a pattern here?

Even after federal regulators discovered in 2003 that Fannie and Freddie executives had overstated earnings by as much as $10.6 billion in order to boost bonuses, Frank didn't miss a beat.

President Bush pushed for what the New York Times then called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago."

If it had passed, the housing crisis likely would have never boiled over, at least not the extent it did, taking the economy with it. Instead, led by Frank, Democrats stood as a bloc against any changes.

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis," Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, said. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

It's hard to say why Frank did all this. It could be his close ties to the Neighborhood Assistance Corp., a powerful housing activist group based in Boston, which controls billions in loans. Or that he received some $40,100 in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie from 1989 to 2008. Or that he has been romantically linked to a one-time executive at Fannie during the 1990s.

Whatever the case, his conflicts are obvious and outrageous, and his refusal to countenance reforms of Fannie and Freddie contributed mightily to today's meltdown. If you're looking for a culprit in the meltdown to prosecute, no one fits the bill better than Frank.

[heights unknown]

It's a crying shame we even have to come to this...tent cities, whether on the outskirts of cities or in the cores; all the money that's being flung around within the nation, and to other parts of the world, and we can't even take some of that money and build programs for the homeless and homeless shelters, i.e., to help them out of homelessness and back to "normalcy."

They're even talking about it in certain cities in Florida (Bradenton, Sarasota, etc.) with the Churches become activists in erecting such "tent" cities or camps.  I was asked to be proactive and help when these cities are launched by the Churches and others (not Salvation Army or United Way...they don't want any part of this).  Anyway, the more people stamp out the homeless programs and discount the fact that there are people who need help, our economy will never recover.

Heights Unknown

[Doctor_K]

I didn't vote for Clinton.  I was too young in '96.  :-) 

And Barney Frank's a) a Democrat and b) not in my state.

"not it"

[NotNow]

"Our food bank is pretty damn low right now.  What happens when they run out of food. "  (sic)



It looks to me like we just print more money and buy some more.  And a new car for all while we're at it!

[CrysG]

Memo to self: Go to Wal-mart, buy all the tents, sit back and wait....I'm gonna be rich.

In all seriousness my grandmother used to tell me stories about going through the depression. They are not pretty stories. I see things in the news that remind me of her stories. I don't care who's fault it is but we need to come up with a plan. I read some place that if they were cut tax payer a refund instead of all the bail outs, that we'd all get $22k a PIECE. I'm sure that would be enough to get some of people living in tents back onto their feet.

[Sigma]

They could have taken that stimulus and paid off everyone's mortgage!  How great would that be? But some people would figure out a way to screw that up and continue complaining.

[Lunican]

Corporate meltdown leaves renters in limbo
Large apartment complexes abandoned to receivership and unruly weeds

Nicholle Krause first noticed the weeds sprouting in the usually well-manicured grounds of her 320-unit apartment complex in Chandler, Ariz., in December. Soon, signs of neglect began multiplying: Garbage spilled over from the dumpsters, the water in the swimming pool turned a slimy pea green and the grounds were infested by swarms of bees â€" especially alarming because Krause is severely allergic to bee stings.

Full Article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29697413/

[CrysG]

Wow as an apartment renter I never really gave much thought to the foreclosures that were happening. I never thought about my complex having problems. I guess I took for granted that they would pay their bills and have the money.

Thanks for posting this.