California "Tent City"-- First Bushville in the Nation

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December 23, 2007 (LPAC)-- In Ontario, California-- east of Los Angeles-- a "Tent City" of homeless people has grown up. Starting with 20 in July, the "city" now holds 200 people, including several children, a direct product of the housing crisis. Ontario is in San Bernardino County; in San Bernardino, there exists an extraordinary one home foreclosure filing for every 43 households. Further, during November of this year, sales of combined new and used homes in San Bernardino, and surrounding counties, plunged 42.7% from the level of November one year ago.

The insane Bush-Cheney economic policy has created a Bushville, in the tradition of Hoovervilles of 1929-32, right in the middle of Arnold Schwarzenegger's California.

Ontario, California is not a blighted city, but was part of the once-booming suburbia of southern California. One person who "lives" there, according to a Dec. 21 Reuters story, is Steve, 50, who declined to give his last name. He moved to "Tent City" four months ago. He gets social security payments, but cannot work. "The rentals are sky-high," said Steve. "If it wasn't for here, I wouldn't have a place to go." While claiming that no one recently foreclosed upon is in Tent City, local housing groups are bracing for a significant influx of people as foreclosures rise.