Thread: CA: American Mom Forced to Live in Car With Dogs

This is outrageous!!! Middle class Americans forced to live out of their cars while illegals get free hand-outs from the Californian government!!! This is HORRIBLE!!! Get with the program, Santa Barbara!!! Help Americans first!!!

TexasGal


Mom forced to live in car with dogs

Story Highlights
Mother of three grown children says, "This is my life in this car right now"

Santa Barbara, California, allows homeless to sleep in cars in 12 parking lots

Affluent city has seen a rise in homelessness during California's housing crisis

Advocate for homeless: "It's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless"

By Thelma Gutierrez and Wayne Drash
CNN


SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.


Californian Barbara Harvey says she is forced to sleep in her car with her dogs after losing her job earlier this year.

"This is my bed, my dogs," she said. "This is my life in this car right now."

Harvey was forced into homelessness earlier this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic, oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.

"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."

Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament. Watch women who live in their cars »

There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.

The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.

It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.

Harvey stays at the city's only parking lot for women. "This is very safe, and that's why I feel very comfortable," she said.

Nancy Kapp, the New Beginnings parking lot coordinator, said the group began seeing a need for the lots in recent months as California's foreclosure crisis hit the city hard. She said a growing number of senior citizens, women and lower- and middle-class families live on the streets. See how foreclosure filings are up 75 percent »

"You look around today and there are so many," said Kapp, who was homeless with her young daughter two decades ago. "I see women sleeping on benches. It's heartbreaking."

She added, "The way the economy is going, it's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless. It's hit the middle class."

She and others with New Beginnings walk the streets looking for people and families sleeping in their cars. The workers inform them about the parking lot program.

New Beginnings screens people to make sure they won't cause trouble. No alcohol or drugs are allowed in the parking lots.

"What we are trying to do is we pull bad apples out, and we put good apples in the parking lots and really help people out," said Shaw Tolley, another coordinator with New Beginnings.

Most of the time, the lots are transition points. New Beginnings works with each person to try to find a more permanent housing solution.

"It saddens me when they live in their vehicles," Tolley said. "It is not the most ideal situation for senior citizens and families, but it is reality."

He added, "We need to engage this problem. This is reality."

John Quigley, an economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said the California housing crisis has left many middle-class families temporarily homeless or forced them to go to food banks to feed their families.

"Part of the reason why it's so painful in Santa Barbara is there's so little in the way of alternative housing," Quigley said. "If there were alternative low and moderate housing and rental accommodations that were reasonably close by, you can imagine it wouldn't have this desperate look to it as people living in their cars."

At the only lot for women in Santa Barbara, it's a tough existence. There are no showers or running water. On the night CNN visited, a half-dozen women already were in the parking lot before nightfall.

Linn Labou, 54, lives in her car with four cats. She used to be in the National Guard and is on a waiting list for government housing, but the wait is a year long.

"I went looking for family, but I couldn't get them to help me," she said.

As for Harvey, she begins each day by walking her two dogs before going to her part-time job. She leaves the dogs in her car with its windows cracked while she works.

It's another chapter in her life that she's certain she'll get through, even though she said she knows it pains her children. Her 19-year-old daughter moved in with friends to avoid being homeless.

"My daughter especially is very unhappy. Sometimes she'll cry and she'll call and say, 'Mom, I just can't stand it that you are living in a car,' " Harvey said. "I'll say, 'You know what? This is OK for right now because I'm safe, I'm healthy, the dogs are doing OK and I have a job and things will get better.' "

CNN's Gregg Canes and Traci Tamura contributed to this report.


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The probably have two illegal alien families stuffed in her old apartment to prop up the housing bubble... to ummm i mean stimulate the economy.

W

This is heartbreaking. Millions of tax dollars wasted on IAs and our own citizens can't get help, disgraceful!

This disgusts me and I hope nothing else angers me today as much as this story has

American citizens out of work and living in their cars through no fault of their own, in need of assistance right now and where is it all going in the state of CA? Right to illegal aliens, that's where it's going.

Even more outrageous is the fact that Feinstein and her cronies in corruption are, at this very moment, attempting to provide amnesty and a literal cornucopia of benefits to millions of ag workers and unlimited "family" members to give them a helping hand toward bettering their lot in life.

Where's the helping hand for Americans finding themselves in difficult circumstances right now?

I'm going to make sure this gets to Jeff Sessions. Perhaps he can ask Feinstein and the others to justify this when there are Americans unemployed and homeless right in their own backyards. Perhaps he can ask them if they've considered that maybe, just maybe, these American citizens should be given a chance at those jobs, a decent wage, employer provided roof over their heads, and a hand up from what is supposed to be their government.

This does not suprise me. If your not black, brown, or Illegal you suffer under the democratic vision.

Azwreath,

Actually, what is ticking me off more are the dozens of comments on the website blaming the woman for her situation. Blaming her children for not helping her (we know her youngest is staying with friends, but not the others situations). Or blaming her for not saving enough (looks like she was a single mom to me, and how many American single moms do you know who have a lot of savings?).

Sheesh, where is the compassion of American's for other American's?

I lived in Los Angeles during my college years in the 1990's, and I can say that an apartment/condo/house taking up half to 3/4-th's of your income is NOT uncommon!! I partly had to leave CA after college because I could not make enough money WITH A COLLEGE DEGREE to live in an apartment, and I couldn't keep a roommate (kept moving out of the city). By the end I was using credit cards to eat!!! Unless you want to live in a crappy part of whatever town you live in in California, it's hard to find "reasonable" housing. EXCEPT for the illegals and their numerous kids, who ALWAYS get the cheap government housing!!

This housing should go to women like Barbara in the CNN story, who are homeless and well educated. You KNOW they will get back on their feet, work hard, and get back to their normal lives. Compared to the illegals, who will suck the system dry for freebies! Give the temporary government housing to the AMERICAN's who WILL QUICKLY get off public assistance!!!

No one has mentioned the illegals getting free entitlements, and the horrible state of California's public assistance program going to non-Americans.

Just ticks me off even worse!!

TexasGal

This used to be one of my biggest fear's living in California. Even in the 90's I was paying $1,500 for an apartment. I watched landlords raise their rents between $200 to $500 a month during the real estate explosion.

Knowing the high cost of living in the Silicon Valley I have seen single mother's living paycheck to paycheck, being one check away from being homeless.

Renting an apartment you had to pay first and last month's rent plus a security deposit. That could be up to $5,000 to just get in an apartment, and then there were the credit checks.

With layoff's, foreclosures and the high cost of fuel I see more and more woman becoming homeless. The woman in their 50's and 60's are going to find it hard to start over. Welfare benefits won't be there for them. Finding jobs will be harder as they get older, especially in this new bilingual country.

No, I am afraid this segment of Americans; the mothers, wives, and sisters will be overlooked as our government panders to the needs of illegal immigrants.

What's needed is more globalization. If more jobs go overseas, there will be more prosperity, some will reach the women in the parking lot, and all will be happy. This might take a little time, so we should have an immediate tax break on RV purchases. This would help the women and their cats and dogs have a better home on wheels until the rising general prosperity reaches them.

Azwreath wrote:

Actually, what is ticking me off more are the dozens of comments on the website blaming the woman for her situation. Blaming her children for not helping her (we know her youngest is staying with friends, but not the others situations). Or blaming her for not saving enough (looks like she was a single mom to me, and how many American single moms do you know who have a lot of savings?).

dad3war8ucks wrote:

This would help the women and their cats and dogs have a better home on wheels

I agree with Azwreath, but I don't know if dad3war8ucks is being sarcastic.

I was a single mom and raised my two daughters without any help from anyone including the government. It wasn't easy then or now to carry all of the responsibilities of raising children. There are always the deadbeat dads who don't contribute one moment or one cent.

You want the best for your children, so yes instead of living in a bad area of town you stretch your check to pay higher rent. You feel guilty because you can't give your children a normal family with father and mother so you give them more material things. After all their friends have the nicer things. So their goes the money you should be saving.

You are so tired from working, being father and mother that you don't have a social life. Your children become teenagers with little time for mom, so you get a pet. The pet loves you know matter what and is always there.

You have always been the support and the provider for your children. Your children have always came first and you never want to be a burden on them. If nothing else you have always had your pride.

So now let's comdemn these woman if for some reason after all the struggle they should find themselves without a job, home or any savings.

Comdemn this woman who is still a survivor, still working, still trying to do the best for her daughter. Comdemn her for the love she shares and gets from her pets.

Show some compassion, but by the Grace of God anyone of us could have found ourselves in the same situation