Congress and the White House moved quickly to try and help wealthy bankers once they had crashed their toxic system full of bundled debt resting on a tenuous housing bubble. While that situation is still working itself out, the consequences of deregulation and obscene amounts of corporate welfare have left millions outside of the Financial District without jobs and for far too many, without a place to call home. The latest figures on homelessness are truly frightening.
From USA Today:
There is no cushion because Republican leadership has deflated our nation's programs to aid the poor and to care for those in need. In the richest country in the world, we have hundreds of thousands of Americans who sleep on our streets. With the gap between the haves and have nots widening by the day, the situation is only going to get worse. John McCain, Sarah Palin and their surrogates may mock Barack Obama for wanting to "spread the wealth around" by taxing the rich more but you know what, the way we are going isn't helping anyone and it is about time we make a change.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.
"Everywhere I go, I hear there is an increase" in the need for housing aid, especially for families, says Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates federal programs. He says the main causes are job losses and foreclosures.
Other factors have been higher food and fuel prices hitting families with "no cushion," says Nan Roman of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
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