Bushvilles: Middle-Class Hoovervilles for the 21st Century

Reading a CNN report on a homeless woman in California (video here), I came across this:

Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament.

There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.

The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.

It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.

Can't afford a home? Well, you can take up residence in your car in a parking lot at night, just like these fine middle-class housewives do.

These transient homes for the once-prosperous deserve their own name, too. I propose we call them Bushvilles.

You all remember Hoovervilles from your history books, don't you?

They were products of an eerily similar economic policy: favor the wealthy, soak the poor, and screw the middle, then let God sort it out: