US - 727,304 homeless!

[RedOnce]

March 09, 2006
People's Daily Online - China

Last year, the United States found 727,304 homeless people nationwide, meaning about one in every 400 Americans were without a home, according to the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2005 issued by the Information Office of China's State Council Thursday.

"The Los Angeles County has become 'the homeless capital of America,' with the average number of vagabonds or people in shelters hitting 90,000 a day, including 35,000 people chronically homeless...The United States dubs the world's richest country, however, it maintains the highest poverty rate among developed countries," the report says, given a study of eight advanced countries by London School of Economics in 2005, which found that the United States had the worst social inequality.

Meanwhile, the income of ordinary employees in the United States has seen a sharp decline, causing the increase of poor population.

These problems indicate that poverty, hunger and homelessness are quite serious in America, worker's economic, social and cultural rights are not guaranteed, the report says.

http://english.people.com.cn/200603/09/eng20060309_249263.html

[AndyA]

1. Yer doin' a heck of a job, Bushie! n/m

[MadMaddie]

2. This was in a Chinese newpaper...

No US media outlet is covering this.....

[acmejack]

3. Undercounted

Majority of the homeless are invisible, they aren't counted. I believe the real number is much greater.

[RedOnce]

4. I believe you're right.

[Warpy]

8. So do I

especially the mentally ill homeless, who do their best to stay hidden. They are too fearful to go to shelters, seek medical care, or even visit soup kitchens and missions when they're hungry. They live in wooded areas, abaindoned buildings, abandoned subway stations, wherever they have shelter from the rain. They have no social contact with anyone.

We've always had a few thousand skid row alcoholics who couldn't afford a flophouse bed for the night. Now there aren't even any flophouses any more, they've all been turned back into mansions for yuppies.

That there are so many marginal workers who are homeless should be a source of deep shame for cheap labor conservatives. That it isn't is a source of deep shame for this country.

[RedOnce]

10. How many more...are just a paycheck away?

[mirandapriestly]

16. almost everybody

especially with the outrageous cost of housing

[sojourner]

11. was about to post exact same thought...WAY undercounted, IMO n/t

[OneBlueSky]

14. absolutely . . . by at least 100%, maybe more . . . n/t

.

[Stockholm]

5. Sad kick

Something for Dean to work on.

[Turbineguy]

6. Curious....

The number seems a bit strange. How can they get such an accurate count?

On the other hand, how much would a desire to be right about Bush and such tend to influence the belief that the number is higher?

[sam sarrha]

7. that doesnt come near to counting the homeless taken in by family and

and friends... this hasnt started to feater yet...

the NeoCons plan is to TOTALLY DESTROY the nation.. Mad Max and the Thunder Dome..

george bush is the idiot with Karl Rove riding on his back..

they REALLY have Total Faith in God to Build a UTOPIA out of the Ashes.. the military calles them the 'Utopians..'

even my mother says god wont let anything bad happen to this country..

[mrcheerful]

9. Well didn't y'all understand the poor want to be poor and the homeless

to be homeless. Jebus, you liberals just don't get it do y'all? Besides I got mines and I did it all by myself, I even changed my own diapers, nobody gave me a helping hand and I didn't cry or whine when my BMW needed repaired. Or how about that time I couldn't get that 6 million dollar house my wife and kids thought was perfect, but that scum low life real estate agent sold it before I could buy it. Sheesh you liberals just want a gravy train for people that didn't pull themselves up by the boot straps.

sarcasm at it best.

[RedOnce]

13. This attitude can certainly be found in my neighborhood.

[Orsino]

12. American capitalism is an engine that runs on misery. n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. Badly undercounted, IMHO.