Housing options of the future?

As we continue to careen from one crisis to another, and wonder whether selling off the rest of our stocks would net more money than retailing our plasma, reports show that for some folks, things definitely are getting worse. Much worse.

It would have been hard to believe just a year ago, but reports from around the country say that tent cities are on the way back. Reminiscent of the shantytowns dubbed “Hoovervilles” that popped up on the outskirts of hundreds of cities during the Great Depression, old-school housing choices for the unemployed are making a comeback in several U.S. cities.

The largest shantytown to pop up so far is in Sacramento, California (pictured above), where hundreds of people who’ve lost their homes are doing their best to survive in tents. Some things never change, though: Sacramento officials say they’ll soon “evict” the squatters. Hopefully, the tent city citizens aren’t big believers in the Second Amendment.

This article appears in Mar 10-17, 2009.