5 ms·

Tent Cities Sprouting in Sacramento and Seattle

26 points by rms 18y ago

paul7986 18y ago
This either blown out of proportion by the media or a scary reality! What has led us to this path, if it is indeed reality? Over the last few months our govt has taken the stance of spreading the wealth, but that has not helped Wall St. nor confidence in investors (banks) to start loaning money and or investing! It's seems like a democratic mindset against a republican one, with the latter holding onto the money, not helping the country as a whole. But, why invest or loan money when you may lose it all, ending up like these people in these tent cities. Capitalism at its worst!
rms 18y ago
I see this as an unexpected exception to the guidelines. >If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. This post is aggregated TV news but it interesting because it is new information precisely because none of us actually watch the TV news.
- Brushfire 18y ago
  Agreed. +1
Brushfire 18y ago
I'm struck by two things while watching this video: 1 - Those tents seem pretty nice. 2 - This is pretty shameful for a society that is right now bailing out executives. I'm generally very libertarian in my beliefs, but tent cities are where I draw the line and agree with social assistance / intervention. They seem to be relatively small right now, but if they grow to large hundreds, or thousands of people, this will become a critical issue.
- petercooper 18y ago
  Tent cities are going to be preferable, in some cases, to the sort of hideous social housing available (especially here in the UK). At least you can up sticks and walk down the road with a tent.. in social housing, if your neighbor's a drug addict and kids are pissing in your letterbox, you're screwed.
  - gordonguthrie 18y ago
    This is outrageous nonsense about UK social housing. There is a small amount of truly awful social housing but the vast majority of it is perfectly sound, full of ordinary decent people. I have council flats in front of me, and to the right of my house and they are full of good people. My brother is a professor of General Practice (a GP/local MD in US parlance) who was on sabbatical in San Francisco 2 years ago. He pointed out to me THEN there were more homeless rough sleepers in Golden Gate Park alone every night than there were rough sleepers in London. Los Angeles had, at that time, 250,000 rough sleepers. The UK (and the rest of Europe) have social (and drug) problems like anywhere buy nowhere are things as bad in the US which effectively has no functioning social security and where whole communities are 2 wage packets from destitution.
    - petercooper 18y ago
      That wasn't the point. The point is that if you have minimal money, some freedom, and plenty of free space, you can just about function (as the tent cities, favelas, and so forth demonstrate). Those are dire places to live but at least you have mobility when the jobs come back.. whereas if you're stuck in social housing you are screwed. The US is full of mobile, resourceful people who have a freedom over the land Europeans could only dream of. They'll get through this however bad it gets. Lazy, dole-riding Europeans? I'm not so sure. (note: I'm not saying "all Europeans are X" but using an adjective to describe a group of Europeans.. sadly some people are stupid enough to think <adjective> <noun> means all <noun> are <adjective>)
- patio11 18y ago
  The lack of a roof over your head isn't the cause of homelessness, it is the symptom. Addressing it in a more permanent manner would probably require you to compromise on a lot more of your libertarianism than just offering more social assistance. For example, a huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill. If we institutionalized them, which is a nice euphemism for "confined them against their will", they would no longer be homeless. Are you willing to do that? Another major portion prefer camps to shelters or traditional housing arrangements because they just fundamentally do not want to accede to societal norms like "You should work for a living and pay rent", and necessary prerequisites like "In order to maintain that job, you will probably find it necessary to come in to work almost every day, and be sober for the duration". Empirically, a significant portion of the homeless population will trade comfort for autonomy. Living in a shelter means a loss of autonomy, and some people prefer a largely-unsupervised tent or, in a pinch, the streets. NYC used to have significant excess shelter space and tried to force it on a homeless encampment by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church and homeless advocates sued to protect the homeless' right to live outside of shelters. So, again -- are you OK with agents of the state having to physically restrain people to get them into shelters? Because that is what will be required to alleviate this symptom.
  - davo11 18y ago
    Some homeless people are mentally ill but this isn't a reason to not have a social safety net. There used to be a term 'noblesse oblige' where the more fortunate are duty bound to look after those less fortunate, to my mind this is where a social security net is required. Some people will for one reason or another, whether by bad luck or plain old stupidity will end up at some point in there life out on the streets. If these people have kids then the kids end up on the streets and no longer receive an education, so they'll end up as criminals or on drugs or something like that. If this cycle is allowed to continue you end up with large areas of slums in cities. If instead when bad things happen there is a security net that allows you to wipe yourself down, get up and move on then the cycle is avoided, or at least it's depth is less. It can become a social welfare problem, but at least you don't have children dying in tents from exposure, and there's always the chance that when things pick up, they'll be able to get a job or at least the children do.
- nazgulnarsil 18y ago
  libertarianism and capitalism are not at odds with social consciousness and charity. as a libertarian I object only to the mandatory nature of government sponsored regulation and subsidy. instead of having a government sponsored safety net let startups compete to monetize the homeless market. As mentioned a lot of these people are doing day laborer jobs and other miscellaneous things. there is probably a lot of potential there that is only being stifled by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws prevent anyone whose labor isn't worth at least $x an hour from finding employment. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" $3 an hour is better than $0 an hour, and the defining feature would be that everything was entered into as a voluntary contract. Nothing would be forced on anyone. It would simply be giving homeless people an option that doesn't exist now. Imagine: Better Living Inc. offers housing, counseling, and vocational training to the homeless. In the interim the homeless person works for $3 an hour until he has enough saved up to jump start a real life again. I'm betting the numbers add up.
  - turkishrevenge 18y ago
    Voluntary? In an absolutist sense, yes. In practice, no. In theory all work in voluntary, assuming you can leave job and still afford to pay for basic amenities like food, housing, transportation, and still provide for your family, etc until new employment is secured. If you cannot do these things, it ceases to be voluntary. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" Well according to this logic, $2.50/hr is better than $0/hr; $2/hr is better than $0/hr; $1/hr is better than $0/hr, and so on. Everything you describe is a race to the bottom in terms of wages. There would have to be a very strong deflationary pressure to bring prices to the point where the above is capable of really purchasing anything. In such a case, the economy would be in shambles anyway, so employment in general would be a huge issue. What you describe is not new and, at its core, totally exploitative. Living in a company town is strikingly similar to this. The employer actually "pays" the worker, $7/hr, but keeps the $4 majority the payment of ground rent, food, etc. Of course, you leave any time--that is until your meager savings are depleted by a raised cost of living--one manufactured by the benevolent boss/mayor!
    - 18y ago
quellhorst 18y ago
We have hacker houses. Why not hacker tents? Give me power and WIFI and I can build it :)
- helveticaman 18y ago
  I thought of this as a solution to the interminable curveballs life has been throwing me of late. Interesting.
  - noonespecial 18y ago
    "A van down by the river" sprung to mind. I could have a pretty nice van for 1/4 the rent I'm paying now. A few solar "battery boosters" from the rv place, an EeePC and a tether-able smartphone and I'm set. Forget google's "container datacenters", prepare yourself for container startups. Simply place your container of geeks in the sunlight within range of a cell tower, insert ramen and Mountain Dew and interesting web apps should begin to sprout within a week or two. I'm calling it the "Y-Container". :)
    - nazgulnarsil 18y ago
      I know this is supposed to be a joke, but I think that in places like china and india this could be explosive. you know how there's that company converting shipping containers into living accommodations? How about ad hoc office space? go anywhere: drop off an office capable of being wired up and worked out of.
      - menloparkbum 18y ago
        It's more likely in places like Africa. China and India are very physically crowded. I've actually seen a number of shipping container houses in Kenya, years ago. Also, being a giant communist country, one thing China does do is provide some sort of housing for most everyone.
mikeytown2 18y ago
Currently living in Seattle, and our tent city has been apart of the area for many years now (nothing new). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_city#Seattle.2C_Washington.2C_USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_city#Seattle.2C_Washington...
- gregwebs 18y ago
  yeah, I have been biking past the "tent city" of Sacramento for a year now. This isn't something new, although it may be bigger now.
  - softbuilder 18y ago
    I agree and I'll add that Sacramento's homelessness has a seasonal cycle to it. The homeless population increases every spring as the weather warms. There's a lot of migration involved with homelessness, apparently. I don't pretend to know the mechanics of it exactly, but that's what I've seen.
- Ortus 18y ago
  I live a few blocks from Seattle's tent city. I've been keeping and eye on it since the downturn and I don't believe its grown.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
davo11 18y ago
Isn't there any sort of social welfare if you're unemployed in the US? I'm in Australia, and if you're unemployed here you get an allowance from the government, it's not much but enough to keep you able to share the rent with a couple of people and so on, so no one has to live in tents or die from exposure in the year 2009. There are a small percentage that abuse the system, but not many and most view it as an acceptable price to pay for a social security net. To receive it you have to do so many hours of community service after a number of weeks, which minimises abuse of the system. But then we also have free medical if you need it to. If you're really on the skids the government will provide housing even. I believe this is the same in the UK and some other european countries, the UK is where we got it from. The total laissez-faire system has it's up and down sides, which really aren't necessary in the 21st Century imho.
- rms 18y ago
  Unemployment in the US can be tricky to get. You need to be laid off in the proper manner and then you can only collect for 9 months on average. It would definitely be enough that you don't need to live on tents. It's different in every US state. Here is one program in social welfare program in PA: a lot of college kids working 20 hours a week in minimum wage jobs qualify even if they're aware. I know someone who did it, apparently there are multiple interviews that are annoying. http://www.dpw.state.pa.us/ServicesPrograms/FoodStamps/ http://www.dpw.state.pa.us/ServicesPrograms/FoodStamps/ I can't find the specific figures right now but regular old welfare is now called TANF. I remember seeing the numbers paid and they were laughable, not enough to pay rent.
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  Yes. We have welfare, food stamps and related programs, which consist of transfer payments to non workers. In most regions we have homeless shelters, which provide beds and food. Various regions have a variety of other programs. In particular, I believe Seattle guarantees a bed in a homeless shelter. I know NY does. People live outside the shelters anyway.

26 points by rms 18y ago

This either blown out of proportion by the media or a scary reality! What has led us to this path, if it is indeed reality? Over the last few months our govt has taken the stance of spreading the wealth, but that has not helped Wall St. nor confidence in investors (banks) to start loaning money and or investing! It's seems like a democratic mindset against a republican one, with the latter holding onto the money, not helping the country as a whole. But, why invest or loan money when you may lose it all, ending up like these people in these tent cities. Capitalism at its worst!

rms 18y ago

I see this as an unexpected exception to the guidelines. >If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. This post is aggregated TV news but it interesting because it is new information precisely because none of us actually watch the TV news.

Brushfire 18y ago
Agreed. +1

Brushfire 18y ago

I'm struck by two things while watching this video: 1 - Those tents seem pretty nice. 2 - This is pretty shameful for a society that is right now bailing out executives. I'm generally very libertarian in my beliefs, but tent cities are where I draw the line and agree with social assistance / intervention. They seem to be relatively small right now, but if they grow to large hundreds, or thousands of people, this will become a critical issue.

petercooper 18y ago
Tent cities are going to be preferable, in some cases, to the sort of hideous social housing available (especially here in the UK). At least you can up sticks and walk down the road with a tent.. in social housing, if your neighbor's a drug addict and kids are pissing in your letterbox, you're screwed.
- gordonguthrie 18y ago
  This is outrageous nonsense about UK social housing. There is a small amount of truly awful social housing but the vast majority of it is perfectly sound, full of ordinary decent people. I have council flats in front of me, and to the right of my house and they are full of good people. My brother is a professor of General Practice (a GP/local MD in US parlance) who was on sabbatical in San Francisco 2 years ago. He pointed out to me THEN there were more homeless rough sleepers in Golden Gate Park alone every night than there were rough sleepers in London. Los Angeles had, at that time, 250,000 rough sleepers. The UK (and the rest of Europe) have social (and drug) problems like anywhere buy nowhere are things as bad in the US which effectively has no functioning social security and where whole communities are 2 wage packets from destitution.
  - petercooper 18y ago
    That wasn't the point. The point is that if you have minimal money, some freedom, and plenty of free space, you can just about function (as the tent cities, favelas, and so forth demonstrate). Those are dire places to live but at least you have mobility when the jobs come back.. whereas if you're stuck in social housing you are screwed. The US is full of mobile, resourceful people who have a freedom over the land Europeans could only dream of. They'll get through this however bad it gets. Lazy, dole-riding Europeans? I'm not so sure. (note: I'm not saying "all Europeans are X" but using an adjective to describe a group of Europeans.. sadly some people are stupid enough to think <adjective> <noun> means all <noun> are <adjective>)
patio11 18y ago
The lack of a roof over your head isn't the cause of homelessness, it is the symptom. Addressing it in a more permanent manner would probably require you to compromise on a lot more of your libertarianism than just offering more social assistance. For example, a huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill. If we institutionalized them, which is a nice euphemism for "confined them against their will", they would no longer be homeless. Are you willing to do that? Another major portion prefer camps to shelters or traditional housing arrangements because they just fundamentally do not want to accede to societal norms like "You should work for a living and pay rent", and necessary prerequisites like "In order to maintain that job, you will probably find it necessary to come in to work almost every day, and be sober for the duration". Empirically, a significant portion of the homeless population will trade comfort for autonomy. Living in a shelter means a loss of autonomy, and some people prefer a largely-unsupervised tent or, in a pinch, the streets. NYC used to have significant excess shelter space and tried to force it on a homeless encampment by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church and homeless advocates sued to protect the homeless' right to live outside of shelters. So, again -- are you OK with agents of the state having to physically restrain people to get them into shelters? Because that is what will be required to alleviate this symptom.
- davo11 18y ago
  Some homeless people are mentally ill but this isn't a reason to not have a social safety net. There used to be a term 'noblesse oblige' where the more fortunate are duty bound to look after those less fortunate, to my mind this is where a social security net is required. Some people will for one reason or another, whether by bad luck or plain old stupidity will end up at some point in there life out on the streets. If these people have kids then the kids end up on the streets and no longer receive an education, so they'll end up as criminals or on drugs or something like that. If this cycle is allowed to continue you end up with large areas of slums in cities. If instead when bad things happen there is a security net that allows you to wipe yourself down, get up and move on then the cycle is avoided, or at least it's depth is less. It can become a social welfare problem, but at least you don't have children dying in tents from exposure, and there's always the chance that when things pick up, they'll be able to get a job or at least the children do.
nazgulnarsil 18y ago
libertarianism and capitalism are not at odds with social consciousness and charity. as a libertarian I object only to the mandatory nature of government sponsored regulation and subsidy. instead of having a government sponsored safety net let startups compete to monetize the homeless market. As mentioned a lot of these people are doing day laborer jobs and other miscellaneous things. there is probably a lot of potential there that is only being stifled by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws prevent anyone whose labor isn't worth at least $x an hour from finding employment. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" $3 an hour is better than $0 an hour, and the defining feature would be that everything was entered into as a voluntary contract. Nothing would be forced on anyone. It would simply be giving homeless people an option that doesn't exist now. Imagine: Better Living Inc. offers housing, counseling, and vocational training to the homeless. In the interim the homeless person works for $3 an hour until he has enough saved up to jump start a real life again. I'm betting the numbers add up.
- turkishrevenge 18y ago
  Voluntary? In an absolutist sense, yes. In practice, no. In theory all work in voluntary, assuming you can leave job and still afford to pay for basic amenities like food, housing, transportation, and still provide for your family, etc until new employment is secured. If you cannot do these things, it ceases to be voluntary. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" Well according to this logic, $2.50/hr is better than $0/hr; $2/hr is better than $0/hr; $1/hr is better than $0/hr, and so on. Everything you describe is a race to the bottom in terms of wages. There would have to be a very strong deflationary pressure to bring prices to the point where the above is capable of really purchasing anything. In such a case, the economy would be in shambles anyway, so employment in general would be a huge issue. What you describe is not new and, at its core, totally exploitative. Living in a company town is strikingly similar to this. The employer actually "pays" the worker, $7/hr, but keeps the $4 majority the payment of ground rent, food, etc. Of course, you leave any time--that is until your meager savings are depleted by a raised cost of living--one manufactured by the benevolent boss/mayor!
  - 18y ago

quellhorst 18y ago

We have hacker houses. Why not hacker tents? Give me power and WIFI and I can build it :)

helveticaman 18y ago
I thought of this as a solution to the interminable curveballs life has been throwing me of late. Interesting.
- noonespecial 18y ago
  "A van down by the river" sprung to mind. I could have a pretty nice van for 1/4 the rent I'm paying now. A few solar "battery boosters" from the rv place, an EeePC and a tether-able smartphone and I'm set. Forget google's "container datacenters", prepare yourself for container startups. Simply place your container of geeks in the sunlight within range of a cell tower, insert ramen and Mountain Dew and interesting web apps should begin to sprout within a week or two. I'm calling it the "Y-Container". :)
  - nazgulnarsil 18y ago
    I know this is supposed to be a joke, but I think that in places like china and india this could be explosive. you know how there's that company converting shipping containers into living accommodations? How about ad hoc office space? go anywhere: drop off an office capable of being wired up and worked out of.
    - menloparkbum 18y ago
      It's more likely in places like Africa. China and India are very physically crowded. I've actually seen a number of shipping container houses in Kenya, years ago. Also, being a giant communist country, one thing China does do is provide some sort of housing for most everyone.

mikeytown2 18y ago

Currently living in Seattle, and our tent city has been apart of the area for many years now (nothing new). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_city#Seattle.2C_Washington.2C_USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_city#Seattle.2C_Washington...

gregwebs 18y ago
yeah, I have been biking past the "tent city" of Sacramento for a year now. This isn't something new, although it may be bigger now.
- softbuilder 18y ago
  I agree and I'll add that Sacramento's homelessness has a seasonal cycle to it. The homeless population increases every spring as the weather warms. There's a lot of migration involved with homelessness, apparently. I don't pretend to know the mechanics of it exactly, but that's what I've seen.
Ortus 18y ago
I live a few blocks from Seattle's tent city. I've been keeping and eye on it since the downturn and I don't believe its grown.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

davo11 18y ago

Isn't there any sort of social welfare if you're unemployed in the US? I'm in Australia, and if you're unemployed here you get an allowance from the government, it's not much but enough to keep you able to share the rent with a couple of people and so on, so no one has to live in tents or die from exposure in the year 2009. There are a small percentage that abuse the system, but not many and most view it as an acceptable price to pay for a social security net. To receive it you have to do so many hours of community service after a number of weeks, which minimises abuse of the system. But then we also have free medical if you need it to. If you're really on the skids the government will provide housing even. I believe this is the same in the UK and some other european countries, the UK is where we got it from. The total laissez-faire system has it's up and down sides, which really aren't necessary in the 21st Century imho.

rms 18y ago
Unemployment in the US can be tricky to get. You need to be laid off in the proper manner and then you can only collect for 9 months on average. It would definitely be enough that you don't need to live on tents. It's different in every US state. Here is one program in social welfare program in PA: a lot of college kids working 20 hours a week in minimum wage jobs qualify even if they're aware. I know someone who did it, apparently there are multiple interviews that are annoying. http://www.dpw.state.pa.us/ServicesPrograms/FoodStamps/ http://www.dpw.state.pa.us/ServicesPrograms/FoodStamps/ I can't find the specific figures right now but regular old welfare is now called TANF. I remember seeing the numbers paid and they were laughable, not enough to pay rent.
yummyfajitas 18y ago
Yes. We have welfare, food stamps and related programs, which consist of transfer payments to non workers. In most regions we have homeless shelters, which provide beds and food. Various regions have a variety of other programs. In particular, I believe Seattle guarantees a bed in a homeless shelter. I know NY does. People live outside the shelters anyway.