I noticed during the last big economic downturn that people who hit on hard times tend to refer to themselves as "the new homeless," to differentiate themselves from the other homeless toward whom they always felt such contempt. Sorry, but you are no different from the rest of the homeless, yesterday's homeless, etc. This time around, we no longer have a welfare entitlement, so it is less likely (or at best, will take much longer) to climb back out of poverty. Many of those who read your story will be in the same situation, themselves, but they absolutely don't believe it today.

I call BS on some level. This one feels a little hinky to me.

Being newly, and for the first time in my life, homeless (which equates to having lived out of my cargo van for 2 weeks and then buying a 13 ft. 1960's made trailer which I now live in) I can identify with being truly scared about how to live...day-to-day...and it is not EASY.

Yes, Clinton (as mentioned in an earlier comment) demolished assistance for poor people and instead gave welfare to the rich (both Demo-pukes & Repuke-licans) which is why I believe citizens need to educate themselves on how to DIY (Do It Yourself) on everything from growing food to bike mechanics and sewing skills. I am dependant on 200.00 month in food stamps (which I am grateful for) and small assistance from my parents (who are not wealthy but their generation lived better off than mine ever will) and a dear friend who has lovingly given me money with no strings attached each month. I figure I get about 300 to 500 in donations to cover my $150 mo. trailer spot rent (I have two 110 outlets in my trailer and use minor amounts of electric and a working propane stove-top & lamp) $30 mo. for my 24 Hr. Fitness gym membership where I take my daily shower (it is a 15 min. bike ride each way), I use a bucket behind my trailer for toilet use (go to an RV park to empty & clean every 10 days) which costs $30 mo. my cell phone is $50 mo. and naturally, food stamps do NOT cover buying healthy, organic food so I have to add at least $75 or 100 a month and non-food items are not covered....I can't live without toilet paper!!! Also, I have re-negotiated my van payment down to $125 mo. from $240 mo. and my monthly gas use is down to about $60 mo. and insurance is $90 mo. which I don't know how to cover in Jan. but I have my bike I use ALOT. I am still behind or cutting it close every month...so it sucks...but until I can get some kind of "meaningful" work (I cannot work at a McDonalds...I won't support that destructive multi-national corp) I keep applying and I have created a flier to hand out to offer my personal services for any kind of work that I am good at...I am very pro-active!!

My wish is that working and poor people stop relying on unemployment and govt. aid to pacify their misery and use some of their "free" time to educate themselves on how to live OUT OF THIS LOSING SYSTEM and to take part in local grassroots organizing to implement "green" living solutions (like using public lands or even public right-of-ways to grow food gardens or promote more bike-friendly roadways & one-day-a-month-road closures like the "Ciclovia" in Bolivia) or taking OVER abandoned buildings for the street people to be able to live in to avoid abuse by police and unsympathetic citizens.

We don't have to put up with this ABUSIVE system that agrees by virtue of acknowledgment of a "poverty level" class of people in it. We can live outside the system in many ways...BOYCOTTING the system is, a very good way of opting-out....if we choose to live poor in order to become educated and DIY savy. Of course it is easier for me being single...but I am scared too and I am uncertain of future and aware of my poverty all the time...but I know that I am not alone...people are generous to me when they know my situation and want to support my "being free" and fucking the system...we are all in control even if you choose not to see it.

I wish everyone well who are trying to live a less-selfish life and a more kind and sharing lifestyle...that is what we need...more free time and less material wealth. SHOP SMART & LOCAL....stop feeding the McDonalds, Exxon/Mobile, Coca-Cola and Proctor & Gambles of this world....JUST STOP SHOPPING unconsciously.

PEACE!!!

Should I feel sorry for you?

I remember back during the Welfare Reform debate how so many Americans were so, so happy that "those others" would no longer have their "free ride."

For too long in America the poor and disabled who are subjected to what was once welfare and welfare programs had been viewed as the scum of the earth by people who were closer to the street than the aristocrats they thought they become because of their $50,000.00 per year salary.

For all of you former $50,000.00 per year salary people, whom most likely looked down on the "other" and the "poor" in your heyday when things looked so pretty for ya, and most likely did not want those "others" to receive their PUNY MONTHLY CHECKS, I say too bad about ya unless you repent and say you are sorry to those poor people you slandered and chastised when your lives had been going better than now.

It's easy to put down others. People who think they made it because all of a sudden they have some money like to look down on people living in poverty.

Thus, I have mixed feelings about people in this article. Unless you come clean and say you did not wish ill on poor people before this happened to you, I most cetainly have to doubt your sincerity now.

Gross Domestic Product.... sounds productive but

Nobody talks about how much of the rise in this "domestic product" is actually more debt.

Remember all the "financial products" that turned out to be debt of too big to fail corporations?

Maybe that is why it is not called Net Domestic Product.

Another thing that crossed my mind is the first thing that they ask on an employment application is your address, so how can you pass that one if you are homeless?

Then they will tell you you are over qualified if you had a better paying job before.

All the great classics we read, we get to live them out now.

The fall of the Great American Empire of WAR and the sooner the better.

Good night

We need to remember - unemployment - job scarcity - is NOT just about "college educated" or graduates...

it is about ANYONE in ANY field, for ANY interest .

as the article below by Bob Herbert ends:

"These recent graduates have done everything society told them to do. They’ve worked hard, kept their noses clean and gotten a good education (in many cases from the nation’s best schools). They are ready and anxious to work. If we’re having trouble finding employment for even these kids, then we’re doing something profoundly wrong."......

that something profoundly wrong is :

CAPITALISM and "leave it to the wisdom of the market".

===========================

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

October 31, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Constraining America’s Brightest
By BOB HERBERT

That period right after college graduation is when young people tend to think they can set the world on fire. Careers are starting, and relationships in the broader world are forming. It’s exciting, and optimism is off the charts.

So the gloomy outlook that this economy is offering so many of America’s brightest young people is not just disconcerting, it’s a cultural shift, a harbinger. “Attention,” as the wife of a fictional salesman once said, “must be paid.”

Maggie Mertens graduated in May from Smith College, where she was an editor of the student newspaper. She applied for “tons” of jobs and internships, probably 50 or more. “I was totally unemployed all summer,” she said. She eventually landed an internship at NPR in Washington, which she described as “awesome,” but it is unpaid.

“I was lucky enough,” she said, “to connect up with a family that let me live with them for free in exchange for watching their baby a few times a week.” But there was still no money coming in. So in addition to the 40-hour-a-week internship and the baby-sitting chores, Ms. Mertens is doing part-time seasonal work at a Whole Foods store.

Welcome to the new world of employment in America as we approach the second decade of the 21st century.

Josh Riman graduated from Syracuse University in 2006. “I had a job at a great advertising agency,” he said, “but was laid off in 2007. I found a job the next day, amazingly enough, and worked at this next advertising shop for about a year and a half. Then, on my birthday, the place went bankrupt. We all lost our jobs.”

Since then, Mr. Riman has been doing freelance and “pro bono” work. He has been unable to find anything even reasonably secure.

As jobs become increasingly scarce, more and more college graduates are working for free, at internships, which is great for employers but something of a handicap for a young man or woman who has to pay for food or a place to live.

“The whole idea of apprenticeships is coming back into vogue, as it was 100 years ago,” said John Noble, director of the Office of Career Counseling at Williams College. “Certain industries, such as the media, TV, radio and so on, have always exploited recent graduates, giving them a chance to get into a very competitive field in exchange for making them work for no — or low — pay. But now this is spreading to many other industries.”

Lonnie Dunlap, who heads the career services program at Northwestern University and has been advising young people on careers since the mid-70s, said today’s graduates are experiencing the worst employment market she’s ever seen.

“There’s a sense of huge emotional anxiety among our students,” she said. The young people are not only having trouble finding work themselves; many feel a sense of obligation to parents who are struggling with job losses and home foreclosures.

“In the past two years,” said Ms. Dunlap, “we have seen a huge uptick in the number of recent alums coming back for services because they still haven’t found work, as well as midcareer alums who have been laid off and need our help.”

Like Mr. Noble, she mentioned the growing use of interns versus paid employees and said she can see the value of such unpaid work for some recent graduates, “though, of course, not everyone can afford to do that.”

Despite the expansion of the gross domestic product in the quarter that ended in September, there is no sign of the kind of recovery in employment that would be needed to bring the American economy and the economic condition of American families back to robust health. It would be nice if some of the politicians and economists so obsessed with the G.D.P. would take a moment to look out the window at what is happening with real people in the real world.

They might see Laura Ram, who graduated from Baruch College in New York in May 2007. She was laid off from a full-time job almost exactly a year ago and hasn’t worked since. She’s been diligent about submitting applications and showing up at job fairs and so on, but nothing has come close to panning out.

“I haven’t gone on a single interview,” she said, “which manages to shock just about my entire family.”

These recent graduates have done everything society told them to do. They’ve worked hard, kept their noses clean and gotten a good education (in many cases from the nation’s best schools). They are ready and anxious to work. If we’re having trouble finding employment for even these kids, then we’re doing something profoundly wrong.

Gail Collins and Charles M. Blow are off today.

I just had to respond to this comment:

"Whoa, hold your horses there. Brianna was homeless, living ina trailer in a walmart parking lot, started a blog, and landed an internship at Elle magazine? All this all by herself? With no government help? This should not be allowed. Next thing you know everybody is gonna try and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and all them feel good government programs and poverty advocates are gonna be out of business."

Excuse me. Brianna IS homeless, not WAS.

And an internship is NOT A JOB.

This bright, educated young woman is getting $150 a month to live on. In case you can't divide that sum, it works out to approx. $37 a week. I don't know about you, but my grocery bills alone cost more than $37 a week, not to mention, oh, RENT, gas, phone, medicine if you get sick, and other bare-minimum survival expenses.

Looks like we need all those "Feel good government programs" after all.

Except, see, there's one problem: all those "feel good government programs", especially the ones for single adults, are gone. They were eliminated under Clinton's welfare reform .

As for the question about applying for jobs at grocery stores and fast food restaurants, what nobody seems to realize is that those jobs, as 'bad' as they are, are often the most competitive to get. Why? Because unlike jobs that require more specialized skills, experience, and/or education levels, which limits the number of applicants, "McJobs" are open to everyone, and in such a disastrous economy you have everyone who's jobless and desperate applying for those jobs,in addition to the usual culprits (students, recent immigrants, etc.). Throw in the fact that most of those employers would rather hire someone they think is willing to stick at that job, as opposed to someone who is accustomed to better working conditions, more stimulating work, and higher pay and who will doubtless have a bad attitude and/or leave as soon as something better comes along, and it becomes very difficult for someone who's been laid off to get this sort of work, even if they're willing to take it.

I am well aware of the realities of both the new and not-so-new homeless (and thank you, Jethro, for bringing up that point about the new vs. the old!), and that's why I'm putting up a website, www.wheninneed.org, that lists all available resources, both official and non-official, for anyone who is either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless/slipping into dire poverty. It's also a place where people can communicate with one another to offer tips, advice, etc. on how to survive, etc. Please visit the site at www.wheninneed.org for more info. As of now, it's only for the New York City area, but I plan to make the site go nationwide eventually.

Finally, a word about internships--while they all sound very glamorous and important, at the end of the day, they DON'T PAY, and the vast majority of the time, they don't even lead to a paid job with the company you've given your free labor to either. For all the talk about outsourcing, no one seems to be acknowledging the role that internships are playing in the job crisis. More and more should-be employers are instead offering internships, credit, "great opportunity for exposure", etc., as a way of weaseling out of having to pay even minimum wage, and this is one of the biggest problems for higher-educated, under-employed young job seekers. As the old saying goes, "Why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free?" I think it is questionable, to say the least, to allow companies to dodge minimum wage laws and exploit workers for no pay in 'internships' where there is no actual job available at the end of the internship.

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

Crunch time for the entire country is going to be some time in July next year. Home foreclosures are already predicted by the government to double next year, but next July the numbers of unemployed running out of benefits will start to take on the big waves of unemployed that started last November every month thereafter for the foreseeable future.

John K. Galbraith's son was on Bill Moyer's Journal tonight and said this nation is at a very dangerous moment. Other commentators have compared it to Weimar Germany prior to the rise of Hitler's NSDAP. Both Dimocrats and Rethuglicans are going to try to steer the growing crisis and civil unrest in their directions. But we've seen that they are incapable of governing anymore because neither of them has any real concept of the common good anymore, let alone how to restore it.

The country urgently needs an umbrella Progressive Party to steer the country into an entirely new direction. And if you ever contemplated getting off your duff and engaging in political organizing and action--now and next year are the time to do it. All progressive groups need to take a good hard look at their current projects and ask themselves: Is this the best use of our resources on the best issues in this particular crisis time? Clear priorities need to be sorted out. The real priorities are getting down to basic survival issues: Shelter, food (gardening & food coops), drinking water, personal and family security, access to medical care, learning emergency first-aid, public transportation, organizing neighbors and friends and holding meetings to discuss the new priorities and the best direction to move the country in at every level of government. Progressives need to be the new leaders in this country at every level. The alternatives are grim.

Good luck Brianna,gonna be homeles again in May when my squat ends in eviction.Gonna live in my truck.I will make it ok if I can stay out of jail. stay well

Btw, I wonder if she could apply for welfare. My father says that's the solution to our economic and healthcare mess. He thinks everyone should just crowd the welfare offices and apply. It works for my sister. She has a little apartment and $800 a month.

I grew up with a bunch of JW's too and know firsthand how judgemental, intolerant, smug, and hypocritical they can be. They'd tell me I was going to hell because I was Catholic, listened to heavy metal, and swore, yet they'd lie, cheat, steal, and backstab constantly.

They weren't allowed to read comic books because they were "demonized" yet always wanted to borrow mine.

But as long as they were JW's, they thought they could do whatever they wanted and still make it to "The New System", their version of Valhalla or Avalon. The rest of us were doomed.

The JW's as well as growing up Catholic (no bad experiences, just hypocrisy) was what turned me against religion for many years.

Thank God I have a roof over my head. People will have the nerve to give me shit for living with my parents. Thank God I get along with them too. Well, most of the time. lol. It's either that or a trailer.

I really don't know how most people make it anymore.

But I guess they just need to work harder, right? Yeah right.

Do the people who "make it" really work that hard? In most cases, no.

This is a girl with a degree and talent. And she's homeless. What does this tell you about American capitalism?

Whoa, hold your horses there. Brianna was homeless, living ina trailer in a walmart parking lot, started a blog, and landed an internship at Elle magazine? All this all by herself? With no government help?

This should not be allowed. Next thing you know everybody is gonna try and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and all them feel good government programs and poverty advocates are gonna be out of business. This cannot be allowed.

Joking aside, good luck to Brianna, and a word of advice: next time you make 50k/yr don't buy an overpriced SoCal home and save some cash for rainy days. I lived there for 6 years and i was perfectly happy with a ($800/mth) studio 5 min away from the beach in a safe neighborhood.

sierra7

Correction: Oxymoronic

sierra7
What I love most is, the official word:

THIS IS A JOBLESS RECOVERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How "Oxymornic" can they get!!!!!!

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

I had a comment all ready to post then I forgot it when I started reading those already here. Oh, yes. I remember now.
If there's anyone who is deserving of a bailout from a situation not created by her own failings or wrong doing, it would seem to be someone like Brianna Karp. A good place to start would be with that $2600.00 owed as a result of the towed trailer home. Surely some kind of "exemption" could be devised by local state /municipal government to allow the fines and charges to be paid, waived, or deferred. And the so-called Christians in the community need to step up now and put their money where their mouths are. Being "pro-life" should mean something more than marching around carrying signs shouting about aborted fetuses. If he were here and he met Brianna Karp and listened to her story, "What Would Jesus Do?"

having been homeless, i can only say, "once homeless, always homeless". no matter if you get a job and a place to stay, homelessness is a scar upon the soul and you will carry it with you always. it is a betrayl. whether it can be "washed" away in the "hereafter" i don't know.

I'm so sorry to hear of your situation. Thank you for sharing it and I hope things will get better for you and also your family and friends and people you know.

Could be worse...you could be living in Vancouver, where the provincial government yesterday started debate on a bill to allow police to round up the homeless,(or anyone who looks homeless) and take them to shelters and converted jails, USING FORCE IF REQUIRED.

This is just in time for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics...can't have any poor people mucking up the image of their precious games.

The cover for this APPALLING legislation is supposedly to save the homeless from freezing to death on the streets, save them from themselves....in a town where it never gets below freezing. This is in response to ONE incident a few years ago where a homeless woman refused the police offer to be taken to a shelter, then later that evening accidentally burned to death when her fire (under a local bridge) set her sleeping bag on fire.

(why not outlaw open flames in town instead you ask?...oh yeah..Olympic Flame will be in town)

Most of the homeless in Vancouver are a result of them being turned out of the local mental institution when the government closed it a few years ago. These people are paranoid to begin with....being forcibly rounded up by police and held in jails will certainly send more than a few over the edge.

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

Forgive me for not sounding sympathetic, but while you were sending out all those CV's, did you think to apply to a place like your local grocery store, or fast food restaurant? I understand that you lost it all...but the way the economy is, you have to start rebuilding somewhere. If you weren't willing to settle for anything less than 50K a year, then there's a definite problem. I'm glad you got the internship and I wish you best of luck. Please remember though - your situation, while not unique, is not the fairest representation of the homelessness that is facing our country in epidemic proportions. For starters, you're only 24. I'm pretty sure that the average age of the homeless is much higher than that. And you're educated. Which I'm also pretty sure isn't the norm. Please don't consider this as a personal criticism, as it is definitely not meant to be. I have great faith that you will turn this adversity into something good. Once again, best of luck to you.

When I began advocating for the homeless in my county in the early 1980s, one of the first things I noticed was the venom directed at me and my fellow picketers by passing motorists.

The greatest number of curses, middle fingers and cries of "Get a job!" came not from shiny new Caddies and Benzes, as I had half-expected, but from the rustiest beaters with the baldest tires and the most shell-shocked shock absorbers.

These shouters were obviously about one paycheck away from destitution themselves; my impression was that their hostility sprang from the fear that a similar fate awaited them. As in whistling past the graveyard, it seemed they hoped to escape the fate of my friends by cursing them for the inherent unworthiness that MUST have earned them their misery.

The author's epiphany ("We were a new face of homelessness...") strikes me once again as willfully uninformed---to whom did she suppose the old faces belonged?

I'm sincerely sorry for her situation, but until we reach a level of political consciousness that holds the root causes of homelessness to be systematic rather than personal, people just like her, like me and like you will continue to be picked off one by one.

Oh well, at least I'm happy to see the Dow going back down. I cheer every point it drops. Maybe if it really crashes, the rich will gat a taste, just a tiny taste, of the misery they have inflicted on others through their vile power.

Shame that office-tower windows can't be opened anymore.

Having grown up in a mormon family, I can understand how the streets are a better option than your mother's warm home. Some things are just not worth the trouble. I salute you for your integrity. Best of luck finding more lucrative work.

The face of the 'Recovery (tm)'.

Get used to this. Blind, willful ignorance of US policy has created this problem.

Hundreds of thousands will be joining her. You could very likely be one of them.

Social action NOW!

Defy the police. Defy your government. Care about each other.

Because the politicians, cops and CEOs don't.