http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...operty-fallout

UN meets homeless victims of American property dream


A home advertised for sale at a foreclosure auction in Pasadena,
California. Photograph: Reed Saxon/AP

There were not many people packed in to the Los Angeles "town hall"
meeting who had heard of the foreign woman with the unfamiliar title
who had come to listen to their tales of plight. But many took it as a
good sign that she had worried the last American government enough for
it to keep her out of the country.

Deanne Weakly was among the first to the microphone. The 51-year-old
estate agent told how a couple of years ago she was pulling in $80,000
(£48,000) a year from commissions selling homes in LA's booming
property market.

When the bottom fell out of the business with the foreclosure crisis,
she lost her own house and ended up living on the streets in a city
with more homeless than any other in America. She was sexually
assaulted, harassed by the police and in despair.

She turned to the city and California state governments for help. "No
one wanted to listen. They blame you for being homeless in the first
place," she said.snip


Welcome to housing in America. Let's build these rigid structures,
price them to hundreds or thousands of times what they are worth, and
fleece the populous, If you try to live anyway else, or we feel your
home is not up to our codes, we are going to get you. Sieg Hei...I
mean Good day.


\=.\ /.=/ '-,