The Economy

While people who can are leaving Reno in droves, those who are homeless are finding it attractive for some damned reason.

Speaking of homelessness, "Hoovervilles" are making a comeback:

But the Hoovervilles are back.

A front-page article in Thursday's New York Times ("Cities Deal With a Surge in Shantytowns") describes the reemergence of itinerant encampments on the American cityscape. The most widely reported of these lies near Sacramento, California. About 125 people now reside in this Hooverville, in the capital city of America's richest and most populous state.

Yet the Hooverville is far more widespread than the media attention on the tent city near Sacramento implies. It has reemerged in Phoenix, Arizona; Olympia and Seattle, Washington; Reno, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Nashville, Tennessee; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Fresno, California; among others.

People in these encampments live in tents, or else shacks built of old wood, scrap metal, cardboard and other waste. They live without running water, electricity, plumbing, or garbage removal.

Cities are trying to deal with the "problem," when in fact the "problem" could be fixed by drastically changing economic policies in this country. Unlike times of yore, more and more people in these shantytowns are not alcoholics or the mentally ill:

While encampments and street living have always been a part of the landscape in big cities like Los Angeles and New York, these new tent cities have taken root — or grown from smaller enclaves of the homeless as more people lose jobs and housing — in such disparate places as Nashville, Olympia, Wash., and St. Petersburg, Fla.

In Seattle, homeless residents in the city’s 100-person encampment call it Nickelsville, an unflattering reference to the mayor, Greg Nickels. A tent city in Sacramento prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to announce a plan Wednesday to shift the entire 125-person encampment to a nearby fairground. That came after a recent visit by “The Oprah Winfrey Show” set off such a news media stampede that some fed-up homeless people complained of overexposure and said they just wanted to be left alone.

The problem in Fresno is different in that it is both chronic and largely outside the national limelight. Homelessness here has long been fed by the ups and downs in seasonal and subsistence jobs in agriculture, but now the recession has cast a wider net and drawn in hundreds of the newly homeless — from hitchhikers to truck drivers to electricians.

“These are able-bodied folks that did day labor, at minimum wage or better, who were previously able to house themselves based on their income,” said Michael Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group based in Washington.

And in my neighborhood, people are leaving in droves because of no jobs. Many of these are from Mexico, and lots of them are returning there, while others are moving out of state because of no opportunities. Vacancies abound in rentals, but of course my landlord, who never paid into Social Security for the entire time he had the guesthouse (37 years), continues to charge ridiculous rent here. He won't be able to charge it if one or both of us tenants moves out.