4.5 Million Foreclosures in 2010: Eighteen Million, Out in the Street

03-31-2010 • InformationClearingHouse.info

That’s 4.5 million homes, and with four people to a household that is eighteen million people. Eighteen million men, women and children put out into the road people who must scramble to find shelter and scramble to find new schools for their children. Last year it was 2.8 million homes or 11.2 million Americans put out into the road. In two years that is 29.2 million people just put out into the road. “I gotta see them folks that’s gone out on the road. I got a feelin' I got to see them. They gonna need help no preachin' can give 'em. Hope of heaven when their lives ain’t lived? Holy Sperit when their own sperit is downcast an’ sad?” Preacher Casey--The Grapes of Wrath Twenty-nine million is more people than the population of forty-nine states in the union. Eighteen million is a larger population than all of the states except New York, Texas and California. Yet the problem is glossed over; the solution is discussed casually and the victims are ignored. I am but one of the citizens of this invisible empire. As I approach my one year anniversary of living in a garage and washing in a bucket let me tell you what I’ve found. Number one, I am one of the lucky ones. I’ve lost my wealth, my wife and my home. But I still have a place to sleep and a bathroom to use. Over the year I’ve met people who are sleeping in tents and everyone I talk to tells me their own version of the same story entitled, “My Downward Spiral.”