California's Tent City of the Foreclosed is Closed

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 3/24/2009 10:03:00 AM
I thought it right to post about this to achieve some, ah, closure. In times past, I have marveled about the existence of a tent city of the foreclosed at the heart of America's wealthiest state, California [1, 2]. Recently, I had an upsurge in hits for these two older posts, making me wonder what was going on. It turns out that Ontario, CA was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show. For so long, Hollywood has sold the California Dream like a giant Beach Boys soundtrack. However, the housing implosion in the boom-to-bust Inland Empire has meant skyrocketing foreclosure rates, forcing many to live in the now-infamous Tent City of the Foreclosed. It appears this shantytown has given the California Dream a black eye as officials are now in a hurry to close it down in embarrassment. From Reuters:
The mayor of California's state capital unveiled plans on Thursday to shut down a sprawling "tent city" of the homeless that has drawn worldwide media attention as a symbol of U.S. economic decline. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to first make alternative shelter space available for the estimated 150 men and women who inhabit the squalid encampment near the American River, at the edge of the city's downtown.

Johnson, who toured the area with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a day earlier, said he hoped to have the ramshackle settlement cleared of tents and debris in the next two to three weeks. "We want to move as quickly as we can," he told a news conference, insisting the city was determined to treat the tent dwellers with compassion. "They are people out there. We have to do whatever we can do," he said. "We as a city are not going to shy away from it. We're going to tackle it head-on." Advocates for the homeless applauded the mayor's action. Municipal authorities in Sacramento have been debating the fate of the tent city for weeks.

Sacramento has one of the highest mortgage foreclosure rates in the United States, and the homeless total in the city and surrounding county is estimated to have jumped nearly 10 percent last year to nearly 2,700. About half are believed to be living outdoors, according to a local survey.
And so ends the California Dream, as fake as a Hollywood set--or an AAA CDO for that matter. At least in the Tent City of the Foreclosed you had a tent ownership society, to paraphrase Dubya. Now it's gone like Greta Garbo.