Seeking Shelter

Tent cities are not a new American phenomenon. Makeshift encampments of people who don't have permanent homes have long existed on the margins of many U.S. cities. But the tide of foreclosures and a rising national unemployment rate have dramatically swelled the ranks of the newly homeless. And one estimate says current economic conditions will drive a million more people into homelessness by 2010. Some will end up in shelters or on the streets. Others are choosing to live in nylon tents on dusty lots, waiting for their fortunes to turn.

Many people living in tent cities like Taco Flats, in Fresno, Calif., collect cans and bottles they trade for cash. For warmth, they burn donated firewood. Not far from a woman openly smoking crack, an elderly woman sweeps the floor of her plywood shanty. For now, the city is picking up residents' trash but says it will relocate the tent dwellers this summer.

Officials elsewhere have reacted in a similar way. After being featured on Oprah, Sacramento, Calif., dismantled a tent city in April, moving residents into shelters. But other tent cities remain. For some of the newly homeless, unaccustomed to the strict rules and lack of privacy at shelters, a nylon home is better than no home at all.