Page 7 - ARUBA TODAY

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U.S. NEWS Tuesday 7 November 2017

American Living:
Growing homeless camps contrast with West Coast tech wealth

By GILLIAN FLACCUS $300 to register it. Now, the
GEOFF MULVIHILL couple parks the RV near a
Associated Press small regional airport.
SEATTLE (AP) — Housing They have no running wa-
prices are soaring here ter and no propane for the
thanks to the tech indus- cook stove. They go to the
try, but the boom comes bathroom in a bucket and
with a consequence: A dump it behind a nearby
surge in homelessness business.
marked by 400 unauthor- After four months, the
ized tent camps in parks, stench of human waste
under bridges, on freeway inside the RV is overwhelm-
medians and along busy ing. They are exhausted,
sidewalks. The liberal city is scared and defeated, with
trying to figure out what to no solution in sight.
do. “Between the two of us a
“I’ve got economically month, we get $1,440 in dis-
zero unemployment in my ability,” he said. “We can’t
city, and I’ve got thou- find a place for that.”
sands of homeless people Nationally, homeless-
that actually are work- ness has been trending
ing and just can’t afford down, partly because
housing,” said Seattle City In this Sept. 18, 2017 photo, Taz Harrington, right, sleeps with his girlfriend, Melissa Ann Whitehead, governments and non-
on a street in downtown Portland, Ore. Harrington, who is in his 20s, said he met Whitehead, who
Councilman Mike O’Brien. was already homeless, online and came to Oregon to be with her even though he knew they profit groups have gotten
“There’s nowhere for these would be sleeping outside. He said although he was hoping to find work, his girlfriend becomes better at moving people
folks to move to.” anxious when he’s away, so he stays with her most of the time. into housing. That’s true in
That struggle is not Se- (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) many West Coast cities,
attle’s alone. A homeless interviews with local offi- according to an AP tally of cities or municipal regions too, but the flow the other
crisis is rocking the entire cials and those who serve every jurisdiction in those in California, Oregon and direction is even faster.
West Coast, pushing ab- the homeless in California, states that reports home- Washington have de- “So everybody who was
ject poverty into the open Oregon and Washington less numbers to the U.S. De- clared emergencies due just hanging on because
like never before. — coupled with an Associ- partment of Housing and to the rise of homelessness, they had cheap rent,
Public health is at risk, sev- ated Press review of pre- Urban Development. That a designation usually re- they’re losing that ... and
eral cities have declared liminary homeless data — is 19,000 more than were served for natural disasters. they wind up outside,” said
states of emergency, and confirm it’s getting worse. counted in 2015, although The West Coast’s newly Margaret King, director of
cities and counties are People who were once the numbers may not be homeless are people who housing programs for the
spending millions — in able to get by, even if they directly comparable be- were able to survive on the nonprofit DESC in Seattle.
some cases billions — in a suffered a setback, are cause of factors ranging margins — until those mar- “It’s just exploded.”
search for solutions. now pushed to the streets from the weather to new gins moved. Above all, the West Coast
San Diego now scrubs its because housing has be- counting methods. For years, Stanley Tim- lacks long-term, low-in-
sidewalks with bleach to come so expensive. All it —During the same period, mings, 62, and his 61-year- come housing for people
counter a deadly hepatitis takes is a prolonged illness, the number of unsheltered old girlfriend, Linda Catlin, like Ashley Dibble and her
A outbreak. In Anaheim, a lost job, a broken limb, a people in the three states were able to rent a room 3-year-old daughter.
400 people sleep along a family crisis. climbed 18 percent to in a friend’s house on their Dibble, 29, says she has
bike path in the shadow What was once a blip in 105,000. combined disability pay- been homeless off and
of Angel Stadium. Organiz- fortunes now seems a life —Rising rents are the main ments. on for about a year, after
ers in Portland lit incense sentence. culprit. The median one- Last spring, that friend died her ex-boyfriend squan-
at an outdoor food festival Among the findings: bedroom apartment in the of colon cancer and the dered money on his car
to cover up the stench of —Official counts taken San Francisco Bay Area is couple was thrust on Se- and didn’t pay the rent for
urine in a parking lot where earlier this year in Califor- more expensive than it is attle’s streets. three months. She sent her
vendors set up shop. nia, Oregon and Washing- in the New York City metro Timmings used their last toddler to live with the girl’s
Homelessness is not new ton show 168,000 homeless area, for instance. savings to buy a used RV paternal grandparents in
on the West Coast. But people in the three states, —Since 2015, at least 10 for $300 and spent another Florida. q