The Recession's Refugees

On the same day Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced California would have to hand out IOUs rather than cash to pay its bills, another group of California's recession victims protested for the right to simply have a patch of ground to sleep on.

In Sacramento, 250 homeless and their supporters marched for their right to remain in the tent city they erected following the closing of a winter shelter. Mayor Kevin Johnson says he is working on "developing a 'tough love' proposal that provides both compassion and a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to public health and safety." This includes helping to move the tent city residents to permanent and temporary housing like the Sacramento's Cal Expo Center.

Still, the criminalizing of homelessness has left many feeling like second-class citizens. "There is no legal place for people to live unless they own, rent or lease a home. So if you're homeless it's illegal to exist," Val Jon Farris, founder of iCare America, a social welfare support group, told NPR's All Things Considered.

Tent cities have sprung up across the nation from Seattle, Wash.; to Nashville, Tenn.; to St. Petersburg, Fla. It's no wonder. With national unemployment at 9.5 percent — not counting part-time workers or those who are no longer looking — more and more Americans find themselves falling through the social welfare net, which in many states like California, are shrinking. But homelessness is not something that can be punted to a later time. Especially during these hard times, this population will only grow, and cannot be ignored.