"First Thought I Had Was....Were We In America?"

The pictures are powerful:

Photos from the AJC

The story is even more powerful:

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Reporter Ron Mutt couldn't have asked a more poignant question in the utter insanity that was this today:

Thirty thousand people showed up to receive Section 8 housing applications in East Point Wednesday, suffering through hours in the hot sun, angry flare-ups in the crowd and lots of frustration and confusion for a chance to receive a government-subsidized apartment.

The massive event sometimes descended into a chaotic mob scene filled with anger and impatience. Some 62 people needed medical attention and 20 of them were transported to a hospital, authorities said. A baby went into a seizure in the heat and was stabilized at a hospital. People were removed on stretchers and when a throng of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.

30,000 people, on a line in near 100 degree heat, with a toddler in serious mental illness.

And despite all the calamity and the nightmare organization of this catastrophe, guess what the people who created this thought about their job:

Still, officials of East Point declared the day a success. Nobody was arrested and nobody was seriously injured, they said. It was an assessment roundly challenged by many of the people who had to go through it.

You think?

Kim Lemish, executive director of the East Point Housing Authority, said the event marked the first time the city has offered Section 8 housing applications since 2002. The waiting list that lasted eight years had depleted, she said, and the agency was beginning a new one. So people braved all the physical difficulties just to get on a waiting list that could keep them waiting for years.

Lemish said the agency had expected about 10,000 people but three times as many showed up. Many were just accompanying those looking for an application. Some 13,000 applications were handed out.

Yes, you read right. These weren't the confirmations for these places but just to be placed on the waiting list for tomorrow. And it appears more than half of the people who attended one of the most dreadful days in their lives failed in their opportunity to even get on the list.

Who knows how many East Point, Atlanta, Georgias there are around the country, where hundreds or thousands of downtrodden people of all colors search for the homes they so desperately need?

Who knows if a proper HAMP program that has failed so miserably (and could be worse), or a faster emphasizes on the encouraging Hud loans program would have been the difference for these people having to suffer such circumstances.

Digby had thoughts about this today:

Many of these were African Americans. Seeing as the black male unemployment rate is nearly 20% you can see why they would be in need.

But that is another separate miserable issue that shouldn't be amalgamated with this one that stands out on its own.

Maybe with how times are right now, the astute Ron Mutt probably shouldn't have been shocked to ask "Were We in America?"

Because we are knee deep in a new America at the moment, where stuff like today in East Point, Atlanta is the growing, deplorable norm.