West Coast Cities Are Letting Drug Addicts Kill Themselves

At the Washington Examiner, "Liberals in the biggest cities on the West Coast have made it easier for drug addicts to die from overdoses based on the fallacy that letting drug addicts destroy their own lives is some form of compassion."

Clearing Venice Beach (VIDEO)

Kinda harsh evictions, actually. 

The police and city workers were rousting homeless folks at 2:00am, for supposedly as that time there were few other people around. That said, it seems to me evicting the homeless at that time of morning is a form of harassment and terrorism. 

It's gotta be done, of course, but a little more humanity for these folks, many of whom have psychiatric health issues. Sheesh.

At LAT, "Block by block, tent by tent, city crews remove homeless campers from Venice Beach."

Ursula was asleep on a beanbag under an umbrella on a patch of sand, just feet from the public bathrooms on Venice Beach when three LAPD officers shined flashlights on her and told her to move. It was just after 2 a.m. Thursday.

She told them she’d been given a hotel room the day before and had come back for the shopping carts teeming with possessions she left behind. But the effort left her too tired to return to the hotel.

“You’re going to have to get up and exit this area,” one officer said — as sanitation workers stood off to the side, ready to sort her belongings from trash.

“The park is closed.”

For more than three hours, a crew of about a dozen Los Angeles sanitation and recreation and parks workers accompanied by several officers from the Los Angeles Police Department went to work on Ocean Front Walk, sweeping up detritus from one portion of a homeless encampment that has set Venice on edge for months.

A tarp here, a blanket there. Bottles and cans and other consumer waste. But after all was said and done, after the eastern horizon had begun to glow with the impending dawn, they had moved only two people — Ursula and a man who had been reluctant to leave behind his paintings. The rest had left earlier in the week.

It was a case study in how difficult, and complicated, it can be to move unhoused people when the goal is to avoid the kind of blunt-force dispersal that the city carried out this spring at Echo Park Lake.

The crews had come back for a second consecutive morning, mopping up after last week’s deadline to clear the southern portion of the homeless camps from Windward to Park avenues, a stretch of about 650 yards. St. Joseph Center reported that it moved 72 people from the boardwalk to shelter or housing last week. City Councilman Mike Bonin, who represents Venice, said Thursday that about 90 people had been given shelter of some sort...

Still more at that top link.

 And I guess things didn't go so well. See, "L.A. delays the next phase of removing homeless people from Venice boardwalk."

Blue Exodus: California Is a Failed State

It's Jon "Ex-Jon" Gabriel, at the Arizona Republic, "California is a failed state. How do we know? They're moving to Arizona in droves":

Driving across Arizona, it’s hard not to notice a surge in California license plates. The reason for this is becoming more apparent every day. California is a failed state.

After nearly a decade of one-party rule, the once-Golden State is tarnished, possibly beyond repair. Listing all the problems facing our neighbors across the Colorado River would require several books, so I’ll only highlight a few.

The fifth-largest economy in the world and home to many of the greatest technology companies on Earth can’t keep the lights on. The state’s three largest utilities turned off power to more than 410,000 homes and businesses on Friday, Aug. 21, then again to half as many Saturday, Aug. 22.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sprung to action on Monday by announcing more blackouts. "We failed to predict and plan these shortages,” the governor said. “And that's simply unacceptable."

But accept it he did, noting that the state’s near-religious promotion of solar and wind power left a gap in the reliability of its power grid. You don’t say.

Wildly unpredictable events, like August being hot, never occurred to Newsom last October when he signed six more bills to kill off his state’s fossil fuel industry. Shutting down one of California’s two nuclear plants certainly didn’t help. Perhaps their plan to close the second one in 2024 will have different results.

So have those to stop homelessness

Documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo’s latest work reveals the tragic failure of the city’s homeless policies. In “Chaos by the Bay,” he shows the results of well-meaning progressive efforts, from decriminalizing homelessness to plying addicts with free drug paraphernalia, alcohol and cannabis. For the most part, rampant mental illness has been left untreated...

Still more.

L.A. County Removes Homeless From Freeway Underpasses

Some of these folks lived under freeways for years. Mind-boggling.

At LAT, "They made a home under L.A.’s freeways. But soon they could be forced to move":

Hope you give the story a read, and take a moment to marvel at the amazing photography of @GenaroMolina47. He always knocks it out of the park.

Also drop me a line with your thoughts, compliments or complaints about this sweeping change coming to LA. https://t.co/i6CD5jRWqT pic.twitter.com/9uyIaUsbIq

— Benjamin Oreskes🦅 (@boreskes) July 26, 2020

The 105 Freeway roared overhead as homeless outreach worker Daniel Ornelas knelt to speak with Genia Hope.

Hope’s home has been, for years, a sprawling complex of tents beside a tangle of freeways in southeast Los Angeles County. Like many homeless people, she has chosen to live under or near a freeway because it affords some measure of safety compared with other spots where homeless people bed down.

A rusted elephant trinket stood guard outside her tarps and tent, and inside she lounged on a black leather couch, smoking a cigarette alongside a rack of clothing.

Hope raised her now-grown children in Apple Valley and later followed a man to Bellflower. She lost her job at a rehab facility and then, after her partner died, grief, anxiety and struggles with addiction led her to the street.

Now, it looked as if Ornelas might just be able to help her. The COVID-19 pandemic has opened up a wealth of resources to help get people off the streets, and a recent order from a federal judge will unlock even more. But efforts to aid people like Hope are going to be complicated by a shortage of available shelter and fighting among government entities about how best to carry out the judge’s wishes.

Hope told Ornelas that living beside this freeway underpass, just off a bike bath that snakes along the Los Angeles River, was optimal. Police rarely hassled her here, and she had plenty of space to be alone. An on-again, off-again love interest lived nearby, and her homeless neighbors formed a supportive community.

One neighbor brought her some lunch and a strawberry slushie as she spoke with the outreach worker.

She jumped at the offer, excited at the prospect of getting to take a bath and sleep in a bed. Her matted blond hair needed washing, she said. It would be ideal if her boyfriend could join her — at arm’s length.

“If we could be at the same hotel and in separate rooms, that would be great,” she said. “Sometimes we just need a break from each other.”

A government program known as Project Roomkey, which aims to rent motel and hotel rooms for homeless people, has fallen short of its goals locally but still has vastly expanded the number of rooms available to homeless people vulnerable to COVID-19. As a result, Ornelas was able to quickly whisk Hope off the street. Like many outreach workers who serve the county’s swelling homeless population, he pays special attention to the underpasses and embankments near freeways.

Those areas became a subject of great interest and conflict after U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ordered city and county officials to provide space in shelters or alternative housing for residents living near freeway overpasses, underpasses and ramps. Once there is enough shelter, the agreement could pave the way for law enforcement to enforce anti-camping ordinances.

The order came during proceedings for a lawsuit Carter has been presiding over since March, when the advocacy group L.A. Alliance for Human Rights sued public agencies across the county, accusing them of allowing unsafe and inhumane conditions in homeless camps. Carter’s focus on the areas around freeways took many homeless advocates and government officials by surprise.

Many who could be forced to move said they were leery of going into temporary shelters, tiny prefab houses or sanctioned camping sites, because they felt confined by rules that prevented them from leaving after certain hours and put them in shared spaces that they would otherwise avoid.

And those coordinating where people living near freeways go next — the homeless service providers and outreach workers— say that the order will lead to needless confrontation between law enforcement and people living on the streets. They also say politicians’ attempts to comply with the judge’s desires focus far too much on interim housing options and will come at the expense of more permanent solutions...

More, and don't miss the great photos.

After Young Women Dies of Drug Overdose, Whittier Votes to Shut Down Homeless Encampment, Impose Curfew (VIDEO)

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Tucker Carlson: 'Civilization Itself Is Coming Apart' (VIDEO)

Watch the whole thing:

Homeless People Are Honored Guests at Orange County Home

Something on the bright side.

At LAT:

I recently got invited to a five-course dinner at a private home. The honored guests were homeless people, living in a shelter six miles and a world away. I hope you‘ll read my latest City Beat column, online and in print this morning. https://t.co/Hq4bKTilv2 #mydayinla

— Nita Lelyveld (@LATimescitybeat) November 16, 2019

Detroit Couple Hoped to Make It Big in Hollywood, Now They're Homeless

Dashed hopes on the hard streets of L.A.

At the Los Angeles Times, "They came to L.A. to chase a Hollywood dream. Two weeks later, they were homeless":

YES, LA DREAM ISN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE. They came to L.A. to chase a Hollywood dream. Two weeks later, they were homeless. Powerful ⁦@LATimescitybeat⁩ column https://t.co/nQp8jIbvYu

— Shelby Grad (@shelbygrad) October 19, 2019

So many people come to L.A. carrying little else but big dreams. One misstep, one con, one stroke of bad luck can be all it takes to derail them.

I recently met a young couple from Detroit whose journey here started with great hope.

They arrived last spring in possession of a promise, $800, two backpacks and two duffel bags.

The promise was what had prompted them to leave home. But it was broken that first day, before they left LAX.

Their interactions in our city then began to fray so fast that two weeks later they were sleeping on our sidewalks.

I asked them if I could tell their story in part to remind us all how swiftly disaster can strike, but also as a nudge to contemplate how we treat others — our newcomers, our most vulnerable, those we routinely write off.

Why tell a person you’ll help them if really you won’t? Some people like to toy, cats pawing at mice.

In Detroit, Loxk Calhoun (pronounced Lock, born DaShawn), had been scraping by for two years on his own since his mother kicked him out at 18. He was thrilled when someone in the music business encouraged him to come to L.A. He describes himself as an audio engineer who also writes music and raps and performs. He wants to be better known. The guy from L.A. said if Loxk just flew out here, he’d put him up and help make that happen.

But Loxk got here and he didn’t. He offered no help at all. When Loxk called from LAX, he said he’d be out of town for a long time.

Loxk and his girlfriend, Bri Meilbeck, who just turned 24, suddenly had only each other. They were novice travelers. They’d been together just one month. In a giant city, they had no one else whose support they knew they could count on.

In a fix, Loxk called another contact on his phone — a music producer he hadn’t yet met. He was relieved when this virtual stranger said that he and Bri could come stay. But the West Hollywood house they arrived at, which looked like a mansion on the outside, turned out to have bedroom after bedroom crammed with bunk beds. Bri and Loxk didn’t know how many there were or even whose house it was.

They also didn’t know that the producer to whom they had given some money owed rent — until one night after dark they got the word that the landlord wanted them gone at once.

This was the moment when they slipped into homelessness and slipped out of the world as they’d known it. They were the only ones who noticed. They had just $50 left.

As they strained to lug all they owned out the door, they knew that they would have to own less. At a dumpster, they shed a lot of favorite clothes, including Bri’s pink Adidas track suit.

Where to go was a problem. They didn’t know L.A.

But there had been a moment during those early days when they were feeling so overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all that they needed to get away and be alone. So they’d splurged on a cheap room at the Las Palmas Hotel in Hollywood, which in “Pretty Woman” is where Julia Roberts lived in the tough times before Richard Gere.

They’d liked that little brush with fame, though there’d be no fairy-tale rescue for them. Now pushed out of the house, they went back to the Las Palmas and scaled the fence of the park next door. Trying not to be seen, they avoided the playground’s rubber mats and lay down on pavement under Bri’s faux fur coat. All that night, she kept her eyes open.

A couple of years earlier, Bri had gotten very close to finishing college. She’d had her act together. She’d never imagined this.

“I was very scared. You could hear people yelling and screaming. I thought someone was going to rob us,” she told me. On her phone, she searched the discussions on the social news website Reddit, typing in phrases: “I just became homeless,” “Where do homeless people go in L.A.?”

Early the next morning on Venice Beach, the two bummed a smoke from a homeless man with a dog. He offered up tips for their new life.

Wear fresh socks to avoid infections. Go to St. Joseph Center for help. He walked around with them looking for a tarp and pieces of cardboard for their bedding.

That night and for a few nights to come, until they could get their own, he let them sleep in his little tent, squeezed in with him and his German shepherd, in front of the Public Storage at 4th and Rose avenues...

More.

Homelessness in San Francisco

What a nightmare.

From Heather Mac Donald, at City Journal, "San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless."

For the last three decades, San Francisco has conducted a real-life experiment in what happens when a society stops enforcing bourgeois norms of behavior—in the name of compassion toward the homeless. The results have been the opposite. https://t.co/QOREy5oiAV via @HMDatMI

— City Journal (@CityJournal) October 7, 2019

The stories that the homeless tell about their lives reveal that something far more complex than a housing shortage is at work. The tales veer from one confused and improbable situation to the next, against a backdrop of drug use, petty crime, and chaotic child-rearing. Behind this chaos lies the dissolution of those traditional social structures that once gave individuals across the economic spectrum the ability to withstand setbacks and lead sober, self-disciplined lives: marriage, parents who know how to parent, and conventional life scripts that create purpose and meaning. There are few policy levers to change this crisis of meaning in American culture. What is certain is that the ongoing crusade to normalize drug use, along with the absence of any public encouragement of temperance, will further handicap this unmoored population.

RTWT.

As Homelessness Crisis Worsen, Democrat Presidential Candidates Stay Mum

You'd think homelessness would be in the Democrats' policy wheelhouse, but it's not.

And that's no surprise. Homelessness hits white working-class families particularly hard, and the Democrats hate white people.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Homelessness is a crisis in California. Why are 2020 candidates mostly ignoring it?":

When new figures released last week showed a jarring rise in homelessness around Los Angeles, the response throughout Southern California was shock and indignation.

The reaction from the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates: silence.

While White House hopefuls crisscross the country, making big promises on issues such as college debt relief, climate change and boosting the working and middle classes, they have largely ignored an issue — the soaring number of unsheltered Americans — that has reached a crisis point in communities on the West Coast and elsewhere.

The reason, said Sam Tsemberis, is simple.

“It doesn’t have a constituency or an advocacy group that has enough money,” said Tsemberis, who leads Pathways Housing First, a Los Angeles nonprofit that works to end homelessness. “The National Coalition for the Homeless is not the National Rifle Assn.”

Not that voters are uninterested. In California, for instance, a sizable majority of likely voters — Democratic, Republican and independent — consider homelessness a big problem, according to a recent survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

But even as presidential candidates pay greater attention to California, mindful of its early March 3 primary, none has seized on the crisis as a rallying cry.

The silence is particularly notable coming from California’s Sen. Kamala Harris, who lives in L.A. Her campaign declined requests for comment on the latest homelessness figures. Harris and her rivals broadly address issues relating to homeownership or rent affordability, but offer little aimed at the desperate plight of those already living on the street.

Harris has two housing proposals: One is a subsidy for renters paying more than 30% of their income on housing. The second is a monthly cash stipend for low- and middle-income workers.

Both plans, her campaign says, would target the neediest and save people from evictions, a leading cause of homelessness.

The twin issues of affordable housing and homelessness are a “crisis [that is] not receiving the kind of attention that it deserves,” she said in a speech to the National Alliance to End Homelessness last year before she launched her candidacy.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, the former mayor of Newark, is the only one with a housing proposal that specifically talks about eliminating homelessness nationwide, by doubling funding to $6 billion for federal grants geared toward serving that population.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s housing plan ties in factors like affordable-housing scarcity, housing discrimination and the needs of people who require substance-abuse treatment, all issues that influence a person’s vulnerability to homelessness.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign website features his stands on 25 issues, but housing is not among them. When he ran for president four years ago, Sanders called for increased federal spending on rent vouchers for the poor, repairs to public housing projects and construction of low-rent housing.

In March, Sanders tweeted that the country has “a moral responsibility to make certain that no American goes hungry or sleeps out on the streets.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign did not respond to requests for the candidate’s plans to address homelessness.

Julián Castro, who was Housing and Urban Development secretary under President Obama, stood out among Democratic rivals by highlighting homelessness on the campaign trail. On an April visit to Nevada, he toured a storm-drain tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Strip where hundreds had set up encampments.

“This is not the kind of issue that a lot of people open their arms to, but they should,” Castro said Thursday in an interview.

He is set to release his housing agenda, including plans to reduce homelessness, in the weeks ahead...

They're all a bunch of idiots and losers.

Woke Los Angeles is the New Typhus Hotbed: Homeless Catastrophe Makes City of Angels Unlivable (VIDEO)

Why are Democrat-run cities such hellholes of infectious disease and humanitarian catastrophe?!!

And don't even get me going about San Francisco, where the current California Governor Gavin Newsome left behind a legacy of human feces, heroin junkies shooting up on the sidewalks, and progressive NIMBY losers turning away with indifference.

California really is a lost cause.

At the New American, "“Sky High” Piles of Trash Making Downtown Los Angeles Unlivable."

And the Los Angeles Times, "Rats and other vermin infest LAPD downtown station, sparking anger among officers."

LAPD Officers Diagnosed With Suspected Case of Typhus, Salmonella Typhi: Los Angeles has no formal rat abatement program. But, yay, we have the Olympics. https://t.co/pDVY4eJVtw via @nbcla

— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) June 1, 2019

When state officials inspected the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Division station last November, they uncovered rodent infestations and other unsanitary conditions at the facilities responsible for protecting skid row and other parts of downtown.

The conditions have now become the source of growing anger inside the station, with some officers threatening to seek transfers and city leaders scrambling to address the problems.

The issues at the Central Division come amid larger concerns about disease and filth across downtown, notably a vermin infestation at City Hall last year. One city employee was diagnosed with typhus, a disease that can be spread by rodents. City Hall workers said they saw fleas, rodent droppings and plants eaten by vermin in the building.

The California Department of Industrial Relations issued six violations and a $5,425 fine to the LAPD on May 14 and two violations and a $1,910 fine to the Department of General Services, records reviewed by The Times on Thursday show.

On Thursday, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the LAPD said they are working to resolve the problems. The division has 414 sworn officers — the largest number in the city.

“Our officers work hard every day to protect our city, and they deserve the best working conditions,” said Alex Comisar, a Garcetti spokesman. “Whether the issue is bad plumbing or something else, the mayor is working with the department to get to the bottom of this situation — and will take every possible step to protect the health and safety of all our employees.”

The department added: "The state’s report is concerning and we are taking steps to ensure the men and women who work for the Los Angeles Police Department can come to work in a healthy environment.”

The LAPD announced late Wednesday that an employee who fell ill at the downtown LAPD station had contracted the strain of bacteria that causes typhoid fever and was being treated for the condition. The LAPD confirmed that a second employee had a lower intestinal infection, but a specific diagnosis has not been determined...

What a nightmare.

Still more at the link.

John Lydon on Venice Beach (VIDEO)

I don't live in Venice, but Robin Abcarian does and she's not going with Johnny Rotten's analysis:

The Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten laments on the condition of Venice Beach due to "tent cities and "heroin spikes." https://t.co/izPjaFD6FB Watch Johnny's full interview with Newsweek here: https://t.co/SDFHzKOcQK pic.twitter.com/6fgl9NK9nn

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) April 21, 2019

He’s completely out of his mind.

— Robin Abcarian (@AbcarianLAT) April 22, 2019

The Montavilla Initiative

I'm a bleeding heart on homelessness, mostly because the leftist media gets the story all wrong, all the time. As noted previously, the bulk of O.C. homeless have been regular white working-class folks, busted down after the 2008 crash. It's not all Latinos and other minorities. Go to Anaheim and see for yourself.

In any case, at the Los Angeles Times, "Neighborhood advocates or vigilantes? A group in Portland makes life tougher for the homeless" (via Hot Air):

The Montavilla neighborhood is a place just about anybody might want to live in.

It has an “almost suburban” feel, a city website notes, but it’s near downtown Portland, with a population that’s more diverse than the city as a whole. Homes range from pricey modern to modest bungalow; businesses of every stripe do a bustling trade.

Last year Montavilla made Lonely Planet’s list of the 10 best U.S. neighborhoods.

It also broke apart over homelessness and rising crime.

Like many American cities, Portland struggles with homelessness. What’s the solution to getting people off the streets? What’s the right balance between compassion and safety? Why does the world’s richest country have so many people living in tents?

Last month, Portland-area voters funded $653 million for affordable housing, on top of $258 million in 2016. These are major investments for a city its size. But relief may be years away.

In Montavilla, the debate over homelessness has taken on an edge in the last two years as a neighborhood patrol has marched up to the line of vigilantism — and, some say, crossed it. Experts say similar groups have sprung up in other cities, including Long Beach and the west San Fernando Valley, as a conservative, tough-love response to the problem.

In June 2017, the Montavilla Neighborhood Assn. passed a resolution asking the city to “cease further sweeps of [homeless] camps,” which could be “unconstitutional and human rights violations.”

That fall, a new board of directors was voted in that included Micah Fletcher, a survivor of last year’s infamous stabbings by a white supremacist on a light rail train. Around the same time, however, a new conservative nonprofit, Montavilla Initiative, formed as an alternative. Battle lines hardened.

Montavilla Initiative began doing its own foot patrols; the city-partnered neighborhood association stopped doing them.

Interactions between citizen patrol groups led by Montavilla Initiative and the area’s homeless are now at the center of the neighborhood’s divide. On the one hand, local officials and homeless advocates accuse Montavilla Initiative of harassing vulnerable homeless people. On the other, leaders of the nonprofit say homeless encampments foster crime, and they’re just trying to make the neighborhood safer.

Multnomah County official Kim Toevs said Montavilla Initiative members harassed people who use the county’s largest needle exchange site, part of a program that has operated for 22 years in the neighborhood. It offers addiction counseling, exchanges millions of syringes annually, and gives out naloxone, proven to save lives by halting overdoses.

The county had to hire extra security after seven visits by the group, officials said.

“What we see here, about [their] behavior, harassing our clients, and making them feel stalked and scared, is hateful action,” Toevs said.

Ibrahim Mubarak, executive director of a homeless advocacy group, Right 2 Survive, said Montavilla Initiative members are “running havoc on houseless people,” slashing their tents, throwing cold water on them, following them around. “They’re all about getting [homeless] people out of the neighborhood,” he said.

Mubarak later acknowledged, however, that he had not witnessed the incidents himself, and had no proof that they were committed by Montavilla Initiative. “This is happening in the neighborhood to those people, but we don’t know for sure that it’s Montavilla Initiative,” he said.

Of 15 homeless people interviewed for this article, many said they’re aware of what they call the “neighborhood watchers.” One voiced support, but most said they were afraid of them. They don’t seem to differentiate between the new, Montavilla Initiative patrols and the ones the neighborhood association used to do...

More.

San Francisco's 'Hellscape' of Rats, Drugs, and Feces Tests Residents' Progressive Values

I've got a little tweet-storm on this right here, "They're so progressive they won't call the police if the homeless drug-addled perps are black." Just keep clicking at the quoted posts.

And go to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Poop. Needles. Rats. Homeless camp pushes SF neighborhood to the edge: One awful experience on one unremarkable city block represent the hellscape that has infuriated many San Francisco residents":

San Francisco Homeless Project: One awful experience on one unremarkable city block represents the hellscape that has infuriated many San Francisco residents. via @HKnightSFhttps://t.co/TqePGmJ8KN

— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) June 24, 2018

Some of the city’s biggest names — from San Francisco Travel to the Chamber of Commerce to the Hotel Council — have loudly protested the disastrous conditions on San Francisco’s sidewalks in recent months, and regularly get meetings with City Hall politicians, but the voices of everyday residents aren’t always heard.

The ones just trying to raise kids, work and, well, live. The ones with so little power, they can’t get their supervisors to respond to their requests for help. The ones with the misery literally on their front doorsteps.

Those are the people who live on Isis Street, which should be everything that’s good about San Francisco. Funky flats. A group of progressive neighbors, many of whom are artists, writers and other creative types. A walkable neighborhood where you can get to Rainbow Grocery and a host of bars and restaurants in a flash. There are about 30 units of housing on the block, and six kids younger than 5 are growing up there...

RTWT.

Orange County Faces Legal Threat Over Anti-Camping Laws

I've been blogging on homelessness quite a bit, mainly because I'm moved by the plight of the homeless and I'm flummoxed by the pathetic public policy response. In the O.C., as I noted at the time of a bogus meme going around arguing that the Anaheim Stadium encampment was populated by illegal immigrants, most of the O.C. homeless are white working-class people who've been wiped out by economic change, especially coming out of the Great Recession. So folks might see why I have quite a different take on the issue than other conservatives, such as the otherwise outstanding Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Magazine: "ASIAN-AMERICANS ACCUSED OF INTOLERANCE FOR OPPOSING HOMELESS."

Asian-Americans, pfft.

Where was where the mass Asian-American protests against the Chinese birth tourism hotels here in Irvine? There weren't any. The Feds had to come in and shut them down. See, "'Maternity tourism' raids target California operations catering to Chinese." According to the report:

More than 400 women associated with the Irvine location have given birth at one Orange County hospital since 2013, agents wrote in the affidavit. One of the women paid $4,080 out of $28,845 in hospital bills when her bank account showed charges at Wynn Las Vegas and purchases at Rolex and Louis Vuitton stores, the affidavit said.

Nope, no massive protests against Chinese birth tourists committing immigration fraud and cheating local hospitals out of maternity costs. And the Asian-American community has demonstrated extremely slow assimilation into American political culture. It's half Asian-American in Irvine, and the population's large presence continues to drive Anglo-American retail institutions out of the area. The 99 Ranch Market across from my neighborhood is the anchor store for a nearly entirely Asian-American shopping center. Only the McDonald's and KFC remain from a least a half a dozen American restaurants, including Baskin Robbins, Marie Calendar's, and Subway.

In any case, here's today's front-page report on the new judicial ruling barring cities from enforcing anti-camping laws against the county's homeless --- with the photograph of Diane Rutan, gathering her things from the downtown Santa Ana homeless camp. See, "Judge threatens to bar O.C. from enforcing anti-camping laws if it can't shelter homeless":

The political crisis over homelessness in Orange County approached a crucial moment Tuesday as a federal judge raised the prospect of barring local governments from enforcing anti-camping ordinances if officials cannot create temporary shelters for hundreds being swept out of tent cities.

The county for weeks has been struggling to find locations to place the homeless after removing them from an encampment along the Santa Ana River. A plan to place temporary shelters in Irvine, Laguna Niguel and Huntington Beach died amid loud protests from residents last week, and the problem is expected to get worse as officials move to clear out another tent city at the Santa Ana Civic Center.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter expressed frustration at the political stalemate during a hearing Tuesday. He said he could not decide where the shelters should go, but said he could prohibit cities from enforcing laws that ban people from camping in public spaces such as parks and river ways. Carter said that without those laws, Orange County communities could become magnets for homeless people.

In essence, the judge said Orange County can't have it both ways.

"We can't criminalize homeless by citing them in one location, and citing them in another location simply for being homeless," Carter said.

Carter is overseeing a case brought by homeless advocates trying to stop the removal of the homeless encampments. He stressed that the shelters don't have to be fancy, only that they be able to serve those who have nowhere else to live.

"This doesn't have to be a nice thing," Carter said. "It just has to be humane and dignified. That will probably get us through this crisis."

The county's two armories, which provide temporary shelter for up to 400 homeless individuals during the winter, are scheduled to close this month — adding a new layer of urgency as space is limited in other shelters throughout the county. Fullerton officials requested to keep the armory in their city open, but it's not clear if that will happen.

Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Andrew Do said he is pessimistic about the county and city officials finding a solution unless Carter steps in.

"At this point, I see us — the county — and the cities being at a standstill," Do said. "With each passing day we betray our responsibility to care for all of our residents as required by law."

Residents in Irvine and other cities have said they don't want homeless shelters in their communities, which is the same argument made by neighborhoods along the Santa Ana River that prompted officials to clear out the camps in the first place.

But Carter said the situation has forced certain cities to take on a disproportionate burden. He singled out Santa Ana, home to the county's only major emergency shelter

"Santa Ana is being forced to absorb all of the homeless because they're brought to this area for assessments and services," Carter said. "It's disproportionate."

Data presented by Santa Ana during the hearing back up that claim...

Keep reading.

Irvine's Asian-American NIMBYism

Everybody's a NIMBY. I imagine I'm a NIMBY on some issues too. But I also think that the county's got a real crisis on its hands and the community needs to come together for solutions. Nobody --- not residents in Irvine, Huntington Beach, nor Laguna Niguel, among others --- wants to house the homeless within their city. But the homeless need help.

At LAT, "In fighting homeless camp, Irvine's Asians win, but at a cost":

In fighting homeless camp, Irvine's Asians win, but at a cost https://t.co/1yuRFguKhc pic.twitter.com/e7al7CDi8y

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 1, 2018

One by one, the buses pulled up to the Orange County Hall of Administration last week carrying posters with messages such as "No Tent City" and "No Homeless in Irvine."

Many of the hundreds on board were immigrants, and this would be their first experience joining a political protest.

A week earlier, county officials announced that they were considering placing emergency homeless shelters in Irvine as well as in Laguna Niguel and in Huntington Beach. All three cities immediately fought the plan, but the opposition was most fierce in Irvine.

Many of the loudest voices in the movement to block the shelter plan were Chinese Americans who came together through social media apps and various community groups. They were joined by immigrants from South Korea, India, Mexico and the Middle East, along with some whites.

They rallied to protect their community from what they see as the ills of homeless camps, which many argued don't belong in their famously clean, safe, family-oriented planned community. Their protests helped persuade the Orange County Board of Supervisors to overturn the shelter proposal, leaving the county without a homeless plan at a time when the population is growing and officials are shutting down tent cities along the Santa Ana River.

It was a big political victory for the diverse opposition from Irvine. But it also came at a price, with some accusing the residents of intolerance and simply wanting to keep the homeless out of their own cities without offering an alternative solution....

A regional problem, local politics

Officials in Santa Ana, where homeless camps have overwhelmed the Civic Center area, have argued that other communities need to help share the burden. Irvine is now the third-largest city in Orange County, behind Anaheim and Santa Ana. The sweeps of homeless camps along the Santa Ana River began after complaints of filth and crime by residents in the nearby cities of Santa Ana, Anaheim and Fountain Valley.

Lili Graham, a homeless advocate and litigation director for the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, described the Irvine effort as "amazing" but misguided. The proposed shelter site in the city had already been zoned "and determined to be appropriate for emergency shelters," she said.

"It was a loud group, but in a county of 3 million, it's one group. There was a lot of leadership there — and there needs to be a lot of leadership on the county level to solve this issue," she said.

But some Irvine residents said the solution should not include their city.

"They need to put them somewhere, maybe somewhere else in California," resident Angela Liu, who owns a legal services company, told the Board of Supervisors. "I really don't know where they can go. But Irvine is beautiful, and we don't want it to get destroyed."

Her view was far from isolated. Officials and residents in Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel expressed similar sentiments. U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) said he joined "the outrage that we are assuming responsibility for homeless people, taking care of their basic needs and elongating their agony."

Irvine's working with the county to develop some kind of transitional housing, other than that, I don't see much effort or support for policies that will help these people. We're not talking about endless welfare. It's about helping people get cleaned up and healthy. Getting them some place to stay, a safe and dignified place, while helping them transition to long-term residential security. 

Still more.

O.C. Resident Say NIMBY to the Homeless

Of course.

At LAT, "Some OC residents: We want to help the homeless — just don't put them in our neighborhoods."

The Homeless Are Not Who You Think They Are

Following-up, "Los Angeles' Homelessness Crisis is a National Disgrace."

At LAT, "Los Angeles' Homelessness Crisis is a National Disgrace."

"A city cannot say it’s full. The region must build denser and taller to make space for the people who are already here." https://t.co/rr3libu4xB

— L.A. Times Opinion (@latimesopinion) February 26, 2018

Los Angeles' Homelessness Crisis is a National Disgrace

The L.A. Times begins a series of editorials on the city's homeless crisis today.

It's a thoughtful piece, putting a lot of things in context, including recent local voter initiatives to fund new programs and housing to alleviate the crisis.

See, "Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis is a national disgrace":

"Years of infighting, mixed messages and failures of political will on homelessness must come to an end." https://t.co/ycV8YpVvg0

— L.A. Times Opinion (@latimesopinion) February 25, 2018

How did we get here? From the founding of this newspaper in 1881, the pages of The Times have been filled with stories of those we have called, at various times, vagrants, hobos, tramps, transients and drifters. And for as long as there have been homeless people, there has been a tendency to blame the victims themselves for their condition — to see their failure to thrive as an issue of character, of moral weakness, of laziness. Since the “deinstitutionalization” of the mentally ill in the second half of the 20th century, and the subsequent failure of government to provide the promised outpatient services for those who had been released, the problem has grown significantly worse.

Today, a confluence of factors is driving people onto the streets. The shredding of the safety net in Washington and here in California is one. (Consider the inexcusable shortage of federal Section 8 vouchers for subsidized low-income housing, or the dismally low level of “general relief payments” for the county’s neediest single adults.)

At the same time, California is experiencing a severe housing shortage. Gentrification is taking more and more once-affordable rental units off the L.A. market, and restrictive zoning laws along with high construction costs and anti-development sentiment make new affordable units hard to build. Over the last six years, the rent for a studio apartment in Los Angeles has climbed 92%, according to UCLA law professor emeritus Gary Blasi, so that even people who have jobs can find themselves living on the streets after a rent spike or an unexpected crisis. As Blasi notes: “In America, housing is a commodity. If you can afford it, you have it; if you can’t, you don’t.”

Contrary to popular belief, the homeless in Los Angeles are not mostly mentally ill or drug addicted, raving or matted-haired or frightening — although a sizable minority meet some of those descriptions. They are not mostly people who drifted in from other states in search of a comfy climate in which to sponge off of others; the overwhelming majority have lived in the region for years. Today, a greater and greater proportion of people living on the streets are there because of bad luck or a series of mistakes, or because the economy forgot them — they lost a job or were evicted or fled an abusive marriage just as the housing market was growing increasingly unforgiving.

It will surprise no one to learn that it is the most vulnerable among us who usually end up without a place to live. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, more than 5,000 of the county’s 58,000 homeless people are children and more than 4,000 are elderly. About one-third are mentally ill. Some 40% are African American. Also heavily represented: Veterans. The disabled. Young people from the county’s overwhelmed juvenile justice system and its foster care programs. Men and women just released from jail, without the tools or skills needed for reentering society. Patients released from public hospitals — often with untreated cancers, infections, heart disease or diabetes. Victims of domestic violence.

All the great social issues of American society play out in homelessness — inequality, racial injustice, poverty, violence, sexism. Naturally, life expectancy for the homeless is short: about 47 years, according to skid row doctor Susan Partovi, compared with 78 in the population as a whole...

RTWT.

Officials Start Clearing Out Homeless Encampment Near Anaheim Stadium

Following-up from last week, "False Twitter Memes About Homeless Encampment Along the Santa Ana River Bike Trail."

Anaheim and Orange County officials launched the area's homeless eviction operation yesterday. Reading the Los Angeles Times' report, it turns out one woman's been living there for 16 years. I had no idea, man.

And as I noted at the blog post above, these are not migrants, illegal aliens, or refugees. These are mostly downtrodden white working-class folks. People have been priced out of the housing market, and the county lacks credible services for the homeless. What a bummer. The O.C. Register's piece indicates that 32 out of 33 cities in the county ban overnight camping for the homeless, which criminalizes homelessness. And the state's wasting billions upon billions of dollars building the bullet train to nowhere. Remember, these are progressive Democrats running the state, the holier-than-thou tolerance-preaching leftists. They're full of it, the degenerate hypocrites. No wonder people hate politics.

In any case, click the links:

Denise Lindstrom, a 49-year-old homeless woman, sits in a wheelchair at a homeless encampment on the Santa Ana River trail today in Anaheim, Calif. Authorities on Monday told the homeless living in the encampment that it is being closed down. | Photo @jaethephotog pic.twitter.com/If55OwYPif

— AP Images (@AP_Images) January 23, 2018

Hundreds of homeless face eviction or arrest as O.C. clears encampment amid shelter bed shortage https://t.co/FwK8tVVki8 pic.twitter.com/U5QSKdUgaw

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) January 23, 2018

Amid anxiety among homeless, law enforcement begins plan to gradually clear out Santa Ana riverbed encampments https://t.co/Ayz0LfJBEU pic.twitter.com/QmR1RBCHu3

— O.C. Register (@ocregister) January 23, 2018