Camden shuts down its tent cities

CNN Money ^ | May 14, 2014: 1:18 PM ET | Blake Ellis

[Olog-hai]

For Michael Powell, a 53-year-old ex-convict, his tent off the highway in Camden, N.J., is what he has called home for nearly a decade.

But on Tuesday, he and dozens of others living in homeless encampments known as “tent cities” throughout Camden were forced out—leaving many of them homeless all over again.

The eviction was conducted by the state of New Jersey, as well as Camden county and city, for health and safety reasons. […]

Amid the commotion on Tuesday, Gino Lewis, director of housing at the Camden County Improvement Authority, assured people that the county would work to find housing and services. […] But there just aren’t enough spaces in Camden’s shelters. Plus, some people living in tent cities, because of prior incarceration for certain crimes and other reasons, don’t qualify for the subsidies they need to stay in shelters. …

[libstripper]

Compared to a tent city, a flop house had magnificent sanitary facilities since it had flush toilets and running water, some of it hot. Lack of even minimal sanitation is the worst, most dangerous things about these tent cities. Indeed, it’s the single most important reason for extirpating them.

[Chuckster]

Trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let...fifty cents.
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but..two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road.

Third boxcar, midnight train
Destination...Bangor, Maine.
Old worn out suits and shoes,
I don’t pay no union dues,
I smoke old stogies I have found
Short, but not too big around
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road.

I know every engineer on every train
All of their children, and all of their names
And every handout in every town
And every lock that ain’t locked
When no one’s around.

I sing,
Trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let, fifty cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road.

Note for you Young’uns: “Four bits” is fifty cents. Two bits, as in “Two bit whore” is a quarter; which was worth quite a bit more back in the day than it is now but not much more difficult to come by.

[libstripper]

There’s no problem with somebody living off the grid, provided he has adequate sanitation. Lack of adequate sanitation spells trouble for everybody else; just think of typhoid and other horrors that our ancestors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries defeated by aggressive public health measures, including requiring residences to be hooked up to proper sanitation. Bad sanitation affects everybody.

[wally_bert]

That was a great movie.

[kelly4c]

Exactly. If you own your own home and are a part of a community you must pay the local and State entities in order to support said community. Okay whatever. If you are homeless, don’t go to school or drive on the roads, get no mail delivery, don’t use the library etc. who the heck are they to drive you off the land. It’s God’s land. Jesus said the poor will always be among us. We have a mall including major stores and restaurants a few minutes up the road. In between here and there are just houses and some natural prairie land with a stream. There was recently a hotel built and there are now signs up for further development. It aggravates me because animals live there and I like some natural land. Plus I don’t want the hassle of even more traffic flow as I’m exiting the area.