& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Tent city for America's homeless

Afp Sacrarnenfo. California
A year ago, home for Renee 1 ladloy was a comfortable apartment in (he trendy West coast city of Seattle, Washington.
But when domestic upheaval and the US economic crisis upended her life, she found herself living in a ttash-strewn tent city in California, without electricity, running water or sanitation.
"I am houseless now, but I am not homeless," the tattooed 38-year old proudly proclaimed, tolling a cigarette as her dog and three cats dozed nearby at the ragtag encampment in the heart of America's largest and richest state.
The tent city is similar to settlements springing up on the American landscape during this brutal recession, as unemployment rates climb and home foreclosures soar.
California has traditionally had a higher percentage of homeless than other states, in part because of the state's high housing prices, but also due to its temperate weather and the itinerant nature of its employment market.
The state has been hit especially hard during the economic crisis, with the number of jobless standing at more than 10 percent and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation.
The raggedy tent settlement in Sacramento, California's state capital, snakes along the banks of the American River, a tributary of the Sacramento River. Mounds of discarded clothes and food cartons fill fields near the compound and a Rossignol ski lies near a dirty children's doll.
Hadley said she ended up here after fleeing an abusive relationship, and now blames herself for her unenviable plight.
"I should have been off this river but I’m not, due to bad decisions in my life," shesaid.
The encampment of 120 squatters here in the Golden State is not far from the spot where famed US photographer Dorothea Lange captured her arresting black-and-
white images documenting homelessness some 70 years ago.
Decades ago, Sacramento's tent city consisted mostly of Tennessee miners and Oklahoma farmers and their families forced out West by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when soil erosion and drought rendered the farms of the US heartland barren.
Today's tent city dwellers however, are the chronically homeless, for the most part. There are no families in Sacramento's tent city, and no young children. Some people are looking for work, but most rely on government assistance or charity.
Some are alcoholics, drug addicts or mentally ill, but many are working poor, from the ranks of those falling victim to unemployment and home foreclosure in recent months.
Hadley says donations of food, propane and clothing from local groups and residents has not improved living conditions much.
"They keep putting band-aids on everything. Why don't they give us jobs or low-income housing?" she asks.
"Ninety percent of us out here don't want to be here, it's getting really ugly out here."
Sacramento officials say they
are looking for longterm solutions to the tent city, which they hope to find a way to disband.
’ It's not safe out there, it's certainly an unhealthy environment, so we need to do something about it immediately," said Assistant City Manager Cassandra Jennings.
Jennings said the city is looking at long-term solutions, perhaps even setting up another tent city with running water and proper sanitation. For now, though, she says the tent residents simply need to be moved.
"We need to find a better place for them to be," she said.
Amid all the publicity, city officials last week decided to close the camp within the next four weeks and relocate the tent dwellers into shelters and other indoor structures.
Meanwhile, social welfare workers say affordable housing is the real answer to the city's tent cityproblem.
Sister Libby Fernandez, from the nearby faith-based charity Loaves & Fishes that senes a free hot lunch to 650 people each dav. said there are more than 2,500 homeless people in Sacramento, only about half of whom can be housed at shelters.