Ann Arbor’s Camp Take Notice getting the attention in Europe than it deserves the U.S.

I just received a note from a U.S. expatriate living in France, asking me to confirm whether or not what he’d heard today on the BBC about a homeless encampment on the outskirts of Ann Arbor was indeed true… Sadly, I had to tell him that Camp Take Notice was in fact real.

Here’s a clip from the BBC story:

…According to census data, 47 million Americans now live below the poverty line – the most in half a century – fuelled by several years of high unemployment.

One of the largest tented camps is in Florida and is now home to around 300 people. Others have sprung up in New Jersey and Portland.

In the Ann Arbor camp, Alana Gehringer, 23, has had a hacking cough for the last four months.

“The black mould – it was on our pillows, it was on our blankets, we were literally rubbing our faces in it sleeping every night,” she said of wintering in a tent.

The camp is run by the residents themselves, with the help of a local charity group. Calls have come in from the hospital emergency room, the local police and the local homeless shelter to see if they can send in more.

“Last night, for example, we got a call saying they had six that couldn’t make it into the shelter and… they were hoping that we could place them… So we usually get calls, around nine or 10 a night,” said Brian Durance, a camp organiser.

Michigan’s Republican-controlled state government has been locked into a programme of severe budget cuts in an attempt to balance its books.

The cuts have included benefits for many of the state’s poorest residents.

Between the cuts and the economic conditions pinching, there is increased pressure on homeless shelters.

Michigan’s Lieutenant Governor, Brian Calley, was asked about the reality of public agencies in his state suggesting the homeless live in tents.

“That is absolutely not acceptable, and we have to take steps and policies in order to make sure that those people have the skills they need to be independent, and it won’t happen overnight,” he said…

I’m I understanding that correctly… Our public agencies are directing the homeless into the forrest to live?

And, as if that weren’t heartbreaking enough, the article is accompanied by video, shot in a U.S. public school, of young children talking to a British reporter about what it’s like to go to bed hungry, and, in the case of one young girl, what it’s like to have to eat rats in order to survive.

I wonder if our public agencies in Michigan are also telling people how to trap, clean, and prepare rat.

It’s inconceivable to me that we’ve allowed this to happen in the United States. It’s absolutely shameful what we’ve allowed to happen in order to preserve the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy… Is this the kind of country that we want to live in – one in which are poor are told to fend for themselves in the forest, eating rats?