More than a thousand people gathered Wednesday outside a metro-Atlanta shopping mall in hopes of being placed on a waiting list for federal housing assistance.
Fights broke out, children were reportedly trampled, and police had to stop the crowd from storming a nightclub being used by the East Point Housing Authority in East Point, Ga, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Television station 11Alive reports that the line for Section 8 housing vouchers formed two days ago and grew into the hundreds Tuesday night. People even slept outside the nightclub despite repeated assertions from the housing officials that the line was unnecessary and everyone would receive an application.
By Wednesday morning, the crowd had grown so large that East Point police began patrolling the area in riot gear and first responders were tending to people who were overheating in the sun.
People became frustrated when officials, feeling overwhelmed, did not open the doors at 9 a.m. as they had planned, reports CBS Atlanta. Those waiting in line were told by officials to move from one location to another before riot gear-clad police and housing officials handed out applications.
[pagebreak]
‘I find this amazing,’ Ed Schultz said on ‘The Ed Show’ Wednesday night. ‘One can only imagine watching this videotape … how many other cities have it like this across America. And I think we have to ask ourselves the moral question, aren’t we better than this?’
East Point’s approximately 200 public housing units are full, according to 11Alive, and more than 400 Section 8 vouchers are already in use. It is unlikely that many of those waiting for the applications would ever receive the housing funds.
‘A lot of these folks will never get off that waitlist, and the executive director of the housing authority acknowledged that today,’ NBC reporter Ron Mott told Schultz. ‘Dozens upon dozens of people passing out from the heat, standing in the heat just to apply for public h
