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20-09-2019, 01:34 AM
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Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49687478

You do not have to walk far in Los Angeles to see people sleeping rough. Many spend their nights in temporary shelters, or other places not meant for human habitation - on the street, in an abandoned building, or a transport hub.

The number of homeless people in Los Angeles has grown by 33% over the past four years. Every night, nearly 60,000 Los Angeles County residents are homeless, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has found.

Money is at the root of the city's homeless crisis - jobs that pay too little and housing that costs too much. Half of homeless people say they do not have housing because they lost their jobs and cannot pay rent.

Blue-collar workers in Los Angeles were able to earn middle-class wages and buy homes until the Cold War ended, nearly 30 years ago. The government cutting back on military expenditure meant the national defence industry, which was centred in Los Angeles, shrank by more than half.

Well paid jobs were replaced by minimum-wage jobs.

More than 780,000 people in Los Angeles spend more than 90% of their income on rent - and these precariously housed individuals are at high risk of homelessness.

Homeless people are now seen in nearly all neighbourhoods and business districts throughout Los Angeles. This was not the case a decade ago, when most of the homeless population was contained in an area known as Skid Row.

Skid Row is still a 1-sq-km (250-acre) area located only 500m east of City Hall, although it is no longer as tightly contained as it used to be.

In 1976, city officials established Skid Row as an unofficial "containment zone", where homeless people, shelters and services would be tolerated. As a result, most visitors to the parts of Los Angeles that attracted visitors from around the world never saw a homeless person.

Other major US cities have fewer homeless people on the streets because they provide more housing. For example in Boston, only 3% of homeless people are unsheltered and in New York only 5%.
The full article is much more informative but the basic facts outlined above are shocking and not what I expected from Los Angeles.

New York is top of the list with 80,000 (not unexpected) but after LA's 60,000, Seattle is 3rd with only 12,000 .....
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20-09-2019, 01:59 AM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

Tourists to Los Angeles are not encouraged to go to places like South Central, Compton or Watts. Also the Downtown area at night. They are full of gangs, drug dealers and gun violence. The homeless are the most harmless sector of those communities and also the most vulnerable. The glamour parts of LA get the press but a lot of it is a huge, filthy, violent hole. LA proper itself is only a small city. But greater LA has around 16 million people and most of them are struggling. Seattle has a lot of homeless also as does San Francisco. California is by no means all rich. I thought Sydney was bad but after living in California for a short time I felt pretty happy to be back home again. I love the US for many reasons but it's a more dog eat dog society than here or the UK.
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20-09-2019, 05:48 AM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

I'm so surprised by this I thought California was the land of plenty ...well that's how its portrayed.

I saw a documentary recently on Detroit's homelessness and I thought that was bad enough but blimey !!
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20-09-2019, 07:42 AM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

I'm very much looking forward to visiting Los Angeles and San Francisco next year.
There are homeless people everywhere in thew world. As long as we don't bother them and they don't bother us then there isn't a problem.
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20-09-2019, 09:21 AM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

There is now a homeless person in the small rural town near where I live .
She / he impossible to know what gender as she /he keeps her face hidden under a huge hood all the time .
She /he has taken up residence outside the library on a bench where people used to sit and wait for the bus .
She /he just sits there looking at her / his smart phone with loads of plastic bags full of stuff around her /his feet .
I have asked at the library if social services know about this and was given a sniffy response . (All that could be done done has been done .)
Actually it’s horrible to see someone living like this and it means elderly people ( those who use the bus ) have no where to sit and wait .
I can’t think how a homeless person like this manages to live but I assume they have some benefits in order to eat .
I have seen her /him eating .
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20-09-2019, 10:08 AM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

Originally Posted by summer ->
I'm so surprised by this I thought California was the land of plenty ...well that's how its portrayed.

I saw a documentary recently on Detroit's homelessness and I thought that was bad enough but blimey !!
Indeed, it was the figure that caught my eye - 60,000 - that's twice the size of the population of the town that I live in, which enables me to understand the size of the problem.
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20-09-2019, 10:12 AM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

Originally Posted by summer ->
I'm so surprised by this I thought California was the land of plenty ...well that's how its portrayed.

I saw a documentary recently on Detroit's homelessness and I thought that was bad enough but blimey !!
It is the land of plenty Summer, for the top 50%, but the gap between the have and have nots is growing larger by the year....Same here.
The haves live in palace's with probably half a dozen posh motors on the drive and earn enough to house and support twenty have nots...At least....And yet they ask you and me to give to charity.....
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20-09-2019, 10:23 AM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

As a comparison:

London rough sleeping hits record high with 18% rise in 2018-19

Rough-sleeping figures in London have hit a record high, with 8,855 people recorded as bedding down on the capital’s street last year, according to annual Chain figures published by by the Greater London Authority.

The 18% year-on-year rise in 2018-19 was called a “national disgrace” by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who blamed the crisis on welfare reforms and a lack of investment in social housing.

The latest figures were two and half times the equivalent number recorded in 2009-10, when 3,673 people were identified as rough sleeping.

5,529 new rough sleepers were spotted on the capital’s streets last year – equivalent to 15 people a day finding themselves sleeping rough for the first time. More than a third had lost private rented accommodation.
Similar root causes for homelessness to LA but only 15% of the size.
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20-09-2019, 01:07 PM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

Originally Posted by Floydy ->
I'm very much looking forward to visiting Los Angeles and San Francisco next year.
There are homeless people everywhere in thew world. As long as we don't bother them and they don't bother us then there isn't a problem.
b.i.b. - Really????
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20-09-2019, 01:47 PM
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Re: Los Angeles: Why tens of thousands of people sleep rough

b.i.b.? What does that mean?
Is there something in my post you don't agree with, Aerolor? Does that make you right and me wrong????
 
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