Former homeowners headed to shelters

Brief but disturbing report in New American Media:

The New Homeless Look More Like You

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The national credit crisis has produced a “new kind” of homeless on the streets, reports La Opinión. Hundreds of former homeowners are now living in shelters because they couldn’t afford their mortgages, Don Smith, supervisor of Riverside County’s housing program, told the Los Angeles Spanish-language newspaper. The typical homeless person, according to Maria Márquez, supervisor of Riverside County’s Mental Health Department, is no longer the man who suffers from mental illness or the war veteran with a psychological disorder. “Today’s homeless can mix with the people because they may have been their neighbor, work colleague or student,” said Márquez. “There is no longer a single definition, a stereotype of the homeless. The current situation could make a homeless person out of any one of us.”