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At a homeless shelter on Skid Row in Los Angeles, there's a man who once made a six-figure salary as a successful producer of Hollywood films and sitcoms. He produced a movie that grossed tens of millions at the box office, was represented by one of the largest television agencies and used to be friends with well-known actors. But then he had trouble getting work, and after a while was unable to pay rent. His family moved in with a friend, but then that house went into foreclosure. So four months ago, with nowhere else to turn, he arrived at the shelter with his wife and two boys. "I did everything I could not to end up in the stereotype of a shelter," says the producer, who asks not to be identified because he fears jeopardizing his chance of landing work. "I want out of here so bad I don't even want to engage in the culture. I don't want to be comfortable because I'm not."

The man and his family are doing everything they can to maintain a sense of pride, and they are trying desperately to hold onto their former lives. Their 8-year-old son spends four hours on a public bus everyday so he can keep attending school in his former neighborhood. His mother proudly exhibits his honor-roll certificates and gives examples of how smart he is. When the father does get hired for lesser work on films, he'll ask people to pick him up at a nearby loft residence so he doesn't have to disclose he's homeless. For months, his wife avoided contact with a shelter worker she had met years ago because she didn't want the staff member to know she was homeless. "You're used to having, and you downsize and you downsize. What do you do when you have nothing left?" says the wife, who used to work as a nurse's assistant. "The hardest part is, How do you maintain your daily life and keep things intact for the kids and your own sanity, and at the same time move forward?"

Homelessness is not a new phenomenon. What is new — and so alarming — is that more and more of the homeless are families that once believed they were secure members of the middle class. The number of families hosted by this Los Angeles shelter, called the Union Rescue Mission, has tripled since the economic crisis began in 2008 and has hit a record high of more than 60 in recent weeks. The growing trend is a sign that the nationwide economic slump is having a brutal impact on poverty in states that have high unemployment rates like California, and that a feared second recession could push the poor there over the edge and make a solid recovery even harder.
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The word devastating is an understatement on Skid Row. Walk out the front door of the Union Rescue Mission, and it becomes evident why families make this an absolute last resort. The shelter sits in an area lined with people subsisting in tents, living out of shopping carts or suitcases, or just plain sleeping on concrete. Some of them smoke crack, some are in wheelchairs, some are mentally ill, and others are just trying to survive without a job or a home. It smells terrible since some people relieve themselves on the street for lack of a better place. For safety reasons, shelter workers advise visitors not to walk alone on the streets, even in broad daylight.

Inside the shelter walls, when the Union Rescue Mission CEO, the Rev. Andy Bales, answers the phone and someone asks how he's doing, he often starts off with a customary "I'm hangin' in there." After further inquiry, he replies in a low, battered tone, "It's kind of wearing me out." The shelter is faced with decreased funding from private donors, salary cuts for staff and declining morale about how long it will be able to continue helping people. And now, there's the threat of a second recession. "It's terrifying. It's been keeping me up at night the last few days," Bales says. "I've been thinking, 'Here we go again. How are we going to weather this?'" Meanwhile, the shelter is at "more than overcapacity," he says, as people sleep in tents on wheels inside the building because there are no more beds. More than half of the families at the shelter lost their homes in the housing crisis. "That's the big change. These are people who are experiencing homelessness for the first time," Bales says. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2090997,00.html

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I know you read the blogs doing the B&W for the liberals, since you post them here

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she does not read any particular blog regularly, rather she scans the vast web-o-sphere and reads articles related to her searches on an individual basis without a special commitment to any individual source.

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"Party of NO", or "Republican interference", or Where's the jobs, Republicans

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I think it is possible to represent your point of view while also having an even-handed discussion

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