With the amount of mortgage foreclosures continuing to rise in the United States, shocking figures reveal that more and more middle class professional Americans are being forced to sell their homes and live in their cars or motor-homes.

As the number of ‘homeless’ people increases, one charity agency in California, has launched a safe parking scheme. New Beginnings aim is to provide a place of refuge for those who have been forced to live rough or have nowhere else to go other than their vehicle.

Co-ordinator Shaw Tolley said, “What we are trying to do is we pull bad apples out, and we put good apples in the parking lots and really help people out. It saddens me when they live in their vehicles. It is not the most ideal situation for senior citizens and families, but it is reality.”   

One victim of the dilemma, an interior designer who lost his job thanks to the restricted property market and foreclosure crisis, now spends the evenings living in his car in the gated car park in California. With his furniture sold and belongings in storage, he said, “I see myself as a casualty of a perfect storm. The people sleeping at the car park are just like me. They come from normal, everyday homes. I think a lot of people in this country don’t realise that they, too, are a couple of pay cheques away from destitution.”

Auctions are held on a weekly basis right across America for foreclosed properties.

New Beginnings spokeswoman Nancy Kapp said, “You look around today, and there are so many. I see women sleeping on benches. It’s heartbreaking. The way the economy is going, it’s amazing the people who are becoming homeless. It’s hit the middle class.”

Another person caught up in the financial crisis lost her job, which was again connected with the housing market slump, as a loans processor. She subsequently lost her home too and now lives in her vehicle with three dogs and parks at night in a women only car park run by New Beginnings. She said, “I didn’t think this would happen to me. It’s just something that I don’t think that people think is going to happen to them.”

The increase in the number of people who are homeless and sleeping in their cars has led to a clampdown in many US cities. It is now illegal to live in vehicles on public streets. In Los Angeles where the bill has recently been introduced, the city banned almost all overnight parking on residential streets, with a first breach of the rules resulting in a $50 fine, with later transgressions costing the offender up to $100.

A law professor with the University of California in Los Angeles and homelessness activist, Gary Blasi said, “For more working class and lower middle class people, the car is the first stop of being homeless, and sometimes it turns out to be a long stop.”

Los Angeles has the highest number of people sleeping rough in the US, with an estimated 73,000 homeless. A survey carried out among 3,000 people living on the streets revealed that 250 of them slept in their cars.