As economic woes mount, homeless plan to vote
By Syantani Chatterjee, Reuters, Wed Jul 23, 1:17 AM ET
Single mother Mary White worked as a sales clerk until the bank foreclosed on the home she rented.
Tossed out on the street with her six boys, she lost her deposit and her job. Now she is revved up to vote in November. “My situation is going to make me want to vote even more,” she said.
“I want to say that this should not be happening to people in America, and I am very angry and upset about it.”
White, 42, is among many homeless people eager to cast a vote in an election year dominated by the shaky U.S. economy and a deepening housing crisis.
The U.S. government estimates that more than 400,000 people around the country sleep in homeless shelters each night, with many more on the streets, under bridges and in parked cars. Advocacy groups say that some 3.5 million Americans will find themselves homeless at some point in a year.
As home foreclosures passed the 2 million mark last year, organizations offering emergency accommodation say they are fielding more calls from families facing homelessness as they struggle to keep up with mortgages, rent and bills.
Specific figures are not available, but advocacy groups say many people who have lost their homes are particularly motivated to cast their votes this time around, because they feel they have more at stake.
“Low income and homeless people are more energized than I have ever seen before,” said Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition of the Homeless.
“There’s a lot of interest in voting because of what’s happening in this country.”
FOLLOWING THE ISSUES
With the U.S. housing crisis and economic insecurity forming a grim backdrop to the November election, both Democratic candidate Barack Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, have policies aimed at helping those hardest hit.
Obama has promised to help the nearly 37 million people living below the poverty line with measures including a raised minimum wage — pegged to rise with inflation that hit a near three-year high of 1.1 percent in June — together with family tax breaks and increased access to affordable housing.
McCain campaigned in the “forgotten places” in the U.S. South in April, reaching out to minorities and the poor with policy proposals including business incentives for areas with high unemployment, and housing vouchers for the homeless.
People without a home, more than a third of them families with children, depend on the government and nonprofits. For them much is riding on the outcome of the Nov 4. presidential election, advocacy groups say.
“If you are homeless it is probably a little more important. Because whatever assistance you receive comes from the public sector, which is regulated by politics and elected officials,” said Louisa Stark, chairwoman of the Phoenix Consortium to End Homelessness.
Among those following the campaign is Shera Greenwich, a mother of two living at a shelter run by the Henry St. Settlement in New York City.
As she waits to move into a subsidized apartment, she says issues including economic security and obtaining quality healthcare are her focus, and she plans to vote Democratic.
“I see so much change in the future if Obama is elected President,” she said. “I think he can get America back on track.”
OBSTACLES TO VOTING
Advocacy groups campaign each election season to get the homeless to register to vote, noting they often face formidable obstacles on the way to the ballot box.
Many may have no permanent address from which to register. Others have lost track of the identification documents that they need in order to obtain voter cards, such as Social Security cards and birth certificates.
“What you find is that so many families move so frequently, things get lost along the way,” said Darlene Newsom, CEO of UMOM New Day Centers in Phoenix, which provides emergency shelter for more than 60 homeless families.
Organizations such as UMOM and Beyond Shelter in Los Angeles are helping their clients assemble paperwork, and providing them with an address they can use to register.
While homeless people are not a demographic that will determine the contest’s outcome, some who have registered say many of their dearest hopes are pegged on the outcome.
“I want to try to get security for my family, retirement, health issues, all of those things, to try and get myself a little piece of mind.” said Mendy Harris, 40, a mother of five who works for a transportation company and lost her rented home in Phoenix after her husband lost his job.
“My husband hasn’t voted since he was about 18, but he’s really serious this time,” added Harris, who plans to vote Democratic.
(Additional reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix and Nancy Leinfuss in New York, editing by Patricia Zengerle)
6 comments
boo voting, yay direct action
http://www.ace-ej.org/successful_eviction_blockade_in_roxbury_this_morning
Successful eviction blockade in Roxbury this morning
Another victory in the movement for housing justice was won this morning, as once again a multinational bank backed down from a post-foreclosure eviction. CountryWide Loans, a subsidiary of Bank of America, foreclosed on the home of Paula Taylor in Roxbury. Paula offered to pay market rent directly to the bank, but they refused and pursued an eviction. They told her to move out on June 30.
ACE rallies at eviction blockade in Roxbury
Paula decided to fight back and called City Life/Vida Urbana (CLVU), a housing rights organization campaigning against foreclosures. Paula is demanding the right to stay in her home and will not move out as long as the bank is the owner.
“Either someone will buy who wants a tenant or, if someone who buys the home wants to move in, I’ll move out without a fight,” she said. “But I am taking a stand based on principle that I will not move out without a fight as long as the bank owns the property.”
Explained Paula, “I feel very strongly against what is happening to me and to others throughout my neighborhood.”
When the constable issued a 48 hour notice of eviction, Paula and CLVU went to work organizing an eviction blockade. Volunteers stood in the back and front entrances, some prepared to be arrested if necessary. A support rally in front of the property featured speeches from City Councilor Chuck Turner, CLVU tenant organizer Steve Meacham, and Paula herself. An ACE group attended the rally, and will be reaching out to foreclosed homes in Roxbury as part of CLVU’s city-wide campaign against evictions.
Halfway through the rally, Steve Meacham announced that the bank had decided to back down, and would not be coming to evict Paula today. The crowd pledged to return for another blockade if the bank comes back in the future.
It’s one, two three what are we voting for!! None of them, not one of them are going to answer the needs of the people. But I suppose its nice that some still have faith in the system, that someone will come along and save them from the misery that the republicans and demonrats have caused. But who will be there to pick up the pieces and to form a more perfect union when no answers come and the broken need fixing?
My faith in the system was destroyed along time ago.
Michael Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition of the Homeless says, “Low income and homeless people are more energized than I have ever seen before.”
Hmmm but apparently NOT energized enough to go out and find a job to be a productive member of society. Sucking off the government teet is no way to lead a life. Each person in this country has the right to pursue whatever dreams they have. People who make poor decisions (not completing education, having 5 kids out of wedlock, not saving) should be held accountable - not rewarded. I’m all for providing a (limited) helping hand - preferably through a local charity or church. Having the taxpayer fund them is something I believe to be wrong. Why? Well because as soon as those people realize they can vote for people who will in turn vote more benefits for those who do not contribute - we are no longer a free country.
Yeah, funny thing about making bad choices. If you’re Paris Hilton and you make bad choices, you end up being dissed on tv while you roll around in your millions. If you’re a working person and you make bad choices, you end up in a homeless shelter . . . or like the woman who just blew her brains out because the bank was about to foreclose on her house.
Same bad choices. Different consequences. Why? The answer is obvious.
What’s not obvious is why someone who works for a living, and who could have it all taken away in a stroke of bad luck, would sneer at the suffering of other people just like them. Unless perhaps it helps to feed the false idea that they are better than other people, and therefore immune to the possibility that they could be reduced to homelessness.
Texas,
That classist crap makes my stomach turn. Capitalism assumes poverty and cannot function without it. I can’t believe we still live in a world where homeless people are blamed for being homeless. If you want to know why some folks don’t have food or shelter, the answer lies in the ability of a tiny minority of rulers to own 7 homes, 15 cars, ad nauseum. As long as we allow this state of affairs, there will be poor people–”bad choices” or not.
Starvation or wage slavery? That’s not a choice. It’s a threat!
Isn't it strange how social problems trickle down when wealth won't? America's poor are constantly being derided for being fiscally irresponsible and neglectful of their families and communities when it is our government and corporate elite who have made the abandonment of cooperative problem-solving and resource sharing, as well as the championing of unsustainable economic growth, signifiers of the American Way. Multinational corporations and bigshot investors do all sorts of rude things with stupendous amounts of capital and our foreign policy is selfishness and irresponsibility incarnate, but it is only when lower middle class, working class and poor people engage is these American cultural norms that they are considered wrong-headed, and it is only these people who are criticized for pursing the very antisocial philosophies our country is being run upon as we speak. I didn't know we little people had the power to bring this country to its knees with our small time decadence until the people who actually own and control it said so. But in a way, that's strangely reassuring…
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