Word: homelessness
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Tent cities are not a new American phenomenon. Makeshift encampments of people who don't have permanent homes have long existed on the margins of many U.S. cities. But the tide of foreclosures and a rising national unemployment rate have dramatically swelled the ranks of the newly homeless. And one estimate says current economic conditions will drive a million more people into homelessness by 2010. Some will end up in shelters or on the streets. Others are choosing to live in nylon tents on dusty lots, waiting for their fortunes to turn...
Officials elsewhere have reacted in a similar way. After being featured on Oprah, Sacramento, Calif., dismantled a tent city in April, moving residents into shelters. But other tent cities remain. For some of the newly homeless, unaccustomed to the strict rules and lack of privacy at shelters, a nylon home is better than no home...
Even if you're homeless, New York City wants that rent money. Under a newly enforced policy, working families that live in public shelters will have to turn over a portion of their earnings, in some cases as much as 50%, to cover costs. About 2,000 of the 9,000 families living in homeless shelters will be affected as the city grapples with a major budget crunch...
...idea for this book? When the Fight Club movie was going into production, I quit my job so I could write full-time. I needed something that would get me out of bed really early in the morning so I started volunteering at a homeless soup kitchen. People didn't know who I was or why I was there, so they started inventing stories about me. I was a registered sex offender and I'd just been released from prison and was being forced to do community-service work. I was a murderer, an arsonist - all these horrific things...
...marks the first anniversary of the devastating 7.9-magnitude earthquake in China's southwest that killed an estimated 86,633 people. In the past year, Beijing has poured billions of dollars into the region's reconstruction, and hundreds of thousands of people who were left homeless after the disaster have found shelter and begun rebuilding their lives. But many parents whose children were killed one year ago today remain incensed about the apparently shoddy construction that led to what some allege were a disproportionate number of schools collapsing. Despite what human-rights activists say has been a campaign of intimidation...