A record 19 million homes vacant : How many Homeless?

[Fireweed247]

No one knows exactly how many are homeless with the recent foreclosure, job losses and personal ecomomic disasters, but the numbers are growing from the previously counted +700,000. I don't believe the homeless reach anywhere near 19 million however....there must be a common sense solution here somewhere......




A record 19 million U.S. houses stood empty at the end of 2008 as banks seized homes faster than they could sell them and prices continued to fall.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/from_the_source/A_record_19_million_homes_vacant.html

Homeless numbers shocking
Survey of area high schoolers reports astonishingly high rates

A recently completed survey revealed almost one-quarter of Loveland and Berthoud high school students said they were homeless at some point in the past four years.
http://www.reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?ID=21334

Homelessness Is at Record Highs: Let's Show Some Real Compassion
On January 14, as the combined forces of recession and foreclosure continued their long, cruel assault on the Rust Belt, Cleveland's public school system marked the new semester with a troubling piece of data: the number of students who had been homeless at some point during the school year had jumped to 1,728. Compared with the same date in 2006, this number represented a spike of nearly 150 percent and served as further confirmation that, for all the whingeing of Wall Street executives, the poor and vulnerable have been hardest hit by the flailing economy. Not that Cleveland's poorest students needed reminding. In December, when Project ACT, a social service program for homeless students run by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, asked a group of homeless parents what they wanted for Christmas, the parents responded with wish lists worthy of Little Dorrit: toilet paper, bleach, paper towels, food.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/124861/homelessness_is_at_record_highs:_let's_show_some_real_compassion/

Homeless numbers 'alarming'

More families with children are becoming homeless as they face mounting economic pressures, including mortgage foreclosures, according to a USA TODAY survey of a dozen of the largest cities in the nation.

Local authorities say the number of families seeking help has risen in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Washington.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-21-homeless_N.htm

[Fireweed247]

1. Thanks for the recs

:hi:

[MikeNearMcChord]

2. I think The Nation did a story about activists

who are fighting homelessness by actively squatting vacant homes. I would not be surprised if this is happening right now, and won't be surprised in the future there may be tragic event involving homeless squatters and law enforcement(note: this is not to say I'm bashing LEO's here), or criminal elements.

[Fireweed247]

6. I would do it

As long as you don't do any vandalism I am all for it. It is absurd that property is considered more important than people.

[Fireweed247]

3. It is so difficult to count just how many homeless people there are

so they are going to the schools and asking children. :cry:

[eridani]

4. A solution just sort of puts itself together, no?

I sent letters off to my congresscritters with these references.

[Fireweed247]

7. wow, thank you!

:applause:

[bobbolink]

9. Thank you so much for taking action!

Would that we ALL would do that!

:pals:

[WonderGrunion]

5. McMansions for the homeless

Not necessarily a bad idea, but it would raise some eyebrows.

[Fireweed247]

11. Maybe they could turn them into a duplex or triplex

and make them low income housing.

[glinda]

16. Definitely. Now there is a job for the construction industries.

[Fireweed247]

19. ya

now this would be a stimulus package I could get behind!

[tblue37]

22. Remember the movie _Dr. Zhivago_?

When the aristocrat Zhivago returns from the war, he learns that his family home now houses 13 families. Since he is a fair man who always deplored the way the wealthy exploited and abused the poor, he admits that it is more fair to provide homes for 13 families than to have on family use so much space while others have nothing.

[OneGrassRoot]

8. Thank you. K&R and bookmarked n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. I've posted about this conundrum in the past. Homeless ranks grow but

so do empty homes.

[ThomWV]

17. Some places were grossly overbuilt

What was painfully obvious in our neighboring metropolis (its a joke) was that the housing supply enhanced by new building was overtaking any possible demand. We had essentially no new population growth but new housing popping up everywhere. As it turns out much of it never has been occupied and banks are forclosing on builders who were never able to sell or rent out these new units. Just my observation.

[libodem]

12. What a loss to the property tax base

in the towns where the empty houses are sitting. The should be a creative solution to this equation.

[Fireweed247]

20. That is an interesting point

When a house is forclosed on, no one pays property taxes? I wonder what that is doing to schools that rely on this money?

[libodem]

21. sorry this is inserted the next day

but you are swell to notice my off-haded comment. Even if someone could pay the taxes and insurance, it would help city hall stay afloat. Maybe someone could capitalize on the idea and form a business of managing it. Even if someone could manage the taxes and insurance on their own property and stay until they could get on their feet. The other sad scenario is the old person who owns a house but can't afford the house taxes. I wonder if the stimulus could cut some of them a break.

[Greyhound]

13. K&R

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

14. The numbers of homeless far exceed what is reported or believed.

We MUST BE an "attractive" and "glorified" and "superior" nation. WE MUST BE!!!!

In reality, homelessness and poverty is epidemic. It's also part of the cause of the financial decline because so many are having to rely upon the resources of family and friends to survive.

Concentration of wealth and power, the ideology of the neocon branch of the Republican party along with their corporate and media pals, is what is driving this nation to the ground. As long as those greedy, ANTI-DEMOCRACY power-suckers remain influential without persistently severe challenge, this nation will fail to match the democracy it verbally (I repeat, VERBALLY) advocates.

BAH! The powerful always heavily invest in proclamations without substance in order to maintain and grow their own power OVER OTHERS.

[ThomWV]

18. That is why who runs the Department of Commerce is so important - the census is coming

If you don't count homeless people they don't get representation in the House.

Where do you find the homeless? Answer, in the cities. How do the cities vote? Democratic. If you do a count and it shows more people live in the cities which segment of the country gets more seats in the Congress? City people do. So, if your census is done accurately and counts rather than omits homeless people, primarily concentrated in the cities, it will result in a greater portion of House of Representatives being apportioned to the democratically controlled cities. This is why I thought it was such a good idea to seat Bill Richardson at Commerce. I expected that he, if anyone, would assure an accurate count in the places where it is hardest to count and of the people who were least frequently counted in the past.

[Tindalos]

15. Stop-gap housing

Stop Gap Housing: Idea could make big dent in homelessness
By Monte Paulsen
http://megaphonemagazine.com/content/stop_gap_housing_idea_could_make_big_dent_homelessness.html">megaphonemagazine

A plan to house Vancouver's homeless is taking shape on the drawing board of a local architect. It calls for the rapid erection of temporary villages assembled from the same type of modular units that mining companies provide for remote workers.

"Stop Gap Housing" is what architect Gregory Henriquez calls it.

<snip>

Henriquez drew up plans for a motel-like village, with 48 suites clustered around a central courtyard. The colourful compound includes a manager’s office, a covered patio and a second-storey meeting room all within a typical 120-by-200-foot city lot.

"The hard part is to make it pretty and nice. But we can do that. We're good at that stuff," Henriquez said. "You paint it some bright colors. You make it as festive as you can. And you house people with dignity."


-----------------

This is one suggestion to house the homeless during and after the 2010 Olympics. It sounds like it might be a viable temporary solution, if it actually gets built. More details at the link.

[Tindalos]

24. Oops, I 've posted the rest below

I forgot to add the part about empty houses that was meant to tie into this. Sorry if this seemed a bit OT. I've posted the other part below.

[Tindalos]

23. Lots of empty condos and houses here too

Unfortunately, zoning bylaws prevent renting or subletting them. So, thousands of condos sit empty. I'm not sure if that type of bylaw is common elsewhere. The result is that some people are stuck holding onto places they can't afford and can't sell, while others are stuck without homes because they can't afford the rent due to an artificially created shortage of rental suites. The developers and strata councils would get pissed off if the city changed the bylaws and since they have all the money/power, they call the shots. There are attempts to find solutions (as I posted above) but things are moving very slowly as increasing numbers of people are struggling. It would be nice to get people into those empty places, but it's unlikely to happen here. For now, the developers seem prepared to sit and wait until the market improves. They're not going to sell those places at a loss unless they have to, and they're not going to do anything for altruistic reasons.

[maryf]

25. Worth a belated kick...

Sorry I missed this until now Fireweed!! great post. Today the NY times mentioned that landlords are starting to lower rents, hopefully rents will become manageable across the spectrum. There is a man in Miami who is managing to house the homeless in foreclosed houses, I'll post it once again on edit. Hopefully this kick will get at least a couple more people to see this OP of yours...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-12-10-homesquatters_N.htm