30,000 show up for Section 8 vouchers in Atlanta, leaving 62 injured.

[bushmeister0]

"At the Tri-Cities Plaza Shopping Center, emergency vehicles passed each other, transporting 20 people to hospitals. Medical and police command posts were set up on scene. East Point police wore riot gear. Officers from four other agencies supported them. Yet no arrests were made.

All of this resulted from people attempting to obtain Section 8 housing applications and, against long odds, later securing vouchers for affordable residences. Some waited in line for two days for the applications."

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/housing-crisis-reaches-full-589653.html

Housing problem? What housing problem? Is it the 1930's yet?

[Arctic Dave]

1. Riot police.

Wow.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Dupe.

[EFerrari]

3. This is so horrible. Third World America.

:(

[rucky]

4. When we look back at this economic depression we're in...

this will be a slice of its history we tell the grandkids about. Reminds me of the photos & stories captured during that other Great Depression.

[SoCalDem]

5. The pictures reminded me of the food-riot pictures from Africa

shameful... They could have had applications available at post offices & notification that they would accept all of them ...There were no actual apartments available anyway, so why drag people out onto the streets to scrape & bow just to get the privilege of signing up for a place they will never get?

A mailed in application would have served the same purpose, and withing the agency, they could have "accepted" the first however-many returned, without the mass-confusion.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. And so it begins....

Muuah-ha-ha!

[Forkboy]

7. K&R

This shit is pathetic while we waste trillions on war.

[seattleblue]

8. Why don't they put the applications online?

Computers and the internet are free in any library.

[MountainLaurel]

9. A lot of these folks are not computer literate

Mandating that the forms be filled out online just moves the problem and probably worsens it, because I doubt the public libraries there are set up to deal with an influx of 30K people there to struggle through filling out an application.

[seattleblue]

10. Librarians will help you with the computers.

I have seen it many times. The 30k would not be all going to the same library at the same time. Why do the applications have to be filled out at some certain time? Why can't they be on file and filled out whenever? It would be a much better alternative than what happened. But if you want to place roadblocks to sanity go ahead.