"Subprime" Tent City?

According to BBC News, tent cities are now springing up outside of Los Angeles- filled with victims of the subprime crisis:

 

Certainly these are people who have been hit by economic woes, but from the interviews, it sounds more like unemployment, not foreclosure, is the real culprit.  The fully employed can rent.

I would not be one to trivialize the difficult problems faced by these individuals, but let’s not paint this as a "subprime" or "foreclosure" problem.  Had these people formerly been renters, [and it wouldn't be surprising if many of them had been] their situation would be the same. 

There are those who would use this story as "proof" that the government needs to do more to fight the rising tide of foreclosures.  A mortgage is of no use to anyone without a job. The government needs to reconsider its priorities.

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6 Comments for this entry

  1. metroplexual says:
    March 14, 2008 at 7:33 AM

    Hooverville = Bushville?

    http://z.about.com/d/seattle/1/7/4/4/-/-/hooverville-154.jpg

  2. twist says:
    March 14, 2008 at 7:43 AM

    Metro-

    I’m thinking Greenspanville. He didn’t build this bubble by himself, but he was the architect.

  3. metroplexual says:
    March 14, 2008 at 8:29 AM

    Agreed.

  4. surak says:
    March 14, 2008 at 10:58 AM

    A mortgage is of no use to anyone without a job. The government needs to reconsider its priorities.

    You are spot on Twist!!!

    Igors word “noclue”

  5. Yossarian says:
    March 14, 2008 at 11:16 AM

    Bah. This is nothing. Probably not even related to foreclosures, as you said.. probably just people who lost their construction jobs.
    But, wait a year. Tent cities in every major metro…. why, back in 1982, families were even living in national parks!
    My wife doubted the veracity of this… so I talked to an older Ranger in Oregon last summer.. he smiled, shook his head and said, “We had scores of families living all up and down the Clackamas river…”
    In Phoenix during the late 30s, my mother remembers a large camp of homeless ‘Oakies’ out by 15th avenue and I think Buckeye.
    I wonder what we’ll call homeless housing HELOC refugees?
    Now that sort of thing may actually signal a real ‘economic bottom’.

  6. johnb171 says:
    March 16, 2008 at 4:30 PM

    Metroplexual,

    Did you attend Rutgers in the 90′s?

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