U.S. Mortgage Crisis Forces Former Homeowners to Live in Their Cars
March 25th, 2007Via: Scotsman:
THEY are victims of the United States’ growing mortgage crisis – low-paid workers whose homes have been repossessed amid rising interest rates, a stagnant property market and a lax lending regime.
But in Los Angeles, where having a car is as essential as owning a home, many are sleeping in their vehicles to ensure a roof over their head.
Campaigners for the homeless expect more to hole up in their cars as they lose homes due to the problems that have dogged “subprime mortgages” – those granted to low-earners with little capital of their own.
The trend comes despite the fact that sleeping in a car is illegal in the Los Angeles area.
“The subprime meltdown is the kind of situation that pushes people into cars. It’s a very common story,” said Ruth Hollman, of Self-Help And Recovery Exchange, a group that helps homeless people.
Advocates hope Los Angeles will adopt programmes in place in cities such as Eugene, Oregon, and Santa Barbara, California, that enable people to live in cars while receiving services they need to get back on track.
“It’s an old saying in social services that most people are one to six paychecks away from being homeless. But if you can’t make your mortgage, it’s more like a month or two,” said William Wise, of the relief agency St Vincent de Paul of Eugene, which works to find overnight parking spots for homeless people.
Without such spots, people forced to sleep in their cars fear being towed and ticketed by police, as well as being attacked by thugs and facing public scorn.
This is a major problem and should not be neglected. because of the high mortgage (and still keep on rising) and people getting paid less, it’s not even equal, their debts keep on rising but they don’t get much of the money (salary is not increasing), in the neare future we will going to see more and more people living in the streets, calling their cars as their home and yet gettingn towed and charged by the police. Is this a sign of a good economy?
I recall this was the case in an old movie titled “Americathon.”