A new phenomenon has been recently occurring among the homeless and that's the increasing numbers of older, White people who are losing their homes and being driven to the streets by the nation's economic turmoil. Larger numbers of our people over 50 years of age are losing everything.

 

There are approximately 2 million homeless people in the U.S. but the startling picture emerging is the large number of newly homeless people coming from the most unlikeliest of locales including the better suburbs of Kansas City or central and south Florida and even the higher income suburbs of the Cleveland area.

 

Older Whites are being hit hard in California as well. Los Angeles has the largest homeless population in the country at about 73,000. (This number does not include the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who reside in garages or other places not intended for legal habitation.) Literally hundreds of them have been reduced to living in their cars. Over 4,000 of these people are over 62 years old.

 

Many of the homeless aren't just people who live solely on Social Security but are working people getting only $8 an hour after losing better paying jobs. Their new jobs barely allow them to keep a car, buy gas and auto insurance but its not enough to keep a house or apartment in this expensive state. Some of the newly homeless Whites here even keep memberships going in local health clubs just so they have a place to get a shower on a regular basis. Many of these peoples co-workers aren't even aware that the older person they're working with is actually homeless. These people just didn't go from their homes to the streets immediately. Most went through a progression of decent, first moving in with family and friends, then having to move to resident motels and then finally their cars.

 

Santa Barbara CA area has been especially hard hit with hundreds of people searching for a place to safely parks their cars to bed down for the night.  Barbara Harvey, 66, is a mother of three and lost her full-time position as a notary. She got her Social Security and even with the addition of a part-time job she could not afford the rent on her apartment. She now lives in her Honda SUV. She's met a couple of friends in the depressing and dangerous world of the older, homeless White person. They are two other White lady's one 54 years old and the other 79.

 

Having served in a war means nothing to our evil system either. David Robbie is a 57 year old Vietnam War veteran and he too joins hundreds of other Santa Barbara former residents who now sleep in their car. The situation is becoming so bad that the city of Santa Barbara has assigned two parking lots for the homeless to park their cars in overnight to help provide are more safer overnight environment.  One is for women and the other for men. The city sends out social workers each evening to check on the state of the mobile but newly homeless.

 

Social worker Nancy Kapp says, "Santa Barbara is one of the richest places in the country and it''s amazing what is happening here. Poverty has been going on for so long now and people ignored it but now it's hitting the middle class and people are paying attention."