Eighteen Million, Out in the Road

[Daveparts still]

Eighteen Million, Out in the Road
By David Glenn Cox

How cold and callous can we become? When, as a society and as a nation, we can undergo a massive earthquake under our very feet and before our very eyes, how can we just ignore its victims?

RealtyTrac, the California-based authority on property trends and valuations, projects 4.5 million home foreclosures before the end of this year. That’s 4.5 million homes, and with four people to a household that is eighteen million people. Eighteen million men, women and children put out into the road, people who must scramble to find shelter and scramble to find new schools for their children.

Last year it was 2.8 million homes or 11.2 million Americans put out into the road. In two years that is 29.2 million people just put out into the road.

“I gotta see them folks that’s gone out on the road. I got a feelin' I got to see them. They gonna need help no preachin' can give 'em. Hope of heaven when their lives ain’t lived? Holy Sperit when their own sperit is downcast an’ sad?” Preacher Casey--The Grapes of Wrath

Twenty-nine million is more people than the population of forty-nine states in the union. Eighteen million is a larger population than all of the states except New York, Texas and California. Yet the problem is glossed over; the solution is discussed casually and the victims are ignored. I am but one of the citizens of this invisible empire. As I approach my one year anniversary of living in a garage and washing in a bucket let me tell you what I’ve found.

Number one, I am one of the lucky ones. I’ve lost my wealth, my wife and my home. But I still have a place to sleep and a bathroom to use. Over the year I’ve met people who are sleeping in tents and everyone I talk to tells me their own version of the same story entitled, “My Downward Spiral.”

I’ve got it made when I think about the women out there with small children. What must that hell on Earth be like? The other day I saw middle-aged man pushing an elderly man down the shoulder of a four-lane highway in a wheelchair. Could that have been for fun? To get out and see the sights or for a breath of fresh air? They were about three blocks away from Burger King, a used car lot, a Holiday Inn and a hospital. Where do you suppose they were going?

I would scream if I thought it would help. I could set myself alight on the steps of the Capitol if I thought it would do any good. I too-well understand that in America, the live, twenty four-hour sitcom, the actions of the invisible mean nothing. So instead I write and I write and I write. I write for me and I write for you, but I won’t write for anyone who tells me what to write.

I’ve had very kind people tell me that they like what I write and I truly appreciate that. I applied to a want ad for a political writer. The ad was non-specific; they wanted a conservative political writer. The editor, who bragged on himself as a regular Fox News contributor, sent me back a nice note explaining their conservative point of view and added that if I could write on the same caliber from a conservative perspective he would consider hiring me. “Sorry, No!”

Not a day goes by that I don’t become depressed by reading the want ads. Scams, come-ons, frauds and peasant pay. Writing jobs to sell cosmetics, I-pods or ear wax remover for less than minimum wage. You know what? I got better things to do with my time! I do have a job; it just doesn’t pay anything. I write the things the folks with money don’t want said.

“This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from 'I' to 'we'. If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into 'I', and cuts you off forever from the 'we'.” The Grapes of Wrath

We have a problem in this country and our government refuses to deal with it. It wants to pretend that all we need is an aspirin when our society needs chemotherapy. Our cities are falling into ruin; our public schools are warehouses where the children are caged like chickens until they’re old enough to be made into soup. A college education has become a high-risk crapshoot with tuitions rising and employment falling.

I want a bed to sleep in and I want a shower to wash in and sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever have those things again. I am a left wing FDR liberal with socialist leanings, but underneath that veneer I am a nationalist. I want my nation to do well. I want we the people to work for good wages. I want our kids to go to good schools and live in nice neighborhoods, and sadly I don’t see where that is ever going to happen with the people who are in power. I don’t see where that is going to happen with the media in power. I don’t see where that is going to happen until we are in power.

“Every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day—the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll all walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it.” The Grapes of Wrath

The current administration's solution to the mortgage crisis has been the same as his Republican predecessor. Leave it in the hands of the big banks which caused the problem in the first place. Leave Jesse James in charge of bank security and Tony Soprano in charge of financial ethics. The current administration's solution has had the same results as its predecessor, one percent of applicants rescued.

Fifty percent of applicants were disqualified from the start, so the administration is tweaking the program to pay the banks more money for each mortgage rescued. Meanwhile Wall Street warns that 50 percent of rescued mortgages will default again. We need jobs, we need help and we are asking nicely this time.

“Okie (Homeless) use'ta mean you was from Oklahoma (didn’t have a home). Now it means you're a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie (Homeless) means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, it's the way they say it.” The Grapes of Wrath

“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression.” The Grapes of Wrath

"I know this … a man got to do what he got to do." The Grapes of Wrath

I’ll continue to write what I write and I’ll continue to be turned down by so-called liberal websites, but that don’t make no never mind to me. I write for me and for you, for the eighteen million this year and the eleven million last year and the ten million the year before that. To tell the truth as I see it, 'cause when you ain’t got nothing you ain’t got nothing to lose.

"It don’t take no nerve to do somepin when there ain’t nothin’ else you can do." Tom Joad--The Grapes of Wrath

[mike_c]

1. I wish I could recommend this one hundred times....

:applause:

[jody]

2. "current administration's solution to the mortgage crisis has been the same as his Republican

predecessor"

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. awwww all the poor widdle home owners

What about the renters who have to leave every time the landlord raises the rent?

The only housing complaint I have is that these formerly rich people may wind up renting and pushing the prices up for the rest of us, you know, the people who are actually poor.

[Daveparts still]

4. We Are All Poor

together, I read an article in the Sac Bee this morning talking about how wonderful it was that investors were buying up Repo'ed homes and renovating them for Tennant's. No putting more property in the hands of the wealthy isn't wonderful.

"In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people." FDR

[jotsy]

6. We are lacking in monetary resource.

Which to me is different than poor. A colorful sunset, the snow capped peak of a mountain reflected on a still lake, a baby giggling, cookies baking. I see, hear, and smell these things, and know that I'll never be as poor as those who find more majesty in the all mighty buck.

You and your wonderfully nostalgic storytelling anecdotes are reminders of when we were people of substance. We cannot return to a time, but should long to be full of that kind of intestinal fortitude to face the challenges that lie in the wake of corporate dominance.

[Zoeisright]

10. Oh for Christ's sake.

Do you have any compassion for anyone else in another situation?

Your statements are disgusting.

[catrose]

12. what a Republican response

mockery in the face of pain. If all things were equal (which they can't be), I still wouldn't be a Republican because of that knee-jerk response.

[Cronus Protagonist]

17. FAIL

You lack in discernment.

[northernlights]

22. the owners you're bitching about started out as renters

and they were never rich, they took on risk and went into debt. I've been a renter and right now I'm an owner. They both have their downsizes and upsides.

You want to bitch about how hard you have it, write your own article from your own perspective. Don't shit on somebody else.

When I was a renter, I could move to where the jobs were. Not great in some ways, but an option. And spare me about "formerly rich people" pushing up rents. There are tons of houses and apartments sitting empty and for rent where I live. Prices are being pushed down, not up.

Now I'm an owner and I'm trapped. I smartly lived below my means in cheap, shitty apartments for DECADES so I could save to buy a house. I bought it cash. Now I'm trapped. I can't sell it, I can't move to where jobs are, I'm out of cash and can't borrow to finish my new degree, since the old degree is useless, Stafford Loans have been cut off. I put in 18 hour days most days. I should have been in my peak earning years, had done what I was supposed to and saved for retirement. And now I'm broke, in debt, can't move forward, can't stay where I'm at, can't go back intime.

We're all in ruins now, except the 1%. You want to shit on the rich, go shit on them. People who have lost their homes to date are not rich and never were. They were in debt, that's all.

We're all poor now.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Time for me to read the Grapes of Wrath again.

Thank you, Dave.

[Better Today]

7. I'm actually in the planning stages for this.

Unemployed for over a year, unfortunately bought a business with my savings just before the crash, credit about to run out. So I won't be able to rent once I get foreclosed on. At this point I have one last house payment available, so perhaps another 6 months to a year before foreclosure. I happen to own my car outright, and a small utility trailer with my biz equipment. I'm going to throw a small futon mattress in the trailer, a propane stove, and that's about it. My daughter has agreed to put my cellphone on her plan and pay the $10. I've been "practicing" living on groceries of $50 or less a month.

Yep, it is going to get worse for many of us. My neighbors are already into foreclosure, but theirs is because of re-fi'ing well past the homes worth with a variable loan, they are both still employed but the husband had to take a huge pay cut to stay employed. They'll be able to rent when they're done. Mine is simply due to lack of income and having timed buying a huge package of equipment in June '07 that didn't arrive until Sept '07, and just as the crash was getting real serious.

I guess the only way I can see myself as being in anyway lucky, is that I have befriended some buskers along the way, buskers are intentionally homeless folks that travel and do street performances to make ends meet, sleep in their cars or trucks. Anyway, they often want a nice sit down meal, a shower, a place to park and sleep, and to do laundry. Last summer when they were here, I told them of my impending dilemma, and they call from time to time to see if I'm ousted yet and ready to join their caravan, so I won't be entirely alone.

[truedelphi]

21. My heart felt condolences.

I hope that things turn around somehow for you. i have never owned a home, so I cannot imagine the grief that one feels when up against the wall as you are.

Prayers and best thoughts are with you.

[Newest Reality]

8. Keep writing as a voice for the tremendous loss!

Being in a similar situation for over a year, I know how it is.

I can call it quite a learning experience, (of terrible proportions) in the sense that it peels layers of you away like an onion skin. You find yourself disengages from the Simulator.

[DemReadingDU]

9. Thank you for writing

There's going to be plenty more of us facing the same situation. It just hasn't hit us yet.

[The Wizard]

11. Bailing out banks didn't circulate money

into the economy. The government should have bailed out home owners about to go into foreclosure. It would have stabilized banks and put money directly into the economy.
Republicans would have jumped up and down having a panties in a bunch hissy fit, ranting about welfare and the hard working Americans who weren't bailed out. They have a hard time bitching about the wealthy buying up properties at ten cents on a dollar; that's what real Americans do.
The bankers who made huge profits gaming the system should be standing on street corners selling apples.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Simon Jenkins of the Guardian has a few things to say about that at this link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/30/three-chancellors-banks-the-city

[Raster]

13. Thank you, Dave.

[pokercat999]

14. It's just beginning. By the end of this year Bank of America is

planning to increase foreclosures to about 45,000 PER MONTH. That's about a 600% increase from the current rate of foreclosure.That's just BOA! My guess is that the other big banks are planning the same. The price of houses will continue to fall, the homeless will increase until the cost of housing returns to an affordable price. With unemployment continuing to increase, that number (the cost of affordable housing) gets smaller every day.

I can see only one way out of this entire mess and that is the return or creation of livable wage jobs to the US. Nothing else I can visualize will work.

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/bank-of-america-to-increase-foreclosure-rate-by-600-in-2010/?source=patrick.net

[bemildred]

15. K&R

:kick:

[LibertyLover]

16. Lost my home to foreclosure about a year ago -

We are among the lucky ones. I work and am able to pay rent on a small house that, according to a realtor friend, is one step away from being condemned as uninhabitable, while paying off the bills and putting food on the table. We didn't have to get rid of our dogs when we lost the house either, which makes us among the most fortunate. If we didn't have the dogs and a 7 year old daughter we would be able to rent something a bit better, but she and they come first. Where we are now has a good school, even better than the "good" one she went to before we had to move. And she has made friends with several children in the neighborhood and pretty much every day is out and about playing, riding her scooter and having a good childhood. We truly are lucky.

[bertman]

18. Thank you for your perspective, LibertyLover. It makes me heartsick when someone who

has lost their home considers him/herself to be one of the lucky ones. Sadly, you are so right on with your comments.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. The Second Commandment or Cheney's American Dream?

Both non-negotiable. Which will bring disaster upon its adherents?

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
Second Commandment or Cheney's American Dream? Both non-negotiable. Which one will end in disaster for its adherents?

"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"

The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come."

Luke: 16: 19 - 17: 1

One of the greatest sins Jesus was talking about was Dick Cheney's 'non-negotiable'* American Dream. Unbridled covetousness for worldly riches.

*We'll see about that.