Tuesday, March 18, 2008

BBC misleads on dire consequences of housing foreclosures in CA

This article is outrageously misleading! They make it seem like this Tent City is the result of the home mortgage crisis at the beginning, but only by reading the whole article do you find out that the city was made for homeless people months before the crisis and they only found one family that was there as a result of the crisis, but they do "expect" more.


Tent city highlights US homes crisis

The meltdown in the US mortgage market has led to record foreclosures and forced thousands from their homes. In few places is it worse than southern California, where the BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani reports on an extreme consequence of the downturn, but one that some observers fear could grow.

...Last summer, local officials established this camp as a temporary base for the city's homeless population, then around two dozen.

But word spread and now some 300 people live here.

...But one man, who did not give his name, said he and his family were living in Tent City because they were victims of America's foreclosure crisis. It came down to "feeding my family or keeping the house", he said, "so I got rid of the house".

...There are thousands like him across California - people whose inability to finance their mortgages has cost them their homes; many thousands more across the US.


But in Tent City, at least, he is in a minority - few are here as a direct result of the housing crash.


However, Mike Dunlap, who runs a volunteer group providing supplies to Tent City's dwellers, thinks that could change.


...He fears that, as more people lose their homes in what appears to be a deepening housing market collapse, more former homeowners could end up in places like Tent City.

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