Tent cities have sprung up outside Los Angeles

reply to post by antar


Antar be careful how you make judgments based on appearance. It’s amazing how quickly we loose our polish when catastrophe strikes. I think many of us have seen people quickly downward spiral after a run of bad luck. Your assessment of these people may be correct but reality is it’s getting tough for the middle-class to find non-ghetto, affordable housing; tent cities might become the norm.

I have read that rentals could be in greater demand due to the number of people walking away from homes & in need of housing possibly causing shortages. Usually when a rental lease is signed a credit check is done, maybe I’m mistaken but I can’t imagine an apartment complex leasing to an individual who just walked away from a home. This could make many ineligible for housing.

Thanks for the heads up on this one it’s something to keep an eye on.

reply to post by Areal51


A star for hitting the nail on the head.

The home crisis is a result, not a root cause of a large problem.

Once upon a time businesses did not follow the Wal-Mart model for operation they followed the Ford model of producing an affordable needed (or wanted) product and paying their employees a good solid wage so at least someone could afford the product and have some left over to buy others producers products as well. Lo and behold, that model worked.

Now let's look at cost of living. If minimum wage is $4/hr and a loaf of bread is $1.50 what is going to happen if minimum wage is $8/hr? $3 loafs of bread right? Now if wages are locked as they have been until recently, natural inflation, supply and demand and other factors can make adjustments to bring that loaf up to $2 while minimum wage is still $4/hr.

Part of that happened here but the story is much longer than that. It goes back to the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War. What? you ask. Let's look at how the North was Industrial based and the South was agriculturial based and the North decided to punish the South for the war. Lincoln was all about letting bygones be bygones but he didn't get much of a say for long and Grant makes Bush and Co. look like bleading hearts and genius on the compasion and intelligent direction scales.

After that is over the population of the south are either living in the North competing for sweatshop jobs against the Irish Immigrants escaping debts brought on by the potato famine or went out to tame the West with what they could pack in a wagon to be killed by less friendly Plains Indians that were not going to be pushed around like the ones back East that had a less harsh environment.

After WWI we punish the Germans and their economy tanks and super high inflation brings about a charismatic nutjob that will dealt with later. The US after spending quite a bit on the war enjoys the intoxication of wealth via the MIC but the farmers in the breadbasket experience the worst drought for years... net result, The Great Depression.

FDR, since Hoover had no clue nor leadership abilities, spills out the contents of a can of alphabet soup and creatates agencies that were to be temporary (IRS, CCC, FBI, CIA, SSI, etc.) Unfortantely only the CCC goes away which was the only thing that produced mor than it spent for the average American.

We end the Depression by taking care of the nutjob along with allies and hate Russia because one was never certain if another coup was going to take them out of this world war too. While the unemployeed served overseas, Rosie the Riveter proved she could earn a buck and didn't trade in her welding mask for an apron despite all the TV shows fom the 50's showing that. Hence we become intoxicated with not only MIC but the two wage earner.

Now thinking back before the war, there were some good homecooked meals, but since guys are a little slow it isn't until the 60's that we have sexual revolution, which leads to less children in households and higher divorce rates in the 70's and 80's which lead to less marriages to begin with in the 90's.

And let us not forget the exporting of industry, the old guards of steel not imbracing new innovations in the 1980's leading to closures when the Japanesse embraced it, the Labor Unions driving the cost of the product beyond reasonable prices, a series of elected officials that determined by who does the best sound byte for TV all bringing about you guessed it high prices, more taxes, and less money spread around for everyone to have a piece of the pie.

Of course it is easier to blame people for confusing "Carp per Diem" for "Carpe Diem" when the lenders didn't fully inform them how high the payments could go on an AMR or that their jobs were Wal-Marted or outright outsourced from under them instead of addressing the root causes. After all, doing the wrong thing at the wrong time has become an American tradition. Best to give amnesty to people that work for less and have to ability to move on when jobs dry up then worry about our own.

As for me, I am off to start my 10hr a day job at $11/hr and hope it lasts because being unemployed wasn't going to pay my $400/mo apt nor fuel my 17year old car.

[edit on 17-3-2008 by Ahabstar]

reply to post by anxietydisorder


No charity in your comment. I feel sorry for you.

Remember, 2/3ds of the world would love one of those tents and that lifestyle. So the party is over in America. It was fun.

The fact is , that no matter the method by which these people came to be out on their rears, every body , no matter what , has the right to appropriate accommodation . I find it pathetic , that in this day and age , mankind is still so petty as to link the right to shelter , with earnings. Some of the most evil , depraved , and low minded filth on earth , live in multi million pound homes , and have maids. If that isnt evidence that just because you can earn it , doesnt mean you deserve it, then I dont know what is . And yeah , you can include Bush in that group of scum if you wish .

Originally posted by TrueBrit

every body , no matter what , has the right to appropriate accommodation . I find it pathetic , that in this day and age , mankind is still so petty as to link the right to shelter , with earnings.

You speak of rights, the right to appropriate accommodation, the right to shelter.
Show me the law, show me any document that requires a government, landlord, or financial institution to provide free housing to people that can't or won't pay.

If rents or mortgages are not paid the landlord or bank takes the hit and goes out of business.

The courts already make it very difficult for me to evict someone, and it can take months sometimes. Those are months and court costs that already add to the arrears I can probably never recoup. At any time in the process the tenant has the opportunity to pay back rent and remain in the apartment, then they go delinquent the next month and I have to start the process all over again.:shk:

Some people play this game repeatedly from landlord to landlord as they scam the system over and over again.

Rights........



EDIT: I only replied on the first page of this thread, but I see I've been quoted, replied to, or commented on in almost every page in this thread.
My work is done here, those that know me are aware of my kind heart and generous nature.

I certainly sparked debate, and isn't that the purpose of this site ???


[edit on 17/3/2008 by anxietydisorder]

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
It serves them right.
If you take out a loan you can't possibly repay, or you fail to read the fine print, then you lose your home.

Sure, the financial institutions offered loans in a way that made them look very attractive while markets were rising, but they didn't forge your signature on the papers.

If you can't pay you're out.
Go live in a tent if you're that stupid or rent an apartment, because you deserve it.

You know what man, go **SNIP** You're just stereo typing ALL people based on few irresponsible ones. Let me explain to you few different scenarios that you prob. don't give a damn about! When a bank gives you a mortgage, they're taking a risk on you. They compensate for this risk in few ways, one your house is a collateral (so they can sell it at any time and get their money back) on top of this they charge you HUGE amount of interest. That's what interest is... RISK. So who I sympathize for are people, NOT the bank!

- A friend of mine lost her husband from cancer and she simply couldn't afford to pay her mortgage on her and take care of her two children. Now her credit is horrible, can't get any more loans for seven years and had her house taken from her and pretty much thrown out on street.

- When I was younger I lost my house in a house fire and couldn't afford to pay for a rent and mortgage every month. So they took my house with out giving a damn.

- "Inflation", is causing everything else (food, and living necessity) to become more and more expensive and leave less money to be spend for survival as the salary are the same as 10 years ago.

- Many unforeseen situation happen to many people, loosing jobs, getting into an accident, becoming disabled!

People are people, we're ALL humans (some). Either their fault or not their fault the problem is people like you, just god damn arrogant with no compassion to the rest of human society. As long as you got your job and fancy car, you don't give a damn about anyone else well being. I know people that work three jobs just so that they can feed their kids. The problem is not US, it's the country and how our politics/financial status is.

The problem are the BANKS, they print fake money, our ENTIRE financial institute is based on DEBT, that means if we're not in debt our economy will fail (do some research on where our money comes from). So to cover their own ass they drop interest rate, promote the idea of how we all need LOANS so that they can pay the interest rate on the money their spending in war and paying back interest on money they borrow from China and other countries.

So for one person to cross his arm and says that they "deserve" to live in a tent should go put his head in sand and live in shame. It's not US and THEM it is ALL of us, they are people like you and I that had hard times in their lives mostly by what the country is creating for them. You need to go HELP them rather then stand asside and pointing a finger at them. What's wrong with people like you... I will never understand.

I work hard, I'm fairly wealthy and I can live for rest of my life not working ever again, but I choose to go help others, I do what I can for ONE man to stand for freedom of human beings! I always will fight for this freedom, unfortunately I'm not fighting some evil monster but fighting people that have your mentality. Trying to show them that life is more then how much money I got in my bank. That we're all come from one place and will end up at the same place. So if I were have to take a side it will NEVER be on your side!


Mod Edit: Profanity/Circumvention Of Censors – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 17-3-2008 by Crakeur]

None of this is an accident, this is ALL planned out way ahead of time. The government is pushing for NWO, one way to achieve this is to move towards "north American union" which will replace our currency with "Amero" they are trying to do two things at the same time by crashing the market.

1- Getting rid of middle class, Richer will get much richer and the poor will get poorer. With 80%+ in the lower class the rich will dominate the country and use rest as slaves (us). As we used to in the history of our civilization.

2- Promoting the new replacement of "Amero" currency over dollar (as it will drop even more with the next coupe of years) to finalize NAU! Which falls under the US for ultimate control of our lives in North America and eventually rest of the world.

WAKE UP and stand together and fight this system before we're all swallowed up in it's dark abyss!

*I'll drop my comment on the above due to a Mod edit.*

[edit on 17/3/2008 by anxietydisorder]

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers
that he would buy houses for $100,000 each.

The man bought thousands at $100,000 and as supply started to diminish,
sales fell off. He further announced that he would now buy at $200,000 . This
renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started selling houses again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their
farms. The offer increased to $250,000 each and the supply of houses became
so little that it was an effort to even see a house for sale!

The man now announced that he would buy houses at $500,000 each! However,
since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy
the houses on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at all these
houses that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $350,000 and
when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $500,000
each."

The villagers rounded up with all their cash plus savings and bought all the
houses. Then they never saw the man nor his assistant again, only houses for
sale everywhere!

It seems I've become the bad guy here because of what may appear as being callous towards those that are losing their homes. I want to share a portion of a u2u I sent to another member that might explain my situation a bit better in hopes some of you understand.

Policy won't let me post what this is in response to so I'll remove the members name that I sent it to and give you the body of the message I composed.

I have also worked with the homeless and indigent, and I've spent many hours volunteering my time at a hospice. I also do pro bono work for tenants that are being evicted and represented at least 12 families in court free of charge in the past year.

Last week I bought household items and organize a food drive for a man I don't know so that he could set himself up in an apartment and get off the streets. I contacted agencies that would provide him with "meals on wheels" and have a member of the Victoria Order of Nurses check on him a couple times a week.

I'm not some hard ass trying to kick people out of their homes.

Someone made a comment in that thread that I was some rich white guy that didn't care, but that can't be further from the truth. I do care, it's just that I see both sides of the coin in this situation.

My job does require me to evict people that can't pay their way, and not to brag, but I've yet to lose a case that went before the courts.

It's never an easy task to put someone out of their home, and I spend sleepless nights worrying what I'll say to the judge the next day in court, but I still need to be true to my client that has ordered the eviction. Sometimes it eats at me for days when I have to have a sheriff lock people out, but I've honestly given them every opportunity to salvage their situation before it comes to that.

I can tell the difference between someone honestly trying to resolve their situation and those just pulling a scam.
Perhaps the scam artists have jaded me to those that deserve somewhat of a break, but in the end it always seems to come down to people trying to live beyond their income or get something for nothing.

I may have been playing the devil's advocate at the start of that thread, but believe me, I see both sides of the issue very clearly.

anx........

And for those that inferred that I live the high life off of what I do are very wrong.

I rent an apartment, I don't own a fancy car but take public transit, I work mostly from my home with a computer and desk in a corner, and my husband is unemployed and on disability.

Maybe Americans need to change their system because it's currently not working.

Anxiety Disorder whilst I have disagreed with your comments, I understand what you're saying about nightmare tenants.

The point is whether the people now turning up in tent cities are the same people or rather people with insufficient equity conned into borrowing money they couldn't afford to repay.

Banks were offering so called teasor rates with low interest at first and then climbing later. This type of conduct should have been outlawed.

The conduct of US banks has been rapacious.

Banks are limited by international convention to restrict lending to no more than 14 times their cash holdings, but by getting debts off their books and getting in funds for the sale of those debts (CDO/CMO) banks refinance themselves and expand their cash holdings.

Banks however use CDO and CMO products to take debt off their books.

Banks sell these bundles of debt as CDO or CMO in return for the total value of the debt. In reality it is like banks selling their debts to a credit collection agency.

Securities firms who buy these debts return funds to the bank against which the banks can lend again... but hey wait a minute.

The money the banks were paid by securities firms was not money which the securities firms had collected against those debts. It was money for a future unrealised earning.

So banks enlarged their credit worthiness against unrealised debts removed off their books, so that banks can effectively re-lend money they never had.

This way banks in USA have effectively managed to lend up to 200 times their true worth.

What has happened is this created very easy credit and lending agencies fell over themselves to lend money to people whom they knew could not repay.

There is actually no lack of money available.

There is however total loss of faith in the banking system and so called credit ratings. Some of the securities falling over had so called AAA ratings.

What value triple A ratings if the security is not worth anything ?

THIS IS NOTHING NEW PEOPLE TENT CITYS HAVE BEEN ON THE STREETS AND STILL ARE OF DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES JUST NOT REPORTED!!!!!!!

THESE CAMPS ARE MOSTLY TRIBES OF HOMELESS DRUG ADDICTS THAT ARE PREYED ON BY EVERYONE FROM THE KIDS UP THE STREET ON THE BIKES WITH THE FIRE WORKS TO SEXUAL PREDATORS!!!!!!!!!!

IN L.A.P.D.'S EYES THESE PEOPLE ARE EXPENDABLE AND QUICKLY FORGOTTEN THUS THE LACK OF AMERICAN MAIN STREAM MEDIA COVERAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
It serves them right.
If you take out a loan you can't possibly repay, or you fail to read the fine print, then you lose your home.

Sure, the financial institutions offered loans in a way that made them look very attractive while markets were rising, but they didn't forge your signature on the papers.

If you can't pay you're out.
Go live in a tent if you're that stupid or rent an apartment, because you deserve it.

Apparently you seem to be the one who is ignorant so let me fill you in a bit.

Number one, in my area and as far as I can see in many other areas as well there seems to be a recession of the economy. Meaning allot of people are out of work or work has slowed down for them drastically.

Well mister "they deserve it" guy. Why does a person that was making about 125k a year now only making an equivalent of maybe 50k a year do to the economic slump deserve to lose his/her home?

there was 5,000 foreclosures in my city alone last month and doubling every month since Jan.

Do you really believe this many people are stupid?

Or would the more likely scenario be: That the economy is taking an unexpected dive that not even the most business savvy investors could foresee. And as this dive continues more and more people are out of work and therefor can no longer afford there homes. Not because they drink there money away but because they simply don't have money.

I think I will go with the second scenario because those drunks and druggies aren't smart enough to all come together with a scam wherein they all just stop paying for there homes all at the same time all across the country.

You are the ignorant one for not seeing this and your attitude is very heartless. It seems your the right guy for your job. If anybody deserves anything I think you deserve to get hit by a big truck.

Originally posted by Elisha4Yah
reply to post by anxietydisorder

 

You NEED to be very careful with what you say, although I see it's coming from your stone cold heart-you might eat your own words.

The Word say's that in the latter days the love of many would WAX COLD.

As for the reality of that situation, my soul is pierced to the bone for those people, whoever they are and whatever caused them to resort to living in tents. But hey! The good new is this; The bible say's the children of Israel also lived in tents prior to reaching the promised land!
OUR KING IS COMING!!

Matthew 5:5
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.


Luke 6:20
And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

Of course he's coming,just as soon as you give your last dollar to the preacher who seems to have all the answers.

reply to post by Alien Abduct


Well mister "125k a year guy", what did you do with your money ?

Over finance an SUV on top of that other car ?
Buy a house with no money down ?
Max out your credit cards ?
Buy electronic goodies ?

You're the one that bought into the bull they offered, not me. I actually read what I sign.

Did you make wise and frugal investments and purchases ?
I doubt it, but I'm sure a credit counselor could point out the errors you've made.

Originally posted by Alien Abduct

If anybody deserves anything I think you deserve to get hit by a big truck.

And now you want me dead because I have an opinion that disagrees with yours.
Now that's harsh man......:shk:

Has any of this got to do with the Bear Stearns Finiacial crises...Being that they are a huge mortgage investers and all??


We are not hearin much about it up here in Canada Eh???

Originally posted by JOEYSINNER
THIS IS NOTHING NEW PEOPLE TENT CITYS HAVE BEEN ON THE STREETS AND STILL ARE OF DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES JUST NOT REPORTED!!!!!!!

THESE CAMPS ARE MOSTLY TRIBES OF HOMELESS DRUG ADDICTS THAT ARE PREYED ON BY EVERYONE FROM THE KIDS UP THE STREET ON THE BIKES WITH THE FIRE WORKS TO SEXUAL PREDATORS!!!!!!!!!!

IN L.A.P.D.'S EYES THESE PEOPLE ARE EXPENDABLE AND QUICKLY FORGOTTEN THUS THE LACK OF AMERICAN MAIN STREAM MEDIA COVERAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When the tents rise from 189 to 547 in a few days...Id say somthing is goin on...look at the statistics on how quickly they rose over a very shrot time..

you know, if we scrapped just one shuttle mission, or grounded Airforce 1 & 2 and had George and big Dick just stay in their DC offices with conference calls and video uplinks for communicating rather than flying these big birds and all the other apparatus that must go with it....or or or trim a few 100ths of 1% from the bloated military/defense budget....and there would be enough money to put all these people back in a "home" where they belong.

The tent cities are not just in L.A. they are all over the country. It could be any of us.

well. imagine what every dollar spent on the war in middle east could be done for these families and me. i could buy a super computer with that money. god damn military spendings. who eva invented money was an idiot.