Homeless Encampments Explode All Over America As Rents Soar And Evictions Surge
By Michael Snyder/Economic Collapse Blog May 09, 2023
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Communities all over the United States are being taken over by giant homeless encampments, but we are supposed to believe that this is perfectly normal. The Biden administration is trying very hard to convince all of us that the economy is in fine shape even though many of our most prominent corporations are currently conducting mass layoffs.
Just like in 2008 and 2009, large numbers of people that have lost their jobs or their businesses are ending up living in the streets, and as a result homeless encampments are absolutely exploding in size from coast to coast.
In Marin County, California the average price of a home is 1.4 million dollars, and it is one of the most prosperous areas of the entire country.
But it is also home to vast hordes of homeless people. In fact, one of the biggest homeless encampments in Marin County is now more than two miles long...
Hundreds of locals in one of San Francisco's wealthiest counties have been forced to pack up their lives into RVs and trailers after being pushed out of the housing market.
Shocking photos show the ever-growing line of trucks and other vehicles along 101 Highway - which now stretches over two miles in one of the largest encampments in the country.
The Federal Reserve knew that pumping vast amounts of money into the system would make the wealthy even wealthier, but they also hoped that some of that wealth would eventually trickle down to the poor.
Sadly, that didn't really happen.
Instead, the gap between the wealthy and the poor has gotten larger than it has ever been before, and now we are witnessing scenes like this all over the nation...
I was absolutely floored when I first viewed that footage.
Those that live there are trying to make the best of it. In fact, one woman that recently "moved in" is comparing it to "heaven"...
"My life here ... it's OK to me. It's really relaxing. There's no harassment," Shelly G. told the Post.
Shelly, 53, moved to Binford Road from Petaluma at the beginning of April to join her friend Terry.
Shelly was seated under a covered area behind a green vehicle and held her small dog, Bailey, as she talked to the Post.
"This right here, this is heaven," she went on.
No, you are not living in "heaven".
You are 53-years-old and you are living in a vehicle on the side of the road.
But I give her credit for trying to put a positive spin on her very distressing circumstances.
Of course she is far from alone. More than half a million Americans are currently homeless, and that number is inevitably going to grow much larger.
Many would argue that the problem is even worse in southern California. The homeless encampment along San Vicente Boulevard in Beverly Grove just continues to expand, and this has pushed one physician to the breaking point...
Dr. Kenneth Wright, a physician and surgeon, has been working out of an office in the neighborhood for 22 years.
"For the last year and a half to two years, there's been encampments on both sides of our office building. Patients are afraid to come in. Many of them have psychiatric problems, drug problems, and they're screaming profanities. They [unhoused people] defecate in our planters, defecate in the parking lot and it's gotten to the point now that I had to leave. My office staff is afraid. They're afraid to come to the office. They come in pairs," said Wright.
I feel very badly for him.
But at least he has the option of moving his office.
Other types of businesses are not so easy to relocate.
Unfortunately, it has now become nearly impossible to escape this crisis in some cities.
At this point, the entire city of Portland is essentially one enormous homeless encampment, and countless businesses have fled for greener pastures as a result.
Yes, some of the people living in these homeless encampments are drug addicts and criminals, but there are also a lot of hard working individuals that have just had some tough luck.
These days, most of the population is barely scraping by from month to month, and inflation has pushed housing costs to absurdly high levels...
Americans are facing one of the toughest markets in years - with up to 20 prospective renters per single apartment in some cities.
The Northeast is ground zero in the battle for a new apartment, as inflation, interest rate hikes and cost of living pressures shatter the home ownership dreams of many Millennials and Gen Zers.
Almost half of the 20 most competitive markets for renting in 2023 are in the Northeast, with North Jersey topping the list, according to Rent Café, which analyzed 134 markets across the U.S.
I can hardly believe what landlords are asking these days.
In New York City, the average rent on a one-bedroom apartment has now reached five thousand dollars a month...
That high demand could partly be a result of New York renters getting sticker shock from exorbitant renewal rates for shoe boxes in the city, where one-bedrooms are now going for an average of $5,000 per month.
Can you imagine paying $5,000 a month for an apartment with just one bedroom?
That is insanity.
The line outside Boston's American Red Cross Food Pantry on a recent morning stretched the length of two football fields.
The number of people filing into the red-brick industrial-zone warehouse on some days now exceeds the worst periods of the pandemic economic crisis and in April it had the second highest monthly traffic since it opened in 1982, according to David Andre, the director.
His organization, like food banks across the country, has been flooded with requests for help since food-stamp recipients were hit with a double blow: the expiration of a temporary boost in benefits put in place during the pandemic and onerous grocery prices, which are running 24% above pre-COVID levels.
"It's a hunger cliff -- inflation and ending these emergency allotments," Andre said. "People are really crashing."
About 32 million Americans had their monthly food stamp benefits cut at the end of February, on average by about $90 per person -- though some households experienced much deeper reductions.
The end of the emergency allotment for food stamps largely completes the unwinding of a series of coronavirus relief measures that staved off a wave of destitution during the crisis. Many more Americans now are going hungry than at the peak of the pandemic aid. Some 24.6 million adults didn't have enough to eat in early April versus 16.7 million the same month two years ago, the Census Bureau estimates.
But thanks to the Federal Reserve, this is our country now.
And as economic conditions deteriorate, the number of Americans that are getting booted out of their rentals has been soaring...
All told, landlords filed nearly 970,000 eviction cases across the sites that we track in the ETS, an increase of 78.6% compared to 2021.
Those that are running things are not going to be able to fix this.
In the months ahead, many more Americans will lose their jobs, and many more Americans will get evicted from their homes.
That means that a lot more people will be joining the ranks of the homeless, and homeless encampments will continue to rapidly grow all over the country.
Please do not look down on those that end up in the homeless encampments, because with a few bad breaks you could be one of them too.
Originally published at The Economic Collapse Blog - reposted with permission.
