Another sentence I thought I'd never write

More children homeless in America than ever before.

Worse still, this comes as absolutely predictable result of predatory banks creating a bubble in housing prices by violating all standards of underwriting mortgages.  Then when the inevitable bursts--as predicatable as Mafia bustouts of legitimate businesses--those with cash such as Goldman Sachs then buy up the housing stock and rent it out at higher rates.

This leaves working class families living in cars or crowded motel rooms and shelters.

My country tis of thee, sweet land of misery.

[The number of homeless students in the United States has hit a record high, according to new data from the Department of Education.

The raw numbers are shocking: in the 2011 school year, 1,168,354 homeless children were enrolled in preschools and K-12 programs. Even more disturbing is the trend those numbers show: nationally, they represent a 10 percent jump over the previous school year, and a stunning 72 percent increase since the beginning of the recession in 2008.

The crisis is not confined to any one region. Forty-three states reported a rise in the number of homeless kids, and 10 showed jumps of more than 20 percent, according to a compilation of the DOE data assembled by the National Center for Homeless Education [PDF]. The biggest jumps were found in Maine (58 percent), Michigan (42 percent), North Carolina (53 percent), North Dakota (212 percent), South Dakota (35 percent), Vermont (31 percent), and Wyoming (40 percent).

One of the toughest things about this issue is that many of these families are invisible

In terms of raw numbers, California, New York, Texas, and Florida were hardest hit.]
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/11/americas-homeless-kids-crisis/7450/

Homeless Children in the Happiest Place on Earth

[Destiny Corfee, 11, joined the line at one local motel a year ago. "I never really noticed what people were actually going through until now; until we're actually going through it too," she told "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley.

Destiny's parents David and Theresa never imagined their family homeless. Together they were making about $40 an hour detailing expensive cars. There was a three-bedroom home, vacations and extras for the kids. But both jobs went, and then the house. Evicted, they found that the homeless shelters wanted to split their family up - boys and girls.

"That was definitely something that I wasn't gonna have, was being separated at a time like this. I figured the time like this that we needed to be together more than anything," David Corfee said.

So David, Theresa, Destiny, Jorge and Chance, moved into their van.]
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/06/60minutes/main20038927.shtml?tag=stack

Living in a van down by the river indeed. Not through the ravages of drugs or alcoholism but the predations of the corporate capitalist world order.

Damn, I need a drink and a laugh.

Homeless Children in the Happiest Place on Earth