http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4057
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3002
By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
Increasing numbers of women and elderly people are taking advantage of a scheme in one of America’s wealthiest cities that enables the homeless to sleep safely in their cars at night.
Organisers of the programme say they are seeing http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2602, where the average house costs more than $1 million. Many hold down part-time jobs while bedding down for the night in their vehicles.
Barbara Harvey, who worked as a loan processor, told CNN she had little choice but to live in her car after http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1375. She had been spending more than 75 percent of her income on rent.Now she lives in her Honda SUV with her two golden retrievers, sleeping in one of the two women-only car park refuges run by New Beginnings Counselling Centre.
“It went to hell in a handbasket,” the 67-year-old told CNN. “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.”
New Beginnings runs 15 car parks in the affluent city where the homeless can park at night. The lots are owned by churches, non-profit organisations, city and county authorities and open from 7pm when staff have left for the day to 7am. Two are women-only. The programme is thought to be the only one of its kind in the nation.
Nancy Kapp, New Beginnings car park coordinator, said she was seeing increasing demand for the programme due to the economic downturn. “The way the economy is going, it’s just amazing the people that are becoming homeless. It’s hit the middle class,” she told CNN.