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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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Drive thru homeless

December 07 2009
Number of US homeless in cars growing More than 300,000 people made homeless by the credit crunch in America are living in their cars, new figures have revealed. According to a report published last month by a coalition of housing charities across the country, more than 18 per cent of America's 1.6m homeless are not on the streets but are living in their trucks and cars after their homes were repossessed. Entitled Foreclosures to Homelessness 2009, the study has highlighted how the recession has created a rising number of "mobile homeless", who spend their days trying to sleep in their cars and trying to avoid getting a parking ticket. In Ventura County in California, the government has tried to help the situation by creating "safe sleeping lots" where cars can safely and legally camp under police surveillance. Bessie Mae Berger, a 97-year-old mother-of-eight has been living in a 1973 Chevrolet Suburban with her two sons Larry, 60, and Charlie Wilkerson, 62, in Los Angeles for more than two years. They insist on living together, so local authorities have so far failed to re-house them since their landlord sold their home and evicted them. Their days are spent in public car parks, shopping centres and occasionally begging, which is when Bessie will sit by the side of the road with a cardboard sign that reads: "I am 97 years old. Homeless. Broke. Need help please." Ms Berger, who was born in March, 1912 - six weeks before the Titanic sank - said: "I don't mind living at the mercy of the public because some of the public is good - they're nice to me. But there are some that are nasty. Some of them laugh at me and my sign. They say they don't think I'm 97 years old." Larry Berger added: "They ask why we aren't able to get her off the street. But we can't. I have no income whatsoever." Night time is the hardest part of Bessie's day. She sleeps fitfully in the front passenger seat, cramped and hunched under blankets, with her two sons squashed in the back and driver's seat, next to a tool box, clothing, boxes, food and other possessions. Once a week they drive to Hollywood, where free showers are available at a drop-in centre. Sometimes, free hot meals are served from a food truck. They live mostly on Ms Berger's $375 monthly Social Security check, Mr Wilkerson's $637 disability payments, Mr Berger's $300 food stamp allocation and cash from bottles and cans they collect and recycle. Rick Cole, city manager in Ventura, California, said: "We've seen a rise in people sleeping in their cars. Some are foreclosed former homeowners, and some couldn't afford their rent. People will give up their house before they give up their car." University of California law professor Gary Blasi said: "There is a predictable path for those who lose their jobs and can't pay the rent or the mortgage. "First they live with friends and relatives, but they're poor, too. Then they live in their cars until the cars get towed or break down." Only three years ago, foreclosure was a rare factor in people becoming homeless in America, but according to the report from the National Coalition for the Homeless, it now makes up 10 per cent. In Cleveland, Ohio, foreclosure accounted for zero arrivals at the West Side Catholic shelter in 2007. But this year, the number has reached four. One of these is mother-of-three Sheri West, who spends her nights either in her Hyundai sedan or at the shelter after her house was repossessed last year. She said: "No one could have told me in a million years I'd wake up in a homeless shelter. I've always had this dream of doing better. I always wanted to own my own house." Most people who become homeless because of foreclosure had been low-income renters whose landlords stopped making their mortgage payments, leaving them scrambling for new housing with little notice and scant savings. But in recent months, there has been a visible increase in the number of former homeowners like Sheri, 50, showing up at shelters. Ms West, who fell into arrears with her mortgage after her husband left her, added: "It just took the life out me. "I was in a very bad state, a very depressed situation. Things just kind of went downhill. I just didn't care anymore." Larry Haynes, director of the Mercy House shelter in Santa Ana, California, said: "These families never needed help before. They haven't a clue about where to go, and they have all sorts of humiliation issues. They don't even know what to say, what to ask for."
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