- Il
direttore di un dormitorio per senzatetto, Monica Duncan, afferma che in
Michigan la recente crescita della povertà ha portato moltissimi
lavoratori anziani che hanno lavorato per tutta la vita in industrie
automobilistiche a perdere le loro case e ad essere costretti ad
appoggiarsi temporaneamente ad istituzioni come quella che lei stessa
conduce. - Le
periferie a nord di Detroit, infatti, dominate per decenni dalle industrie
automobilistiche, sono state sconvolte dall’impatto di massicci
licenziamenti dei lavoratori della Ford, GM e del produttore di componenti
Delphi. - Nella
contea di Macomb dal 2000 più di 27000 posti di lavoro di fabbrica – o il
22 % della forza lavoro manifatturiera- sono stati distrutti. La cifra
ufficiale di coloro che vivono in povertà nella contea è salita da 44000
nel 2000 a 71000 nel 2005. Il Michigan è al secondo posto per tasso di
disoccupazione nel paese – secondo solo al Mississippi (devastato
dall’uragano). - Nei
primi 8 mesi dello scorso anno i creditori hanno fatto richiesta di vendita forzata di, 21076 case ipotecate
nella regione del Michigan, mentre nello stesso periodo di quest’anno il
numero è salito a 50863. Nella seconda metà di quest’anno più di 19000
famiglie addizionali si trovavano in un qualche stato di morosità. - Il
24 % delle case della contea di Oakland hanno un secondo mutuo che grava
sul loro valore mentre il valore della loro proprietà è solo cresciuta del
16%, mentre nella contea di Macomb il 21% ha un secondo mutuo mentre il
loro valore medio è cresciuto solo dell’11%. - Migliaia
e migliaia di lavoratori stanno cadendo in forte debito solo per
sopravvivere. Alcune statistiche riportano infatti che circa il 60% dei
senzatetto lavorano. - La
“sindrome dei capelli grigi”, afferma Duncan, si riferisce al crescente
numero di lavoratori licenziati “dopo 20 anni o più”, la cui
professionalità era legata all’industria automobilistica, ma hanno poca o
nessuna istruzione universitaria. Lavoratori che hanno un reddito
pensionistico ma non riescono a trovare un altro lavoro con un reddito
paragonabile. Quindi da 18 $ all’ora passano a un lavoro da 8$ all’ora. E
devono pagare ancora la macchina e l’ipoteca. - Riguardo
ai lavoratori poveri che diventano senzatetto, “molti lavorano per 8,50 $
all’ora in una fabbrica, ma vengono licenziati all’89esimo giorno perché è
meno costoso per la compagnia assumere qualcun’ altro piuttosto che pagare
sussidi medici e altri.” - Non ci sono case a basso costo per questi lavoratori,
quindi vanno a stare per lunghi periodi in alberghi senza cucina e lavanderia a
$149 la settimana, o in casa di amici, o finiscono nelle strade. - Duncan:
“negli ultimi 2 anni c’è stato un picco, un crescente numero di lavoratori
che hanno perso il lavoro sono portati all’assunzione di sostanze tossiche
e malattie mentali. I senzatetto che ospitiamo sono soprattutto bianchi
tra i 35 e i 45 anni, non afro-americani”. - In
un altro alloggio per senzatetto nel sobborgo di Roseville, a nord di
Detroit, si lavora per ampliarlo onde ospitare intere famiglie, anziché
dividerne i componenti per sesso e edificio. Il vicepresidente del
complesso, Frank Tenkel, afferma che “a Macomb ci sono tra i 1200 e i 1500
senzatetto, fra cui 3-400 bambini. Il governo stanzia fondi per la guerra
mentre la gente patisce la fame e dorme in macchina”. - Secondo
il Consiglio per le Case della Contea di Oakland, nel Gennaio 2005 c’erano
1293 senzatetto, rispetto ai 1100 dell’anno prima. L’età media era di 9
anni per il gran numero di bambini.
The slide into poverty—an
increasing likelihood for workers in Detroit’s suburbs
By Carol Divjak
6 November 2006
This article is available as a PDF leaflet to download and
distribute
The Dow Jones may be
hitting 12,000 and the US government and corporations may be proclaiming this
period a golden age of prosperity and profit, but people living in the formerly
comfortable Michigan counties of Oakland and Macomb would beg to differ.
Homeless shelter director Monica Duncan termed a new phenomenon of the crisis “gray hair
syndrome.” She told
Jerome White, Socialist Equality Party candidate in Michigan’s 12th Congressional District, that the recent growth of poverty
here has given rise to the shocking development of older workers who have
worked their entire lives in the auto industry now losing their homes and being
forced to apply for temporary charity from institutions like the one she heads.
These trends in the 12th
Congressional District are indicative of the dramatic changing of the region’s
demographics. Hardship and homelessness now reach broadly across the spectrums
of age and ethnicity. The
northern suburbs of Detroit, dominated for decades by the auto industries, are
reeling under the impact of the mass layoffs of workers by Ford, GM and
parts-maker Delphi. The area is being quietly pauperized. This is one of
the reasons White chose to run in this district—to expose the brutal reality
that the drive for profit is exacting on the working class in this region.
In Macomb County alone more than 27,000 factory jobs—or 22 percent of
the manufacturing workforce—have been wiped out since 2000. The number of
people officially living in poverty in the county jumped from 44,000 in 2000 to
71,000 in 2005. Overall, Michigan has the second highest unemployment rate in
the country—second only to hurricane-devastated Mississippi.
One of the most tragic
aspects of the growing poverty is the number of home foreclosures, now at an
all-time high. In the
first eight months of last year lenders filed for foreclosure on 21,076 homes
in the Michigan region, while in the same period this year the number jumped to
50,863. Nearly 7 percent of all mortgage payments in Michigan were
overdue by the second
quarter of this year. In other words, over 19,000 additional families were in some stage of
default. Only Mississippi and Louisiana have higher delinquency rates
And those numbers are just
the beginning because so many homeowners have already leveraged as much debt as
possible on their sole source of equity, their home. These homeowners will be
extremely vulnerable to delinquency in the coming months. The number of second
mortgages and home-equity loans—financial instruments originally intended to
allow homeowners to do repairs or additions—are huge and growing. Workers are
being forced to resort to these extreme measures to meet costs for everything
from college tuition to grocery and utility bills.
Twenty-four percent of all homes in Oakland County have a second loan on
them while their property value has only risen 16 percent, while in Macomb
County 21 percent have second home loans while their median value has only gone
up by 11 percent.
By every measure, thousands
and thousands of workers are sinking ever deeper in debt just to survive. Even
if a worker laid off from the auto industry is fortunate enough to find a job
quickly, chances are the rate of pay will be substantially lower, with minimal
benefits. Statewide
statistics record that about 60 percent of the homeless are working.
Monica Duncan is the
executive director of the South Oakland Shelter in Royal Oak and she spoke at length to SEP candidate Jerome White
about the distress being faced by ever increasing numbers of workers.
The gray hair syndrome, Duncan said, refers to the growing numbers of
workers laid off after “20 years or more,” those whose skills were tied to the
auto industry, but who have no or little college education. “Then,” Duncan explained, the worker “gets laid off due to downsizing
or the boom and bust of the auto industry. He may have some money in a 401(k) retirement plan but he
can’t find another job with a comparable income. All of a sudden from $18 an
hour he’s forced to take an $8 an hour job. He still has to make car payments
and mortgage payments. Then the juggling starts. He skips paying some of
his bills hoping things might get better, then the savings start to dwindle as
he pulls something from here to pay something from there.”
“You may have managerial
experience,” she continued, “but you’re told you have to start as a cashier for
$8 an hour at a department store. You start to have a whole different
perception of yourself, thinking that you don’t have any value and you say to
yourself, ‘This is not where I saw myself being at 55.’
“In Royal Oak, we’ve seen
some workers over 40 who were forced to move back with their parents after
losing a job. But when their parents have to sell their house and go to a
nursing home or to an assisted living facility, they can’t afford the housing
costs anymore and end up needing shelter.
Ms. Duncan also spoke about the growing numbers of working poor who
become homeless. “Many get a job at $8.50 an hour at a factory,” she said, “but
they get laid off on the 89th day because it is cheaper for the company to hire
someone else than to pay medical and other benefits.
“These workers would like
to avoid inner-city areas in Detroit and Pontiac, but they can’t afford the
rents in Oak Park, Ferndale or Royal Oak. There is no low-cost housing being built for the working
poor. So what happens are long-term stays in hotels, paying $149 a week with no
kitchen, no laundry—or they ‘couch surf’ at the homes of their families and
friends, or end up in the streets.”
“In the last two years we’ve seen a peak,” Duncan said. “We have a
growing number of working poor and people who have suffered a job loss that led
to substance abuse problems and mental illness. We are seeing more families too—not just one-parent
families but families with both spouses. We are seeing far more men than women
and, contrary to perception, most
of those we serve are white men, between the ages of 35 to 45, not African
Americans.”
Duncan explained that
within six months a worker can easily go from living in a home to being in the
streets. Solid Ground, a
homeless shelter located in Roseville, another northern Detroit suburb in the 12th CD, is
being expanded to meet growing demand. The shelter will allow families to be
housed together instead of being split up according to sex within a facility.
Frank Tenkel, the vice president of the shelter, told White, “We have between 1,200 and 1,500
people in Macomb that are homeless, including 300-400 children. The
government’s priorities are wrong. Instead of assisting those in need of help,
they are spending billions on an unjustified war, while people are going hungry
and living in their cars.”
A worker at the shelter,
Helen Kulbacki, added, “We recently got a call for help from a mother with a
21-year-old mentally-impaired daughter who had been sleeping on a hill behind a
nearby Meijer’s store, where apparently there are several other homeless people
living.
“We see a lot of low-income
families with children coming here. Our food pantry empties out quickly. One
family, with four children, was living in a car and they asked me for food. I
had to give them things like dry cereal, graham crackers and pop-up drinks
because I knew they had no where to cook.”
The homeless population in Oakland County is steadily increasing
according to figures obtained by Kathy Williams from Oakland County Housing
Council. In January 2005 there were 1,293 homeless, up from 1,100 the previous
year. The average age was nine years because of the large number of children. Statewide statistics record that about 60 percent of
the homeless are working.
“We have found that these
figures actually underestimate the real situation,” she said. “They don’t count
the number of people doubling up in other people’s homes, but just the number
recorded by emergency shelters, food kitchens and police departments. With the economy worsening we
expect the numbers to be higher in our survey in January 2007.”
White and the Socialist
Equality Party are calling for a series of emergency measures to meet this
crisis, including the following:
* A moratorium on
foreclosures and evictions for all workers who have been laid off. Lenders must
suspend their collection of debts from unemployed workers and the government
must provide emergency financial assistance so that no one loses a home because
he or she has lost a job.
* Limit housing costs to no
more than 20 percent of a worker’s income.
* Repeal the bankruptcy law
signed by the Bush administration in 2005 and drafted by lobbyists for the
credit card companies and other financial interests. This law has punished tens
of millions of Americans who have been forced to accumulate a huge debt burden
because their wages have stagnated or declined, while the cost of living has
continuously increased.
* Launch a crash program to
construct tens of thousands of new low-cost and high-quality housing units to
end homelessness and guarantee safe, affordable, decent shelter for all.
* Shift the tax burden for
public services from small homeowners to the corporations and the wealthy—those
who are most able to pay. The Reagan- and Bush-era tax cuts for the rich must
be repealed and the state and local government policies overturned that provide
ever-greater tax breaks and subsidies to big business.
These emergency measures
must be combined with a far-reaching reorganization of the home building and
lending industries in order to take profit out of housing. Like healthcare,
education and economic security, such an essential requirement as the provision
of decent shelter for working people and their families cannot be left to the
vagaries of the capitalist market and the interests of the wealthy investors,
real estate moguls and giant home builders.