Jason Szep

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - Some Americans are swapping homes for motels as the ranks of the homeless swell during the recession, crowding out shelters and forcing cities and states across the country to find new types of housing.

In Massachusetts, a record number of families are being put up in motels due to high unemployment and the rising number of homes going into foreclosure, costing taxpayers $2 million per month but providing a lifeline for desperate families.

"I feel like this has saved my life," said Tarya Seagraves-Quee, a 37-year-old former nurse.

(Click on her picture above for a slideshow on Americans forced to live hotels during the recession)

Seagraves-Quee has lived in a cramped one-bedroom suite in a hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with three of her four children for nearly two months. "I'm managing the best way possible. I've learned to make things in the microwave oven."

In Massachusetts, homeless shelters are at capacity. State law requires temporary accommodation for those without shelter, leading authorities to place 830 families, including 1,125 children, in 39 motels -- an unprecedented number.

"This truly is the highest we have ever seen it," said Nancy Paladino, director of the family team for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless.

Other cities are noticing a similar trend. In Indianapolis, Indiana, overcrowded homeless shelters are turning families away, forcing growing numbers to seek vouchers for hotels provided by nonprofit groups such as United Way.

"Anecdotally, it's increased," said Michael Hurst, director of the Coalition for Homeless Intervention and Prevention Indianapolis. The advocacy group started to compile statistics on the number of homeless families living in hotels this year after noticing signs of an increase.

"The hotel owners will tell you it has increased. The homeless service providers and the school officials will say we know there are more people living in hotels and putting their kids in school because that is the address they are giving us."

(Click on the video below for an audio slideshow about the Seagraves-Quee family by photographer Brian Snyder. It is narrated by Tarya Seagraves-Quee, who is also a gospel singer)

(Click here for more on Tarya Seagraves-Quee)

'JUST A STEPPING STONE'

In the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, the large Wilson family turned to a budget motel as a weeklong transition between a homeless shelter and an apartment.

"Each step we're going it's just a stepping stone," said 42-year-old Frederick Wilson as he sat with his wife, Annette, in a one-bedroom suite they share with four of the six children in their care, including a grandchild.

Called by God, they said, to move from Minnesota to Texas, the family has rapidly made a shift from homeless status to paid employment. Annette has just landed a job as a bus driver, while Frederick said he will work in an office that offers clerical support to Medicaid patients.

They spent two-and-a-half weeks in a homeless shelter in Dallas and were preparing to move into an apartment from the motel. The Urban League, an organization that helps struggling African Americans, is paying the $204 cost of their suite, which does not include sheets, pillows or toilet paper.

(Click on the video below for an audio slideshow about the Wilson family by photographer Jessica Rinaldi, narrated by the Wilsons)

(Click here for an update on the Wilson family)

In Phoenix, demand for emergency accommodation is swamping available services as the recession and spiraling foreclosures turn even more families out of their homes.

One nonprofit bought two former hotels -- a Days Inn and a Super 8 -- in a gritty downtown neighborhood to provide emergency accommodation for homeless and low income families. When the $23 million project is finished in September, it will be able to house 156 families, up from 112 now.

"We've seen a whole new subset of homeless families due to job loss and foreclosures, and our waiting list has doubled in the past year," said Nichole Barnes, chief fund development officer of the UMOM New Day Centers.

"Some were previous homeowners. Due to the housing market out here, they'd got into a mortgage with a flexible interest rate. Some were working full time, but lost their jobs, went through their savings trying to save their home, and then found themselves without a home due to foreclosure," she said.

FORECLOSURES AND FAMILIES

In many cities, foreclosures are a big part of a spike in homeless and rise in families living in hotels or motels.

Nearly 80 percent of homeless services providers and advocacy agencies say at least some clients became homeless as a result of a foreclosure, according to a joint report by four of the largest U.S. homeless advocacy groups.

Staying with family or friends and in emergency shelters were the most common post-foreclosure living conditions, followed by hotels or motels, according to the June report.

"In many areas shelters are now completely full, so the only option to keep their families together is to rent a motel room for $200 a week. That's pretty standard for many who lost their homes to foreclosure," said Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Unlike Massachusetts, most states do not pick up the tab. "People are spending 80 percent of their total income on hotels," he said. "And food costs are higher because they can't cook."

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Seagraves-Quee found refuge at a budget hotel after losing her job in Georgia more than a year ago and going without health care for 10 months. She suffers from multiple sclerosis, anemia and lupus, and was recently found to have two cancer spots on her breast. Two of her children, aged 16 and 6, are autistic.

She spent $700 -- almost all her savings -- on plane tickets to Boston, where she had relatives. Soon the family was in a shelter.

Local authorities later moved her to the hotel and Seagraves-Quee was given medical treatment as part of a program carried out by Boston Health Care for the Homeless.

"Right now, I am picking up from where I left off in Georgia 10 months ago. When I got here I was in really bad health," she said. "I've heard some people say 'Oh that is a ghetto shelter.' But to me it's a wonderful place."

(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Dallas and Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; Editing by Doina Chiacu. Cambridge photos and audio slideshow by Brian Synder, Dallas photos and audio slideshow by Jessica Rinaldi)

Chambers dictionary defines an apostate as "someone who rejects a religion, belief, political affiliation, etc. that they previously held." So it's easy to imagine the horror among Mormons if it were applied, even by mistake, by a Mormon-owned newspaper to the second-highest presiding group within the Mormon Church.

But that's what happened at The Daily Universe, a newspaper at Brigham Young University.A photo caption in Monday's edition read in part: "Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates and other general authorities raise their hands in a sustaining vote..."

Er, make that "Apostles".

The newspaper scrapped 18,000 copies (the entire printing) of its Monday edition after discovering the typo.

Its editors issued an apology and published an article to explain the error, which would have caused great offense in a school owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where students are required to behave in line with LDS teachings -- from abstinence to dress and grooming standards.

The cause? Deadline pressure and the spell-checker, said Rich Evans, editorial manager for The Daily Universe.

"Our copy editor in charge of the front page, who was under deadline pressure, was using spell check on her page and had misspelled the word apostle," Evans said.

"One of the first options that came up on InDesign's spell check suggestions was the word apostate. Unfortunately that's the one she clicked on. It still should have been caught by two more levels of review after that, but again with deadline looming, the worst possible thing happened."

The corrected version was available later in the day.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass - Sen. Edward Kennedy, battling a life-threatening form of brain cancer, received an honorary degree from Harvard University on Monday, joining an elite group that includes Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and George Washington.

"There is no other time that I would rather receive this honor than this year at this turning point in American history," Kennedy told a packed crowd that included Vice President-elect Joe Biden in Harvard's 1,166-seat Sanders Theatre after flashing a thumbs-up to loud applause.

The liberal giant and patriarch of America's most storied political family was to have received the degree at a commencement ceremony last spring but was recuperating from brain surgery at the time.

"I am moved and deeply grateful to my university," Kennedy said, noting that 100 years ago in September his father entered Harvard as a freshman to be followed by a new generation of Kennedys including his two assassinated brothers.

Kennedy, 76, quoted from slain President John Kennedy while defending the liberal politics that are a trademark of the Massachusetts' Democrat since he entered Congress as the nation's youngest senator at age 30 in 1962.

"I have often been called a liberal, and it usually was not meant to be a compliment. But I remember what my brother said about liberalism shortly before he was elected president.

"He said if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people, their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties, someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicion that grips us. If that is what they mean by liberal, I am proud to be a liberal," Kennedy said.

Kennedy was expelled from Harvard College in the 1950s for cheating. He served two years in the Army and got his Harvard degree on a second try in 1956.

Kennedy had surgery on June 2 after being diagnosed with a type of malignant brain tumor that typically kills within three years. He returned to the Senate on Nov. 17 for the first time since July and pledged to work next year to expand health care for all Americans.

"He is a fierce fighter but an even fiercer friend," said Harvard President Drew Faust. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer applauded Kennedy's years of service. "Thank you for caring so much, about so many for so long," he said.

 - Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Kennedy waves to crowd)  

BOSTON - Democrat Barack Obama leads his Republican rival John McCain by a nearly 2-1 ratio among young voters in the race for the White House, a poll by Harvard University's Institute of Politics showed on Wednesday.

Obama leads McCain 56 percent to 30 percent among likely young voters, according to an online survey of 2,406 18 to 24 year olds conducted by Harris Interactive for the institute between Sept. 12 and Oct. 6. Fifteen percent were undecided.

Obama's lead is essentially unchanged from polls in July and March, the institute said.

Both parties have sought to mobilize young Americans who voted in the largest numbers in at least 20 years in the 2006 congressional elections, energized by the Iraq war, and turned out in record numbers in the 2004 presidential election.

Mirroring the broader electorate, the economy is the No. 1 issue for America's youth. More than half, or 53 pecent, say economic issues are their top concern, compared with 30 percent in March, the poll showed.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young. Obama supporters hold up a cardboard cutout of the candidate at a campaign event at the Palm Beach Community College in Lake Worth, Florida, Oct. 21, 2008.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Political rallies are usually ideal for reporters to chat with party activists, but the campaign of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin took an unusual step by appearing to limit access to her supporters.

At Monday's rally in the battleground state of Florida, reporters were barred from wandering around the area where the Alaska governor's supporters had gathered. 

About 20 seconds into an interview I attempted with Brent McDonald, 52, I was stopped by a Palin campaign worker in mid-sentence. "The press is not allowed out here," she said. 

I asked why. "I"m just telling you what they are telling me," she replied.

A St. Petersburg Times reporter wrote that a campaign worker said that in the past negative things had been written.  "The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility Monday," the reporter wrote on the newspaper's "This Just In" blog.

In my case, I thought there might be an easy explanation that had little to do with media control. As a Reuters correspondent, I typically travel in what is called a "press pool" -- a group that sticks closely to the candidate and rides in the motorcade. We go where the candidate goes. 

The "pool" is searched or "swept" by the Secret Service in the morning. Once that's done, protocol requires we generally don't mix with the public. That means staying clear of the big throngs at rallies. Otherwise, we'll need to be searched again by the Secret Service -- a tricky task when a motorcade is about to tear out of a rally.

But on this ocassion, I made it clear to Palin's campaign that Clearwater was my last stop. There was no need to "sweep" me again. I wouldn't be traveling with the pool for the remainder of the day. That freed me to mingle with the crowd.

So, I continued in my attempt to interview McDonald, who was starting to explain that his family were Democrats but that he was going with the Republican ticket. 

"I can trust them. McCain fought for us and it's pretty hard not to trust a woman who is a mother of five," he said. But as he was about to launch into another thought, a second Palin campaign worker interrupted us, asking me to leave the area.

I jotted down McDonald's name and was ushered into an area gated away from the main group of Palin supporters.      

The crowd, estimated by police at around 5,000 people, feted the 44-year-old self-described "hockey mom" like a rock star. The crowd was especially enthusiastic in an area that was tightly organized with one section of supporters all dressed in blue shirts, another in red, and another in white. Standing together, they formed a human American flag. 

Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank reported that some Palin supporters at the Clearwater rally turned on reporters in the press area, shouting abuse after Palin blamed CBS News anchor Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media."

"Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, 'Sit down, boy', Milbank wrote.  

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Szep (Palin supporters with their outfits form a U.S. flag behind the stage)

SAN FRANCISCO - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin called Afghanistan “our neighboring country” on Sunday in a speech that could revive questions over her tendency to stumble into linguistic knots.

Three days after a mostly gaffe-free debate performance, the Alaska governor fumbled during a speech in which she praised U.S. soldiers for “fighting terrorism and protecting us and our democratic values”.

“They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan,” she told several hundred supporters at a fundraising event in San Francisco.

The gaffe could add fuel to comedians and late-night talk show hosts who have seized on her linguistic infelicities to portray her as someone not to be taken seriously.

Later in a speech in Omaha, Neb., Palin poked a little fun at herself when talking about one comedian in particular -- actress Tina Fey whose dead-on impression of Palin’s looks, voice and body language has been a hit.

Fey, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Palin, has parodied her as a rambling, perky politician unfamiliar with world issues for three straight weeks on the comedy show "Saturday Night Live".

"I was just trying to give Tina Fey more material -- job security for Saturday Night Live," Palin said.

The skits have become a sensation since an awkward interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric in which Palin failed to coherently express her views about Russia, the U.S. government’s $700 billion financial bailout package, and the newspapers or magazines she reads.

In recent days, the 44-year-old self-described “hockey mom” has described the Couric interview as “less than successful”, and apologized to crowds of supporters for her shaky performance, saying she was "annoyed" and "impatient" because she wanted to talk about other issues like energy independence.

Palin’s opponent, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, has also committed high-profile gaffes, including claiming in a recent interview that President Franklin D. Roosevelt calmed fears in a TV address at the beginning of the Great Depression. There was no TV in 1929 -- Roosevelt wasn't president at the time. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (A Palin supporter at a rally in Denver last week.)

PHILADELPHIA - Republican presidential candidate John McCain cut short his first public appearance without running-mate Sarah Palin after chanting supporters of Democratic rival Barack Obama interrupted his speech.

After lunching with a roundtable of women at Philadelphia's Down Home Diner, McCain shook hands with supporters and strode up to a podium to deliver a statement. But as he spoke, chants of "Obama, Obama, Obama" filled the room.

Reporters craned forward trying to hear the Arizona senator. Unfortunately for McCain -- and possibly overlooked by aides who planned the event -- a section of the diner opened up to a market where a crowd had gathered behind a cordon.

A large contingent of Obama supporters showed up, mixed with some who had bumper stickers reading "Democrats for McCain".

"It's time to leave the talk behind and start shaking up Washington and fixing our economy, taking care of the problems facing our families. We're going to give a tax cut to every family with a child," he said.

His words were barely audible.

McCain's supporters shouted "John McCain", "John McCain," "John McCain". The duelling chants nearly drowned out the presidential hopeful's voice.

"Pennsylvania is a battleground state as we can tell," McCain said.

Meanwhile Palin, the Alaska governor, was on a flight back to her state. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

FAIRFAX, Va. - It was Republican John McCain's turn on Wednesday to relish the kind rock-star treatment usually associated with his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, in the tightening race for the White House.

Under burning sunshine at a park in a suburb outside Washington, D.C., McCain and his newly minted running-mate Sarah Palin drew a crowd of approximately 23,000, which his campaign said was his biggest on the presidential trail.

Campaigns are notorious for inflating crowd estimates. But a McCain’s aide stressed the number was the real thing -- provided by a fire marshal no less.

It could very well be accurate. Supporters by the thousands poured onto the grassy slopes of Fairfax’s Van Dyke Park waving blue and yellow McCain-Palin placards and chanting slogans (“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah” ranks among the loudest). Some chastised the media for “picking on” Palin.

The pair did not diverge from speeches they've delivered all week, almost to a word, threading a folksy narrative of their lives with the bread-and-butter assertions of their campaign: the Iraq war can be won, drilling for oil in the United States to secure energy independence and that their ticket would bring reform to Washington.

Much of the crowd was a sea of red shirts, courtesy of the Virginia Republican Party, which exhorted on its Web site for supporters to wear red, the party's color, to keep the battleground state Republican.

After backing President George W, Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections, Virginia is now a swing state, according to an average of statewide polls by Real Clear Politics which has McCain up a slender 0.7 percent in the state.

The growing turnout at McCain’s events has followed his surprise pick of the little-known Alaska governor as his vice-presidential nominee. Attesting to her draw, one supporter shouted her name holding aloft a sign that read “Palin power”. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

MIAMI - The unexpected sight of empty seats is unsettling for candidates jockeying for an edge in the race for the White House. At a tightly orchestrated campaign event, it can telegraph trouble -- from fading popularity to lack of enthusiasm in a key voting bloc.

There were plenty of empty seats in the Miami Hilton Hotel ballroom on Friday when Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney addressed the Latin Builders Association, an influential group in Florida's tight Republican nominating race.

The group holds big sway with Florida's Hispanic voters,
especially Miami's Cuban-Americans, who make up about 10 percent of the Republican primary voters.

As Romney began his address at around 8:30 a.m., about 170 of the 240 available were filled.

The problem, locals say, is Romney's hard-line stance on immigration, which goes down poorly with many Hispanic voters.

As Reuters correspondent Tim Gaynor wrote from Palm Beach on Thursday, the issue of U.S. border security and what to do with about 12 million illegal immigrants works in favor of Romney's top rival in Florida, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Analysts and Florida voters say McCain's support for secure borders, a guestworker program and a "compassionate" approach to illegal immigration, has resonated, particularly in south Florida, which has a large Latino community.

Romney's tougher stance is less popular.

"We've got to enforce the law, welcoming legal immigration but ending illegal immigration," he says at most campaign events.

Neck-and-neck with McCain in polls, Romney made a bid for Hispanic voters in his speech on Friday, recalling how the original $37 million fund for a venture capital firm he founded in 1984, Bain Capital, was raised entirely from private individuals led by Ricardo Poma, a Salvadoran businessman living in Miami.

"What you have done with the city of Miami is transform a city that was old and tired into a city that has become a gateway, or a connection point, between North America and Latin America," he told the builders association. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Joe Skipper (Romney talks with supporters in Miami.)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - As the Republican race for the White House tightens, front-runners John McCain and Mitt Romney are looking for a boost from an unlikely ally -- former rival Fred Thompson.Romney, the multimillionaire former Massachusetts governor, announced on Thursday his campaign had hired 10 staffers from "Lawyers for Fred Thompson," a support group that had rallied behind the former Tennessee senator and Hollywood actor.

That came a day after Romney picked up the endorsement of a high-profile Thompson backer, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran.

Not to be outdone, McCain said on Thursday that Thompson's former national fundraising chairman, Scooter Clippard, had signed up to McCain's "Straight Talk Express" as a national finance co-chair.

"Fred made an invaluable contribution to this race and always enriched the discussion of ideas for America's future," McCain said in a statement.

The skirmish for supporters follows Thompson's announcement on Tuesday that he had dropped out of the Republican race after finishing third in South Carolina's primary on Saturday -- behind McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Romney, a former venture capitalist, is presenting himself as the most conservative of the bunch in hope of rallying the social, economic and security wings of the Republican Party, whose establishment has clashed with the maverick McCain.

On the campaign trail, he has begun to praise Thompson, saying among other things he will miss his humor at debates. "He is a delightful character," he said in Tampa on Wednesday.

Later he added, "in some respects his departure from the campaign inures to my benefit. I think some of those people who are really concentrated on all three branches of conservatism will support my campaign."

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Carlos Barria