New Orleans homeless profess little hope

[Contrary1]

:cry:

Numbers living in Katrina-ravaged condemned homes grow, services shrink

"NEW ORLEANS - As she pushed a shopping cart of belongings through the still-life of the Lower 9th Ward, Tamara Martin knew only one source of shelter for this city’s burgeoning homeless population: the thousands of buildings left vacant and rotting nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina.

The angular 33-year-old, who takes the anti-anxiety drug Lexapro to drive away what she calls “that evil solution” of crack cocaine, slept for two months in the shell of her childhood home, rejected by family and emergency shelters who said they had no room for an addict.

Routed from the gutted house by National Guard patrols who warned that a weak roof could entomb her, Martin accepted a move-in invitation from a man in another abandoned building. It’s another poor substitute for the apartment she used to have at a housing project, one of four the government wants to demolish in a city where market rent has increased 81 percent.

Because she’s homeless, she said, “I can’t get right, you know... I’m striving hard. I’m striving hard. I’m losing so much weight I’m striving so much.”

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20324248/

[YDogg]

1. Nothing will change while bush is "president" ...

... and honestly, I don't hold out much hope that things will improve markedly afterwards for quite a while. I hope I am mistaken.

[sandnsea]

2. I thought they were snapping up mortgages

lying about their income, buying $200,000 homes, causing this horrible credit crash.