"The phenomenon has caught advocacy groups by surprise, because of how quickly they've sprung up"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3497634&mesg_id=3497634

In hard times, tent cities rise across the country
By EVELYN NIEVES (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
September 18, 2008 12:03 PM EDT
RENO, Nev. - A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer. Then others appeared - people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" - an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation. Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening.

"It's clear that poverty and homelessness have increased,"

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It's a vague, misleading, and ultimately frustrating tactic designed to boost your own readership at the expense of other DUers who have to cross-click just to find out whether or not they even want to bother reading what you wrote there.

and ended up taking out the 'encampment' reference because it wouldn't fit in the topic line, so I apologize for losing the context. I thought the quote was rather dramatic and was lost in the LBN post and deserved a life of it's own for people to be aware of.

I'm in the middle of watching another teacher's class and looking for other info to post and get interrupted constantly in what I'm doing.

But thanks for your concern and accusations.

{And, of course, we're all pulling on the same end of the rope here, too... <g>}