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Published on Monday, February 8, 2010 by Al-Jazeera-English
US Snow Storm Hits DC Homeless
Those hardest hit in what was worst snow storm to strike Washington DC in 30 years were the district's homeless.
While most DC residents found warmth and comfort in their homes in the wake of "Snowmageddon", for Washington's six thousand homeless people the storm was a life-threatening situation.
The US capital does have an emergency hypothermia hotline during winter months and volunteers are taking action to help, but finding enough shelters to accommodate the large number of homeless has proved challenging.
Al Jazeera's Todd Baer reports from Washington DC.
© 2010 Al-Jazeera-English
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4 Comments so far
Show AllIt is criminal -- homeless -- a word that didn't appear as part of the daily vernacular until the era of Reagan. To be sure, we've have always had homelessness to some degree, but the widespread homelessness that we see in our cities and our suburbs today is Reagan's legacy.
Just wondering, are stories like this being shown on Fox, CBS, NBC etc? Our priorities are so screwed up.... Trillions for WAR leaves very little money for social programs or housing etc. What a disgusting nation we are.
Hobos who rode the rails were homeless.Woody Guthrie romanticized them. The Great Depression saw people walking down the road, offering to weed a garden for a potato. Hobo's marked homes that were friendly and would offer a meal. They also marked homes that were hostile. A major difference then was that 2/3 of people still had Farms and grew their own food. Think of all those who left the Midwest during the Dust Bowl and went to California. We just have more people now. Also, deciding to close Mental Hospital so that the mentally ill could return to their communities, helped this along. I was a supervisor at a homeless shelter. Other than the mentally ill, there were teenagers who aged out of the CPS system, addicts who could not quit, and those who lost their jobs and homes. Those who lost their jobs were a small but growing segment.
Perhaps some kind soul in DC is willing to park their car across their driveway and put an air mattress in their garage for someone who can't get into a shelter...