The rising cost of rent and housing in California is forcing residents into alternative accommodation with middle class workers taking up residence in their cars and RVs by the side of the road to make ends meet.
Hundreds of people, including nurses and chefs, are sleeping in parking lots in affluent areas like Santa Barbara as they make the most of the only homes they can afford.
Marva Ericson, who works as a nursing assistant, has been sleeping in her Kia for the past three months. She wakes up before dawn each day, showers at the local YMCA and dresses in her hospital scrubs to head to work.
I wake up and I say, ‘Thank you God for keeping me safe last night, and thank you for the Safe Parking program’,’ the 48-year-old told the LA Times.
Like Ericson, most of the people sleeping rough in their cars are part of the area’s Safe Parking program, which is run by the New Beginnings Counseling Center and aims to provide a secure area for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles.
The program has roughly 150 clients and 40 per cent of those are working but they just can’t afford an apartment with the rising cost of housing.
About 35 per cent of those in the program are seniors and about 30 per cent are disabled. The majority are living out of their small cars with only 25 per cent sleeping in RVs.
Ericson ended up homeless after a series of medical set backs. She suffered a number of seizures that forced her to quit her job and was eventually diagnosed with a brain tumor.
She overcame the illness while caring for her dying mother and is now working two different jobs to make ends meet. Up until three months ago, Ericson was living in apartments for $1,000-1,600 a month but became homeless when she fell behind in rent.
Kathy, 65, and Phil, 74, have been living together in their old RV after losing their condo in 2013.
‘I was always into December and making the house wonderfully warm and beautiful,’ Kathy said of the holiday season. ‘I’ve got some little lights on the ceiling of the RV and I got out my mom’s old snow globe, with a music box on it.’
Santiago Geronimo, who is a chef at a high-end Santa Barbara restaurant, has been living in a Ford Explorer for three months with his girlfriend and her eighth-grade son Luis.
The Safe Parking program, which has been running for 12 years, allows clients to stay overnight in the parking lots of churches, not-for-profits and government offices.
Clients can park their cars after 7pm and need to be gone by the early morning.
In Santa Barbara alone, there are 23 parking lots currently used for the Safe Parking program.
There is also a waitlist of 40 people desperate to take part.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5212977/Californias-middle-class-homeless-living-parking-lots.html#ixzz52ZUqkNP1
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Man, that really sucks. I’m sure all the people who have now lost their homes to the fires will be taking up any available rental places putting further strain on the market.
I have a pal who is a professional cowboy in MT. He explained to me years ago about the thousands of CA people who sold their broom closet-sized condos for millions and moved to MT, ID and WY…paying WAAAAY too much for property there which forced out the born-raised locals. Big anti-CA sentiment there…sorta like the anti-NY sentiment in FL. In the end, the CA folks have done this to themselves…and it just sucks for the regular working folks like those in this article.
So what? These people still have cars to live in. Homelessness has been a problem since the 1980’s, and nobody gave a rat’s ass about it then. It’s only becoming a concern now because there are too many homeless people to hide them out of sight.
I don’t know if anyone else remembers this, but before the “Reganomics” era, homelessness was a lifestyle choice. It’s only been since the 1980s that working people were forced into the street.
No one seems to care unless it hits them personally, by a friend or relative being tossed into the street, or if it ruins the view in their “upscale neighborhood”.
Get used to it, yuppie. Someone is going to be pissing in the street in front of your million-dollar home, but the fact that he’s out in the street, is the only reason you have a million-dollar home, so cry to someone else.
There is some clown right now trying to sell a 500 million dollar home in California. Who in gods name is going to buy this monstrosity? What sick SOB would buy such a thing?
There is another in Europe going for 1 billion.
How is this good for Americans or anybody else for that matter? Really getting tired of all the bullshit.
This always gets me.
The other day a woman i know who lives pretty poor and has no job and kid pays the bills czlled herself middle class.
Being the asshole i am i pointed out that she was not middle class. She argued about her upbringing in a nice area of chicago and the career she had before getting canned for being addicted to drugs. She spoke about the nice house she lost when her husband died ten years ago. She rents a trailer in a park that her daughter affords by min wage unskilled salvery and the son in law is a crack head heroin dealer. Their house hold makes about 20k ayear between 3 adults. Then add the out of control 9yo grandkid who talks to people like they are worthless and she will take out of your hand and scream if you take it back.
Middle class?
Not even a little.
American Nationals are fast becoming the refugees in their own land…..domestic refugees
Two bedroom with even one bath at $3000 per month….put in 5 people sharing space and utilities its barely affordable for each tenant at minimum wage. But if you’re illegal, working under the table, collecting benefits ie. EBT, cuckoo disabilities, Section 8 housing etc. you’ll live like a king! Especially in the warmer climates of the good old USA that the last generation have all but given away by now.. That America has been long gone as inheritances and savings depleted too…no more pensions….all bleak.