Homelessness Up Around Country

Well, after the first part of conservative philosophy—starving the beast and letting the free market rule—was put into action, it's time to check in with the second part of that philosophy and see how it's going for people. The economy should be strong (oopsy!) and anyone falling off the edge should be getting plenty of assistance from private enterprise, because people help people better than government helps people, right?

Uh-oh! Looks like more massive fail:

Cities and counties are reporting a sharp increase in homeless families as the economic crisis leads to job loss and makes housing unaffordable.

[...]

• In Chicago, calls to a homelessness prevention hotline were 59% higher in February than a year earlier, says Nancy Radner, head of the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness. "We're getting requests from people earning more than $30,000 a year, even $65,000. That's unprecedented."

• In Los Angeles, 620 families used the winter shelter program this winter, compared with 330 families a year earlier, manager David Martel says.

• In the Phoenix area, 230 people in families were living on the street in January; there were 49 a year ago. There were 139 children younger than 18 living on the street on their own, according to the Maricopa Association of Governments.

• In Miami-Dade County, the number of people calling for help after getting an eviction notice jumped from 1,000 in 2007 to 4,000 last year, David Raymond of the county's Homeless Trust says. "We've beefed up our prevention efforts," he says, so fewer people become homeless.

• In the Seattle area, street homelessness increased 2% overall but 40% in the suburbs, where the number living in cars rose from 229 last year to 339, homelessness project director Bill Block says.

The good news is that back in the reality-based community, $1.5 billion in federal funding has been slated "to help struggling people pay their rent, utilities or security deposits so they don't end up homeless."