Homeless tent cities leveled / banned across the United States

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

From SEP/WSWS:

Homeless tent cities leveled in St. Louis and Philadelphia, banned in Denver

A string of riverfront tent cities north of St. Louis, Missouri have been leveled by bulldozers in the past week, displacing scores of homeless residents with nowhere to go. Homeless advocates and churches have said their facilities are already overwhelmed with need. One church, the New Life Evangelistic Center, has leased a parcel of land to allow homeless people to temporarily rebuild dwellings.

City officials responded to the move, “almost shocked,” according to local Fox News channel KTVI, by attempting to ban homeless camps. “Why in the world would you even think about replicating a tent city?” human services director Bill Siedhoff said. “That is absolutely unnecessary. It’s unlawful, and it’s never gonna happen in the city of St. Louis.”

The largest tent city, called Hopeville, was formed in 2010 after homeless people were forced out of an old tunnel system that the city filled in.

“As a great community we would help these people,” Mark Schulte, an attorney who owns property near the razed camp commented to the Post-Dispatch. “The banks in our nation and community have been bailed out and are sitting on tens of thousands of vacant housing units.”

Earlier this month, a large tent city north of Philadelphia was ordered dismantled by police to make way for the construction of a warehouse. “I have nowhere else to go,” 46-year-old John Haacke told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter. “I get $200 a month from welfare, I’m looking for a job, and I’m living within my means. I can’t find any place to rent for that kind of money. Nobody wants you—you become a misfit.” Haacke was laid off from IBM, where he had worked as a computer network specialist.

“I don’t need medication, I’m not on disability, I get $200 in food stamps a month, that’s it,” 51-year-old Scott Brookshire explained. “You’re told you can look for work, but I have no transportation to get there. Give me a bus pass so I can get around.” The local homeless shelter has 80 beds, but there is a waiting list to get in.

Tent city resident Jim Sandonato told the Inquirer that he and his wife found themselves homeless in January after being evicted from their apartment. They lived in their car until it broke down. Sandonato lost his welding job of 13 years in 2009. The couple’s three children were put in foster care a year ago.

In Denver on Thursday, Mayor Michael Hancock signed an ordinance banning camping within the city. The City Council approved the ban May 14 “in the face of an angry crowd that taped dollar bills to their mouths, chanted ‘shame’ after the 9-4 vote and staged a sit-in outside the chambers,” the Denver Post reported.

Denver’s homeless population has spiked in the past few years, to more than 12,000, 28 percent of whom sleep unsheltered on the streets.

[MotherCossack]

I am going to be honest....
this is a view of hell.
What else can I say?
I would thank god if there was one to thank that such as this does not happen in my manor.
But that means little... just because these atrocities are a bit too far away for me to see them.....
can anyone explain to me how this can be allowed to happen?
There are individuals who introduced the idea and others who sanctioned it, then planned and carried it out......
What manner of man or woman does that?
Am I in hell ...what are we?
Such a display...paints a graphic and horrific picture of our species at it's most degenerate.
I am ashamed and furious.... how can we claim to be enlightened, civilised, intelligent or in any way superior to the many creatures that share this planet. [unfortunately for them]

[Revolution starts with U]

“As a great community we would help these people,” Mark Schulte, an attorney who owns property near the razed camp commented to the Post-Dispatch. “The banks in our nation and community have been bailed out and are sitting on tens of thousands of vacant housing units.”

Big surprise. Yet it's not HIM that's going to "help these people." Not by giving up his property, nor by forcing the banks to start putting people in vacant homes.

What a dick

[KurtFF8]

Big surprise. Yet it's not HIM that's going to "help these people." Not by giving up his property, nor by forcing the banks to start putting people in vacant homes.

What a dick

While I do see the irony in this quote you've posted (something the writer of the article clearly put there for a reason), we shouldn't get too caught up in that kind of logic.

If the lawyer gave up his personally owned property: would that end homelessness? It would certainly be admirable but it also would not be the same thing as dealing with the contradiction of vacant homes sitting around everywhere while there are homeless folks.

[Threetune]

While I do see the irony in this quote you've posted (something the writer of the article clearly put there for a reason), we shouldn't get too caught up in that kind of logic.

If the lawyer gave up his personally owned property: would that end homelessness? It would certainly be admirable but it also would not be the same thing as dealing with the contradiction of vacant homes sitting around everywhere while there are homeless folks.

So what’s your ‘solution’?

[El Oso Rojo]

if I remember correctly, that big ass annoying casino wanted hopeville removed, and to make matters worst. the homeless activist rev larry rice tried to rebuild another tent town on a patch of land on 1-44 and ventereventer. Here in Saint Louis but the residents had a huge fuss and excuse him of using the hopeville citizens. The city arrested him and put him jail with the other who refused to moved, and send the rest to a emergency shelter. This one woman piss me off, selfish witch. those people are not going to do jack shit to her kids.

[Hexen]

Under capitalism, the homeless is used as a weapon by the bourgeoisie to keep the lower classes in line.

Of course this is also a product of US mentally that the homeless are 'failures of rising to the top' hence they see them as trash left to starve and die.

Empathy and Capitalism are antithetical.

[KurtFF8]

So what’s your ‘solution’?

End housing as a commodity market and guarantee good homes for everyone?

The decommodification of housing is the first (and perhaps most important) step towards ending homelessness. The problem is that a major part of capital accumulation is intertwined with the housing market (as David Harvey's new book Rebel Cities demonstrates quite clearly in my opinion). Thus it would have to be part of a broader struggle against capital.


Under capitalism, the homeless is used as a weapon by the bourgeoisie to keep the lower classes in line.

Of course this is also a product of US mentally that the homeless are 'failures of rising to the top' hence they see them as trash left to starve and die.

Empathy and Capitalism are antithetical.

Well yes and no. The affect of homelessness is indeed tied to the idea of the "reserve army of labor" and all that. But at the same time, the cause is more about the accumulation and production process itself (and the housing market as I pointed out above).

So it's not like the bourgeoisie are plotting new ways to keep people on the streets because it benefits them, rather it's just a consequence of the system itself.

[danyboy27]

Good luck lowering the crime rate with a bunch of folks who cant find a spot where they can sleep after they are evicted from their homes.

There is so many stupid thing going on, i cant really decide if the people at the top dont care, are too stupid or all of the above.

[Firebrand]

There is so many stupid thing going on, i cant really decide if the people at the top dont care, are too stupid or all of the above.

I think that quite often they actually don't understand. For the most par the people in power were born priviliged, went to priviliged school, never had to be afraid of running out of money or losing their home, and probably didn't know anyone who did. It is outside their experience, so far outside their expericence that they can't conceptualise it.

They have no idea what it's like to live on benefits or be afraid of ending up on benefits. While they are objectively aware of the existance of poverty and homelessness, they have never been anywhere near them and to be honest don't want to be near them. So they enact policies that will benefit themselves with no real comprehension of the human cost of their decisions.

[MotherCossack]

And by that token it is unfair to judge them too harshly for their total failure to regard the welfare of a significant number of the poorest and deprived. Those who are a product of the system which on the one hand gives so much to the fortunate few with a place near the plate but in doing so fails to provide for the majority of people. [very often, with horrific and indefensible consequences.... the actions discussed in this thread being only one example.]

If this over-indulged and pampered club can honestly claim ignorance with regard the monumental suffering that their excesses cause....and deny any knowledge of the terrible price that others , many others, pay every minute of every day to maintain the life to which they have become accustomed......

Then We must EDUCATE THEM!!!!! As a matter of the most pressing urgency!!!!!!!!

That way..... if they continue with their indulgent and distastefully excessive consumption.....
WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO PASS JUDGEMENT AND ISSUE PUNISHMENT AS WE SEE FIT!!!!!!!!

SO BEWARE YOU BOURGEOIS BUNCH ....... MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR COSY CORNER..... THE FLOOR IS ABOUT TO GET UP AND EAT YOU FOR DINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MotherCossack]

I bloody wish!!!!!!!!!

[Robocommie]

I recall reading somewhere that the number of unoccupied houses or apartments which are suitable for human habitation in the US (not condemned) actually exceeds the number of US homeless. I've been wanting to get ahold of some statistics to be able to use that later in arguments. Anyone got any tips on that?

Edit: Found this at the US Census bureau's website. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/qtr308/files/q308press.pdf

That information tells us that in the third quarter of 2008, there were 18.6 million vacant homes nationwide. The report states that 4 million of those vacant housing units are up for rent, and 2.2 million are for sale, while 7.6 million are listed as vacant for miscellaneous other reasons. Even if we discount those 7.6 million housing units, many of which might be vacant because of fire/flood damage or vermin infestation, that leaves 6.2 million vacant housing units. We can actually reasonably speculate that there are more than that available right now because of the massive foreclosure crisis that began to take effect post-2008, and the fact that a lot of those unavailable 7.6 million units are unavailable for speculation purposes.

I also found information from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development report to Congress, which reports that as of January 2009 there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide. An additional 1.56 million made use of emergency or transitional housing during a 12 month period surrounding that date.

What this all means, unless I'm overlooking something, is that there are nearly 3 TIMES the number of vacant homes required to simply give a home to every American who needs one. Obviously there are further difficulties here, because you can't always expect the housing to exist in the same places as the people, but even so, I think it pretty much proves how housing availability would be one of the easiest problems for society to fix by abandoning the profit motive. We don't even necessarily have to build new homes - just make proper use of the ones we already fucking have.

[Psy]

I think that quite often they actually don't understand. For the most par the people in power were born priviliged, went to priviliged school, never had to be afraid of running out of money or losing their home, and probably didn't know anyone who did. It is outside their experience, so far outside their expericence that they can't conceptualise it.

They have no idea what it's like to live on benefits or be afraid of ending up on benefits. While they are objectively aware of the existance of poverty and homelessness, they have never been anywhere near them and to be honest don't want to be near them. So they enact policies that will benefit themselves with no real comprehension of the human cost of their decisions.
Basically it is the ruling class putting too much faith in the police to deal with any disturbances caused by growing homelessness.

[MotherCossack]

And by that token it is unfair to judge them too harshly for their total failure to regard the welfare of a significant number of the poorest and deprived. Those who are a product of the system which on the one hand gives so much to the fortunate few with a place near the plate but in doing so fails to provide for the majority of people. [very often, with horrific and indefensible consequences.... the actions discussed in this thread being only one example.]

If this over-indulged and pampered club can honestly claim ignorance with regard the monumental suffering that their excesses cause....and deny any knowledge of the terrible price that others , many others, pay every minute of every day to maintain the life to which they have become accustomed......

Then We must EDUCATE THEM!!!!! As a matter of the most pressing urgency!!!!!!!!

That way..... if they continue with their indulgent and distastefully excessive consumption.....
WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO PASS JUDGEMENT AND ISSUE PUNISHMENT AS WE SEE FIT!!!!!!!!

SO BEWARE YOU BOURGEOIS BUNCH ....... MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR COSY CORNER..... THE FLOOR IS ABOUT TO GET UP AND EAT YOU FOR DINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cor blimey!!!!!!
did i write that?
well blow me down with a feather duster.... i've impressed myself anyway!

b.t.w. living in a tent is shite... cold, damp and thoroughly uncomfortable both physically and.... well... it does not do a lot for your confidence and self-esteem....
But to deny the poor sods even that right... has to be a crime against humanity..... surely?

[Pretty Flaco]

Obviously there are further difficulties here, because you can't always expect the housing to exist in the same places as the people, but even so, I think it pretty much proves how housing availability would be one of the easiest problems for society to fix by abandoning the profit motive. We don't even necessarily have to build new homes - just make proper use of the ones we already fucking have.

there are many similar problems in capitalism, in that the problem isn't production, but distribution. the most obvious being food/water.

[MotherCossack]

there are union jacks EVERYWHERE!!!!!
Have you lot been to Oxford circus lately.....
Oh-my-God!!!!!!!!
They are so big!!!! so vile.... so gawdy..... tawdry.....unbecoming....so loaded with stinking rotten baggage!!!!!


spot the silly mistake!
mother Wazzock...
you are a silly goose this is the wrong thread......
we are in the business of discussing homeleess tent cities....
the queen and her privaleges.....elsewhere....
ok?!

[El Oso Rojo]

http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/police-dismantle-st-louis.html