r/moderatepolitics • u/awaythrowawaying • 1d ago
News Article Fake homeless encampment sparks controversy in LA mayoral race
https://www.deseret.com/politics/2026/05/30/los-angeles-mayor-race-nithya-raman-tent-encampments-poll-spencer-pratt/356
u/ComfortableLong8231 1d ago
Personal experience: it's a huge problem, and it impacts your daily life.
My daughter went to school in West Hollywood. Homeless encampments surrounded the school. There were days I had to distract her while dropping her off because someone was literally taking a dump on the street.
My neighbor found a homeless guy sleeping on his patio furniture after bathing in his pool. I've had RVs parked on my street catch fire. The encampments are everywhere, and many are unsanitary.
If you don't live around it, you don't understand how bad it is and how long it's been that way.
I'm not sure what can be done, but something has to be done.
137
u/spald01 1d ago
California has proven that it's not just a spending problem too. With their $24B initiative that only ended with more homelessness.Â
The solution will have to be something preventative to reduce new homeless.Â
41
u/LifeIsRadInCBad 1d ago
The only thing that I've seen work is: spend more money than the city next to you.
My town, Carlsbad, spends 10 million a year on homelessness. They offer resources to homeless people, which also allows them to arrest them if they don't keep moving. What that means, functionally, is that neighboring cities like Oceanside and Vista just have that many more.
28
24
u/Az_Rael77 1d ago
As someone who lives in the high desert north of LA, this is exactly what happens. We had a massive tent/RV city growing just outside the Lancaster city limits for years. Huge fire/health hazard that only recently got cleaned up because there are now plans to develop that land. I assume all the people who were there are now justâŚsomewhere else less able to push back since it isnât like we built new shelters to house them.
I canât wait for the Olympics and the mass cleanup that will presumably happen in LA and subsequent transfer of all those folks up here to the desert (where there are even fewer resources to deal with it and much more extreme weather). Everyone in LA will be happy and itâs just too bad for those who live somewhere smaller/poorer, sucks to be us I guess.
→ More replies (1)186
u/556or762 Progressively Left Behind 1d ago edited 1d ago
The solution is to enforce laws and accept that we have to lock people up.
These people are out there because we let them be. I am all for a rehabilitate approach to justice, I understand that substance abuse disorder has a medical component.
These people don't want homes. They want fentanyl. They want methamphetamine. They want to keep doing it, and we let them.
We need to reopen the asylums. We need recriminalization of vagrancy and public menace laws. We need to clear out the streets and stop paying billions, billions that at the very best give the dope fiends and crazy rotters the toilet paper that they wipe with in front of the local 7/11.
There is no solution that doesn't hurt someone.
I would prefer the one where I don't have to explain to my young kids why they aren't allowed to go to the park and teach my older kids to carry a weapon and narcan when they leave the house.
How about the one where the next 24 billion builds some involuntary housing and treatment facilities. Maybe kick a few bucks in for drug law enforcement. Slice off a couple million for some street sweepers and power washers.
89
u/WEFeudalism 1d ago
I totally agree. These people are incapable of caring for themselves, and weâve decided the âhumaneâ thing to do is to just let them rot away on the street. They should be taken into asylums where their care can be actively monitored and they are not a threat to themselves or others. Parks and other public spaces should be for people to enjoy, not a minefield of needles and human feces
→ More replies (19)50
u/stikves 1d ago
We shut down mental institutions
And that only lead them to a homelessness, crime, and then prison pipeline.
Mental institutions were not great, but I'm not sure prison is a better choice.
58
u/556or762 Progressively Left Behind 1d ago
This is the same conversation we had 20 years ago when this was all becoming very public and obvious.
We have since thrown tens of billions of dollars at the problem, and yet I still saw a dude nodding with his sore covered ass hanging out in the middle of a nice street in a well to do neighborhood in my last drive through the city.
Anything is a better choice than what we are doing. Literally, any other option than just keep paying them social services and letting them scream, nod, assault, rape, and bang dope on the sidewalk.
I don't care if it's asylum, prison, hell build peach tree gardens and send in the judges at this point.
As long as it gets the horde off the streets where regular productive taxpayers and their families are at least attempting to honor the social contract and live regular productive lives.
67
u/RockHound86 1d ago
Absolutely this.
I get endlessly infuriated at the well to do leftists that keep wanting to talk about "root causes" and all that shit.
Look, I don't give a single flying fuck about root causes when my wife and her daughter are leaving a restaurant and find a local bum simultaneously shooting drugs into their arm while taking a shit next to her car.
I don't give a fuck about root causes when my elderly mother gets harassed by panhandlers outside the grocery store, and said panhandler gets aggressive when she can't or won't give them money. I'm terrified to think of what might have happened to her if a good samaritan leaving the gym next door hadn't intervened and threatened violence against the panhandler if he didn't leave immediately.
I don't give a fuck about root causes when my friend's 1st grade son is at recess and sees one of these upstanding citizens trading a blowjob for some fentanyl right across the street.
I'm absolutely sick of it, and I'm of being told that it is our responsibility to find "better options" for these people.
41
u/556or762 Progressively Left Behind 1d ago
Exactly.
For some years I had a job that had me working out on the streets with tools.
I, on multiple occasions, felt the moral obligation to intervene between crazy dope fiends and innocent members of the public.
Now I am a big guy. I work out, I'm a combat vet, utility worker (at the time).
But if you society needs random construction workers to step in between a raving lunatic and mother and her infant just trying travel down the street, maybe we should really start with making it so children are safe in their own neighborhoods before we start worrying about why these people continue to wake up every day and choose to be the dregs of society.
Think about how ridiculous it is that you have to rely on random men willing to take the risk to protect innocent people when we have an entire taxpayer funded apparatus with billions upon billions of dollars, and employees that have the legal authority to intervene.
"Root causes" always seem to point to social issues than can be solved by big government spending, but none ever seem to address the fact that these people don't actually have to be this way.
These people wake up each day and choose not give a fuck.
Okay, cool, you life sucks and you are strung out. You still don't have to whip your dick out. You can still choose to shit behind the building instead of front of the school. You can choose to not harass the regular people trying to live their normal lives.
The root cause is we allow the subset of people who are willing to completely disregard basic human decency to do whatever they choose without consequences.
Sure we need more affordable housing, better mental Healthcare, blah blah blah.
Let's start with being honest and not using mealy mouthed bullshit. Let's start with some basic law enforcement and basic civil government.
Because right now you have what amounts to ad hoc vigilante enforcement in third world slums that exist right smack in the arteries of the richest state of the richest country the world has ever seen.
15
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 22h ago
I get endlessly infuriated at the well to do leftists that keep wanting to talk about "root causes" and all that shit.
Especially since they don't actually want to talk about root causes. Because the actual root causes disprove pretty much everything they believe in. And that is something religious fundamentalists cannot handle.
8
→ More replies (3)38
u/CraftZ49 1d ago
Perhaps the goal never was fixing the problem but enriching those running the programs. After all, if you fix the problem, the money stops flowing.
28
u/spald01 1d ago
It's disgusting and sad that I think this is partially true. At least for some of the politicians that were leading the charge for this new spending.
The sad fact is that there's a LOT of money to be made in politics, and there's a reason why so much is being spent on political races at even the lower levels of state elections these days.
18
u/swimming_singularity Trying to be moderate 1d ago edited 23h ago
Best weather in the country
Mental institutions shut down years ago
Big drug problem continues to ravage the country
It's really no surprised that southern California is having this problem. The leaders should have recognized it earlier and planned ahead. Eventually the problem is going to be solved harshly one way or another. It's not a good situation. I don't understand how leaders can fail to see the obviousness of this.
26
u/CraftZ49 1d ago
Prison is still better than subjecting the public to the behavior. Reopening mental institutions and involuntary commitments is the middle ground option.
7
u/InTheEndEntropyWins 1d ago
The supreme court said that you can't put someone in a mental institution unless they are a threat to others.
I think the solution would to have proper mental health and drug rehab sections in prison, and then very strictly enforce drug and other laws putting them into the mental health or drug rehab sections of prison.
8
u/spald01 1d ago
Mental institutions were not great, but I'm not sure prison is a better choice.
Mental institutions were, in many cases, far worse than prisons for most of America's history. They served the same purpose as prison (removing undesirables from society), but they had nearly unrestricted capability to lock someone away without a trial and keep them indefinitely.
4
u/absentlyric Economically Left Socially Right 7h ago
So which one do you want, prisons, or mental institutions? Because the 3rd option of letting them run free while politicians claim to try to find the "root cause" is getting less and less popular by the day.
-1
u/dragonmp93 1d ago
Do you remember why mental hospital are such good setting for horror movies in the first place ?
45
u/capitolsara 1d ago
This is 100% the answer. It's a drug problem and an enablement problem. It's a strain on our resources to pretend otherwise and hurting actual people who are homeless by circumstance because it makes it harder for them to access support to get back on their feet.
36
u/Habltual_Linestepper 1d ago
I encounter both of these types in my job, as one thing I have to do is assess for and investigate social determinants of health (housing, income, mental health, health literacy, food insecurity, etc) before hospital discharge. Identified issues are then sent to whoever is responsible for addressing that particular issue.
If I have two patients - both are living in unpowered RVs in the forest with inadequate access to food, sanitation, clinical access (doctors), and mental health risks - they will both get the same referrals.
Patient 1 actively does meth and fentanyl (the 21st century speedball is becoming much more common, at least in my state) while refusing cessation counseling, typically takes referrals and appointments with housing and health services but then never goes, and lives off of various forms of state aid while admitting to having zero intention of trying to change (and yes, a great many of my patients will outright tell you this). Patient 2 skips the speedballs (though probably does have an ETOH problem, finding solace in the bottle is common when your life sucks) but tries to actively participate in putting their life back together.
Patient 2 ends up on a many months-long wait-list for housing, appointments, and other aid because they're competing with patient one for the very finite amount of resources available (one which can't be fixed by just throwing money at it, or maybe it can, but we insist on throwing money in the wrong places - well pay billions for support, but zero improving pay and working conditions to hire more physicians and clinicians). Everyday that goes by without them being able access housing, psych/social work, primary care, or employment, is them getting one day closer to turning into patient 1.
42
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 1d ago
There is no solution that doesn't hurt someone.
Unfortunately for some reason the left would rather hurt the productive and contributing members of society than the ones who are engaging in detrimental behavior.
Then at the same time they whine and moan about how nobody supports funding and expanding public spaces and services. For how "educated" that side is they are really bad at connecting two dots that are very close together.
-3
u/dragonmp93 1d ago
Sure. the Bethlem Royal Hospital route is the way to go.
You can see how well this is going on Mexico.
→ More replies (4)-13
u/animealtdesu 1d ago
indeed, mass incarceration and enforcing drug laws are the solution to -checks notes- the prison industrial complex and corrupt pharma
28
48
u/oath2order Maximum Malarkey 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah but how much of these anti-homeless initiatives just go to NGO grift?
This is a notorius problem in Portland.
30
u/Historical_Course587 1d ago
Jay Forrestor modeled city dynamics 50+ years ago in Urban Dynamics. One of his big, controversial takes based on modeling was that homelessness programs create a positive feedback loop with the rate of homelessness, for two reasons:
- Robust resources ease the transition from housed into unhoused, making it easier for people to accept it. This is what largely bares out in California, where roughly 90% of the homeless population is from Cali, and about two-thirds of the homeless population resides in the same county where they were last housed. Completely normal folks decide to go to work like normal, sleep in a car, and shower at the gym instead of pay insane housing prices - which unfortunately puts them at greatly increased risk of insecurity-driven events that affect latent mental illness or addictive behaviors.
- Robust resources attract homeless migration. Why live homeless in Oregon City when being homeless in Portland gives you better access to resources? Why live homeless in Nevada where you cook in your car when you could live in California by the beach? Why live in destabilized Venezuela when you could live in the US? The underlying reasoning is the same in all three scenarios, except cities, counties, and states do not have levers to control migration at their borders. If international immigration is a problem for the US, then local immigration is an even bigger issue for cities and states.
Any meaningful direct interverntions for homelessness need to come from the Federal government. All state and local government can do is pull levers to affect the economics that drives people to be homeless in the first place. Namely, affordable housing for people who aren't yet homeless.
17
u/DarthFluttershy_ Classical Liberal with Minarchist Characteristics 1d ago
No idea what kind of numbers that ends up being, but I can attest that it's a very real phenomenon.
I worked closely with some homeless/near homeless folks in Nebraska back in grad school, and I can tell you that many thought of LA, San Fran, and Portland as homeless Mecca at that time... Mostly LA. They wanted to go there, thinking they'd get free stuff galore. Maybe they would, but any time someone moved we basically never heard from them again (and they all had phones even then). I sure hope they found happiness, but I'm still worried they ODed or got arrested or just had a mental breakdown far away from what support network they had in Nebraska (most had at least some family or a local church that would help them when things got REALLY dire... That's how I ended up working there anyway).
Keep in mind that even then, a lot of stuff was WAY cheaper in Nebraska than LA. Not just housing, but food and goods.
-1
u/bettercaust 23h ago
The problem in #1 is housing affordability which is driven by market-distorting policies like zoning, not the social programs that address homelessness. #2 is more plausible.
10
u/InTheEndEntropyWins 1d ago
The solution will have to be something preventative to reduce new homeless.
It's mainly a drug and mental health problem, which is really hard to fix.
Many have had their friends and family do their best to prevent them from going homeless.
I would think that having a strict drug enforcement policy but have the prisons have special drug rehab sections. You can't forcibly just lock someone in drug rehab or mental health clinic, but I'm sure you could enhance the prisons and enforce the laws strictly so you can enforce the help and rehab required.
36
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 1d ago
The problem is that all of the left-approved solutions are built on the assumption that the people in question are fully mentally capable and willing to uplift themselves if provided with resources. That assumption is fully false.
25
u/Sideswipe0009 1d ago
Those types don't want to differentiate between the two types. There absolutely are some who are just down on their luck and greatly appreciate resources to get back on their feet and some that just want to do drugs and live on the street.
21
u/556or762 Progressively Left Behind 1d ago
There absolutely are some who are just down on their luck and greatly appreciate resources to get back on their feet
California has one of, if not the, most robust social service systems in the US. You absolutely do not have to live the way that these people live.
The only caveat is that you have to follow the rules. Rules of society, the shelters, the social service programs etc.
Hell, even if it didn't you still don't have to live this way.
You can be homeless dope fiend and not leave your needles in the gutter. You can smoke meth and choose to keep your dick covered and not shit on the sidewalk. You can love doing the fenty fold all day long and still choose not to rob little old ladies.
That is the uncomfortable fact that is (I believe deliberately) obfuscated by lumping these groups together. The majority of these people don't wake up and go knock on the door of the local shelter. They go knock on the door of the local trap house.
Being homeless sucks. I get it. Been there. You can be homeless and not be a degenerate. You can be destitute and go through the steps. You can even be a drug addict and jump through the hoops.
Pretending that all homeless guys are just a down on their luck dudes with a gleam in their eye and victims of "the system" is a lie that does nobody any good.
→ More replies (2)6
u/pitifullittleman 1d ago
It's housing and law enforcement. CA has made progress on getting more people sheltered and slowed the increase of new homeless people significantly. The state itself since like 2020 had given I don't know 5b to the homeless issue specifically. Other money is for general housing and city funds.
A lot of the problem is CA can't build anything without spending an arm and a leg. It's private/public partnerships that create affordable subsidized units. It costs like 200% more to build this stuff in CA than Colorado and like 400% more than in Texas meaning they would be able to build twice as much housing with the same funds if he just had the same cost as Colorado.
More people are sheltered now than in 2020 by a lot. The homeless population in CA has only increased by 3% while nationally it has increased by 18%. This is an affordability and housing issue...it's also a drug and crime/disorder issue.
When people in CA complain about homeless people they are actually not complaining about the people who keep to themselves in the shelter or who have a job and live in their car but have a gym membership so they regularly shower. People don't even notice those people, they are the vast majority of homeless people. What people are complaining about are people who live in encampments who openly do drugs and/or are flagrantly mentally ill.
This is a different issue, but it's put into the same category. Shelters in many areas will not take people with criminal records, on top of that many of the people doing drugs in encampments don't want to follow the rules in a shelter or have been kicked out of shelters already.
Having personal amounts of drugs is a misdomeanors offense and in California a misdemeanor for drugs usually means that you are given no bail, this leads police to not enforce the rules because there is no point. This situation was made due to the California Supreme Court. Contrary to popular belief the reason there was shoplifting issues was this law not the felony amount being 900 dollars. This is why voters created harsher shoplifting penalties(CA was never the worst state when it came to shoplifting anyway.) However my point is that people have to make additional laws to compel people to stay in local jails.
CA incarcerates half as many people as Idaho on a per capita basis despite having more baseline crime. There is a recognition that too many people are in jail/prison for drugs, but at the same time no one thought to make laws that compel people to actually go to rehab or mental institutions. There are some laws that try to do this but they have no teeth and many places don't have rehabs or mental health treatment centers. Those things cost a lot of money.
My point is that the money specifically for homeless people did what it was intended to do because it was for homeless people. What it didn't do is stop drug addiction or mental health issues which is a major issue for homeless people that don't want to be sheltered.
6
u/Historical_Course587 1d ago
When people in CA complain about homeless people they are actually not complaining about the people who keep to themselves in the shelter or who have a job and live in their car but have a gym membership so they regularly shower. People don't even notice those people, they are the vast majority of homeless people. What people are complaining about are people who live in encampments who openly do drugs and/or are flagrantly mentally ill.
The big issue here is that the productive members of society who choose to live in their cars are living in insecurity, even if they don't realize or care about it. Sometimes it works to save money, but it increases risk of theft, risk of LEO interaction, risk of violent or non-violent confrontations with others, and risk of exposure to elements (even in CA) that can exacerbate or even surface latent mental illness. When the car breaks down or gets towed - they lose everything (except a potential storage unit that they can't travel to). That lack of important stuff and transportation can cost them their job and health and stability. They are far more likely to become the unsavory homeless population that people want to deal with.
The three most common mental illnesses in homeless populations are addictive personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and depression. Those are all easy to fall into for normal people who carry the added stress of sleeping in a car. And once these surface, self-medication is a tale as old as time because it's not like they are reliably navigating modern healthcare to rely on prescription care.
The only intervention that will truly matter is housing people before they are homeless. Once people are addicts, they are far more expensive to help and the outcomes are never going to be as good.
1
u/pitifullittleman 1d ago edited 1d ago
Of course, so over time it benefits to not allow people to fall into what is called "chronic homelessness" however for the people who have already fallen into it getting them out is more expensive and time consuming/difficult.
So if programs do help people not fall into chronic homelessness and all of its pitfalls you will see long term results, but not necessarily short term ones. Things like this that are harder to measure are also harder to justify.
What has essentially happened is that when there is not a mechanism though social services to deal with a social issue it falls on law enforcement which is what has happened in Idaho and other states with very high incarceration rates...like pretty much the entire southern US.
You have generally cheap and available housing in these states so there isn't the same cost of living induced homelessness rates, but for the antisocial and addicted people there is something...jail/prison. So you have very low homelessness rates, yet way higher crime rates particularly violent crime and the same amount of drug use/mental illness.
In fact so society in the modern world has ever figured out how to deal with people at the margins. In the US in the recent past it was institutionalization, in some areas it still is. California decided jails/prisons were not the best way of doing things but provided no alternative.
41
u/Beautiful_Finger4566 1d ago
I live 5 blocks from my son's daycare. I can't even walk to daycare without passing by two encampment.
My daycare actually had to change their pickup hours to an earlier time because the teachers were getting harassed by the homeless after dark
94
u/NativeMasshole Maximum Malarkey 1d ago
Agreed. Trying to act like there isn't a safety concern to homeless encampments is either out of touch or disingenuous. The health aspect is especially ridiculous coming from a municipal official who I'm sure would take the exact opposite stance if this were a home or business in their jurisdiction without proper plumbing or waste disposal.
32
u/notapersonaltrainer 1d ago edited 1d ago
The health aspect is especially ridiculous coming from a municipal official
Flea-borne typhus (a bacterial disease once associated with 19th-century or medieval unsanitary conditions), hepatitis, and tuberculosis are making comebacks.
The kids don't even need to play Oregon Trail anymore, they can step outside and experience the real thing.
At least we're not putting homeless migrants directly inside the schools anymore. That's "progress."
-2
1d ago
[deleted]
32
u/Equivalent-Battle973 1d ago
She isn't. It's an out of context quote from two years ago about legislation that would have just moved the encampments a block away at most
Im sorry, but it 100% should be MOVED away from a damn school.. Absolutely no reason for them to be that near schools..
39
u/RunThenBeer 1d ago
Moving an encampment a block away from a school obviously improves the quality of life at the school in a noticeable fashion.
30
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 1d ago
If you don't live around it, you don't understand how bad it is and how long it's been that way.
IME from my time in a different city that also had this problem really bad it's not even this, it's that to a lot of people on the left this is actually just acceptable to deal with. They simply have very different standards for public behavior than the rest of the population.
25
u/RunThenBeer 1d ago
Some people even seem to take a sort of perverse pride in it, as though it's a demonstration of toughness to feign indifference to trash strewn across your city park.
21
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 1d ago
Oh yeah, I saw that all the time. Any complaints about public disorder, lack of safety, filth, etc. were just met with insults and accusations of cowardice and weakness. And that immediately shuts down any chance of productive dialogue.
19
u/RunThenBeer 1d ago
Yeah, I'm apparently a callous jerk because I don't want to guide my dog around the broken glass in the park.
-5
u/nycbetches 1d ago
I mean speaking as a city dweller, I think people are just willing to accept the trade offs. I live in NYC now, but I grew up in a rural area. Thereâs definitely more trash in NYC than where I grew up, but I barely even notice it anymore because Iâm used to it and because I love living here for all the other benefits it provides. Iâm focused more on the positives than the negatives.
My rural hometown didnât have as much trash around, but it stunk to high heaven every spring when the farmers would start their fertilizing đ itâs sort of like, pick your grossness, lol.
19
u/RunThenBeer 1d ago
Cities don't have to be dirty; New York has just decided to accept being dirty. If you visit Tokyo, you'll find that it's every bit as dense and lively as NYC, but almost spotlessly clean by comparison.
-2
u/nycbetches 1d ago
Iâve been to Tokyo but I think there are some differences between Japanese people and American people (to put it mildly) that account for the cleanliness level.
Have you been to an American city that is as clean as Tokyo?
17
u/RunThenBeer 23h ago
No, but I've been to a lot of American cities that are cleaner than New York. Some that are dirtier too, to call out Philly in particular.
-4
u/nycbetches 23h ago
Sure, the cleaner ones are probably ones where a lot of people drive rather than walk. People are more likely to litter if theyâre walking instead of driving, and most people in NYC donât drive. But going back to my original point, thatâs the trade off. You want to be in a walkable city in America, you have to accept some level of trash. The people who donât like the trash and donât value everything else NYC has to offer that much move somewhere else.Â
53
u/carneylansford 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is why Ramanâs â10 or 500 feetâ comment struck such a nerve. It demonstrates how out of touch some politicians are with the very real concerns of every day citizens who just want to walk their kid to school without wading through a homeless encampment, and all that entails.
It reminds me of Bidenâs decision to charge Harris with studying the âroot causes of migrationâ in the middle of a border crisis (spoiler alert: itâs poverty and, at times, safety). If my house is on fire, Iâd rather the fire department prioritize putting out the fire before they start looking for the cause of the fire or how to prevent future fires. Thatâs the alligator closest to the boat.
19
u/ham_plane 23h ago
I thought this quite form the article was pretty revealing
Raman, in an appearance on the âAdam Conover Podcast,â said the encampment stunt in front of her house impacted her family.
âI have two little kids. They didnât see it, luckily, this morning,â she said.
12
u/awaythrowawaying 1d ago
It reminds me of Bidenâs decision to charge Harris with studying the âroot causes of migrationâ in the middle of a border crisis (spoiler alert: itâs poverty and, at times, safety).
The intersection between migration and homelessness touches upon multiple hot button topics in American politics. Research has shown that up to 60% of the increase homelessness is due to new migrants into the United States who are seeking asylum of shelter. Illegal immigration tends to involve individuals who are poor and have few resources, as opposed to legal (non-asylum related) immigrants who typically come to the country because they already have skills and wish to earn more money to establish more opportunity with these skills. Donald Trump repeatedly accused Democrats of neglecting the border, which in his opinion led to spikes in crime in America's major cities. Illegal immigration probably does worsen the homelessness problem, and that can spiral into related challenges like drug use and crime. In this way, Trump makes a salient point. Would a sustained policy of stricter border enforcement help with not just illegal immigration but also the homelessness problem in cities like L.A.?
10
60
u/airforceCOT 1d ago edited 1d ago
Itâs not just an LA thing. I work frequently in Portland and the area just north of the Benson Hotel (Chinatown, etc) is unlivable. Dozens to hundreds of homeless tents take over sidewalks. You literally just walk in the middle of the street downtown if youâre trying to get anywhere on foot. The smell of piss is dizzying. People who parallel park in the evenings are instructed to just leave their cars unlocked and take out all valuables - the homeless guys are gonna get in anyway, so itâs better if they donât have to smash your window. Theyâll just rummage around your car, maybe take a short nap in the back seat, and leave.
The same progressives who are subjected to this daily are the ones who yell about no kings and authoritarianism when Trump tried to send in the National Guard to clean up the place. Itâs very odd. I guess they prefer dudes shitting on their windshields.
57
u/cbusmatty 1d ago
How is this remotely acceptable in a civilized society?
32
u/Sideswipe0009 1d ago
Because the types who brag of their vast amounts of empathy don't understand that there's often two parties to empathize with. They simply choose the more oppressed/down trodden one to empathize with and insult anyone who disagrees.
61
u/azurite-- 1d ago
Because more left leaning people think that prosecuting low level crimes does nothing to end the cycle because they'll get out and just do it again.Â
I'm left leaning and I do not agree with this personally. It's not a surprise that after the criminal justice reforms in 2019/2020 that property crime skyrocketedÂ
-17
u/decrpt 1d ago
It did not skyrocket. Certain kinds of crime have increased, but that's more due to ambient conditions than any sort of criminal justice reforms. Certain vulnerabilities made stealing cars really easy and lucrative.
9
u/InTheEndEntropyWins 1d ago
The crimes where they increased punishment decreased more than other crimes. So it does seem like lack of punishment for lower level crimes more common.
We test the model using Californiaâs Proposition 8 which imposed sentence enhancements for a selected group of crimes. In the year following its passage, crimes covered by Proposition 8 fell by more than 10 percent relative to similar crimes not affected by the law, suggesting a large deterrent effect. Three years after the law comes into effect, eligible crimes have fallen roughly 20â40 percent compared to non-eligible crimes. This large deterrent effect suggests that sentence enhancements, and âthree-strikesâ laws in particular, may be more cost-effective than is generally thought. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w6484/w6484.pdf
→ More replies (5)22
u/chillinwithmoes 1d ago
Because somehow along the road of ârespect all lifestylesâ (good) we crossed over into âeven if they actively harm their communityâ (bad)
17
u/CraftZ49 1d ago
Somehow it's empathetic to let these people suffer on the streets and let their behavior victimize all of the public rather than involuntarily commit them to facilities.
14
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 1d ago
Because somehow along the road of ârespect all lifestylesâ (good) we crossed over into âeven if they actively harm their communityâ (bad)
That crossover is because those two things are one and the same. "Tolerate everything" does not have any exclusions. Never did. It turns out all those "slippery slope fallacy" arguments from way back when this stuff was first starting were actually 100% correct. Because what the left redefined as "slippery slope fallacy" was actually just basic predictive logic, a type of actual formal logic.
→ More replies (2)-6
u/ThatPeskyPangolin 23h ago
But we know this isn't true because the people espousing that didn't remove laws preventing many illegal behaviors. It's also being said of the group most known for "cancel culture".
21
u/CraftZ49 1d ago
It's not, but the liberals who live in these cities have convinced themselves to lower their quality of life standards in an effort to normalize this in their heads rather than give off the appearance of being mean.
14
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 1d ago
It's not.
The hard truth is that left-wing ideology is not the ideology of a civilized society. It is in fact extremely anti-civilized. It may be cloaked in fake empathy and sympathy but in actuality it is antisocial through and through.
-6
u/ThatPeskyPangolin 23h ago
This is simply not a legitimate sentiment at all. Declaring that one of the primary ideologucal groupings of the developed west is "anti-civilized" is pretty obviously false.
Declaring it anti social, while many of the ideologies are more communal compared to right wing ideologies that stress individuality, makes even less sense.
12
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 23h ago
Declaring that one of the primary ideologucal groupings of the developed west is "anti-civilized" is pretty obviously false.
Defend your thesis. You say it's "obviously false" and yet there is example after example of issue after issue where the left takes the side of antisocial and outright harmful behavior and attitudes. With the issue that is the subject of this post being one of the many glaring examples.
while many of the ideologies are more communal
No they aren't. Communal requires community and community requires prosocial behavior. They may be more collectivist, but they aren't more communal.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)32
u/ComfortableLong8231 1d ago edited 1d ago
Same thing in LA You learn just to keep your car unlocked. At one point â our cars were being broken into monthly. And we live
in a decent neighborhood.1
u/absentlyric Economically Left Socially Right 7h ago
There's plenty of people that don't live around it that also consider it a problem as well, they aren't the issue.
The issue is the people who are pretending its not a problem.
→ More replies (18)-16
u/thegapbetweenus 1d ago
There is rather functioning approach of housing first.
20
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 1d ago
Except no there isn't because most of the ones in the camps are there because they are unable to maintain a household. If they were they wouldn't have ended up on the streets in the first place.
The ones who are helped by housing first approaches are not the ones in the camps. And they are irrelevant to any discussion centered around the camps.
→ More replies (4)26
u/SnarkMasterRay 1d ago
Are we talking the "just get them housed first without rules so that they destroy the place and make it toxic making drugs so you have to shut it down and keep buying and renovating places" housing or the "set it up with rules to keep people safe but then no one wants to use it because they want to live without rules" housing?
We've tried both in Seattle and neither works great, but proponents keep wanting more money for option #1.
→ More replies (10)21
u/IronMaiden571 1d ago
We cant even build enough houses for people who want to pay for them.
The biggest issue with this model is that you can't just take a drug addict or mentally unwell person, put a roof over their head, and then expect them to start getting their life together. What happens when they trash it? When some turn it into a drug den and make it unsafe for all the other residents? Who is responsible for maintaining it? What are the consequences for people who wreck the place? What happens when you put a mix of mentally ill, drug addicts, people with low skills/low employability and put them in an environment of perpetually subsidized housing with little oversight and accountability?
→ More replies (4)3
66
u/azurite-- 1d ago
I was in NYC last week and it was really bad there. From online, local and state discourse it seems to be approaching a breaking point. People are tired of the issues that a lot of the mentally ill homeless population brings.
My parents have a business and nearby there is a group of homeless that constantly breaks into cars and does fent and crack.
Why do we put up with this as a society?
19
u/Wonderful_Cookie_572 22h ago
Why do we put up with this as a society?
Because we have been gaslit into thinking enablement and empathy are synonyms. We're told that any solution or idea that isn't enabling the bad behavior is cruel and inhumane, and since we're told this by supposedly-reputable institutions we believed it.
Fortunately those institutions are being treated as less and less credible and so their false claims are becoming less and less accepted. Hopefully soon we'll throw them out altogether.
33
u/Anxiousah23 1d ago
California, NYC, Washington, Oregon all these places voted for this. I am a big fan of people living with the consequences of their actions and votes
13
u/airforceCOT 1d ago
This. A course correction will be coming soon. The fact that a Republican is within striking distance of winning the mayor's seat in L.A. of all places is a stunning indictment of how Democrats have lost goodwill among their constituents.
16
u/reputationStan 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is any poll showing Pratt within "striking distance" of winning the mayor's seat in LA? Winning 30% of the vote in a 3 way race is not striking distance.
I'm not aware of any poll of Pratt being in striking distance in a 2 person preferred poll. Do you?
16
u/nycbetches 1d ago
Define âreally bad.â I live in NYC and while I do see at least one homeless person every day (usually), I donât see tent cities, people openly doing drugs, using the sidewalks as bathrooms, etc. Probably 95% of the homeless people I see are sitting and/or begging quietly. The other 5% can be loud, but I havenât seen any become violent. Â
I have been to LA and SF and the ratio of ânormal homelessâ to âscary homelessâ seems quite different there.
7
u/DartTheDragoon 23h ago
I think many people don't have real experience with how bad a homeless problem can be.
2 cities ago, when I first moved to town all my coworkers warned me about how bad the homeless population was in their town. It was 1 guy. His name was Dan and he was a Vietnam war vet who lost his legs. He didn't bother anyone. Just begged for cash on the side of the road and slept out of the way in his wheelchair.
1 city ago, I would pass by first responders working on the homeless on my way to work and on my way back every day. I had to walk around needles discarded on the ground to get to the grocery store. Car and home break-ins were common, and assaults were uncommon, which is still to often. I've been around the country enough to know that city wasn't even that bad, and it can get a whole lot worse.
1
u/absentlyric Economically Left Socially Right 6h ago
We do realize it even here in the Midwest, but we are told countless times by Reddit and left media that its actually not a problem and that alt right media is only focusing on the very very small bad parts and its propaganda.
3
u/ModerateCommenter 1d ago
What solution do you propose?
27
u/rigatony96 1d ago
Mandatory rehab for the drug addicts, institutionalization and treatment for the ones with severe mental health issues
-1
u/jabberwockxeno 21h ago
How would you distinguish between these people and the people who are homeless from falling on hard times or who have less severe mental health issues?
This kind of response implies that you'd be pushing for homeless people to be rounded up and sent to asylums or prisons.
How is that going to effectively make a distinction and lead to different treatment between those groups? My assumption would be that it would just lead to all homeless people getting arrested or sent to asylums, even the ones you're implying shouldn't be sent here.
For reference, I would be homeless right now (and likely will be in the future) if not for the fact that I got very lucky with my grandparents managing the townhouse me and my immediate family lives in, so we don't have many expenses with rent/mortgages, utilities etc which they mostly pay. When (not if) they die, though, me and my family will almost certainly be homeless. None of us do drugs, but we do have various disabilities.
3
u/absentlyric Economically Left Socially Right 6h ago
Work history, criminal records, health records. Its pretty easy to tell someone from those if they just got laid off from their factory, or if its something else.
6
u/rigatony96 21h ago
We distinguish them by there being actual shelters and programs in place meant to help people exactly you described.
26
12
u/Envious_Time 1d ago
Jail
-10
u/ChesterHiggenbothum 1d ago
For the crime of existing in public?
25
u/Envious_Time 1d ago
For the crime of committing crime
-1
u/ChesterHiggenbothum 1d ago
Which crimes?
24
u/Envious_Time 1d ago
Theft. Drug use. Public indecency. Disturbing the peace. Take your pick
-1
u/ChesterHiggenbothum 1d ago
Do you think every homeless is stealing and doing drugs?
What of the homeless who are simply living outdoors because they cannot afford housing?
23
u/Wkyred 1d ago
Yes. Actually go to the encampments if you donât believe what everyone else has already seen with their own eyes.
0
u/ChesterHiggenbothum 1d ago
I live in NYC.
Which encampment would you like me to visit exactly?
Because, during my daily routine, I see a few dozen homeless people simply sheltering on the street. Or larger groups of individuals receiving food from a nearby church or from the Bowery mission.
18
u/Envious_Time 1d ago
Brother we donât care anymore
0
u/ChesterHiggenbothum 1d ago
And that lack of empathy is why the right can't come up with any solution other than hurting people.
→ More replies (0)2
u/ChesterHiggenbothum 1d ago
I live in NYC and it's no worse now than it was twenty years ago.
From what I've seen, the ones complaining the most about the homeless in NYC are people who don't live in NYC.
5
u/_Handsome_Jim_ 18h ago
I live on Long Island now but spent the majority of my adult life in Manhattan and what you're saying is just objectively false. The homeless population is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago.
→ More replies (4)
140
u/thisisntmineIfoundit 1d ago
Ballsy of her to invoke her childrenâs safety when sheâs on record saying moving encampments away from schools wonât make a difference.
97
u/justafutz 1d ago
That was definitely the goal of the stunt, and it's kind of incredible how easily she fell into it.
From the article:
Raman faced criticism after she answered a quesion on whether encampment restrictions 500 feet from schools or daycares are a good idea.
âI donât think a kidâs gonna be safer if they are 10 feet or 500 feet away from a school,â she said.
...
The same week, Raman, in an appearance on the âAdam Conover Podcast,â said the encampment stunt in front of her house impacted her family.
20
u/Sarcastic_fringefish 1d ago
These same politicians will be on record next week adamant that they said nothing of the sort, then when confronted with proof with weave some weasel worded bullshite to appease their fanbase.... who will lap it up because of partisan politics and just mention the word "Trump" like a parrot đ¤ŁÂ
11
u/ham_plane 23h ago
âI have two little kids. They didnât see it, luckily, this morning,â she said.
35
u/notapersonaltrainer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ballsy is the big smug eye roll and waving off the parents' boos at a recorded meeting that the text doesn't give full justice.
128
u/spoilerdudegetrekt 1d ago
This reminds me of red states bussing illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities.
"Let's see if they'll deny that it's a problem when it's in their front yard!"
Smart move by Pratt.
66
u/RockHound86 1d ago
Yep. One of the most savvy political moves in recent history.
→ More replies (1)31
u/guitarguy1685 1d ago
Honestly, that seems to be the most underrated political move I've seen in a long time. I don't hear anyone talking about that when they discuss the Dems lossÂ
→ More replies (4)-73
u/reddpapad 1d ago
Itâs disingenuous. The only reason he entered the race is because HE lost his house and has tried everything under the sun in an attempt to make a living - this is just the latest.
60
98
u/Haunting-Detail2025 1d ago
Iâm a little confused by the framing of this statement. Are we supposed to sneer at him because he lost his house in a fire and is upset about it, especially after LA received pretty widespread criticism for how it handled the fires and aftermath?
→ More replies (7)31
u/thisisntmineIfoundit 1d ago
Pratt opponents are trying to paint him as a grifter when blatant homeless industrial complex grift is STARING THEM IN THE FACE and Spencer has done a lot of work to bring it to light!!
It is beyond hypocritical.
→ More replies (26)49
u/spoilerdudegetrekt 1d ago
Disingenuous or not, it generated a lot of publicity and highlighted her hypocrisy about encampments being 10 feet away from schools being safe for kids.
→ More replies (1)
23
u/Phssthp0kThePak 1d ago
She could have turned the tables if she had just gone down and talked to the homeless people. Instead she hid. That doesn't show leadership.
62
u/realdeal505 1d ago
Pratt isn't going to win, but I do think he is right on the homeless problem being more of a drug problem and that the current status quo of where the funding for homeless is going is misallocated (and honestly kind of a racket).
In the early mid 2010s you had a massive decrimilization movement, which I don't disagree with the premise (legalize some things, like weed, and that you shouldn't have a felony/ruin your life over a drug conviction). The problem is, the bulk of the people who are on the street aren't clean or just recreational users. They can't function. A lot of the countries that decrimilized, also have intervention if you are a danger to yourself/others.
18
u/stikves 1d ago
I'm not in LA, but observing the situation....
At this point I'm not sure about Pratt, but *anyone* would be better than the current incumbents, or those who are active in this city government. They don't even acknowledge there is a problem.
It is not only LA of course, nearby towns are also entangled in this. I looked at my older photos from the Hollywood Boulevard, and the recent pictures on the news.... It is really disheartening to see all the regression. The area is basically 3rd world right now.
LA will have to make a choice. Either continue the downward spiral, or a complete reset with a fresh set of faces.
2
u/wannabemalenurse Democrat- Slight left of Center 1d ago
The core problem is primarily economic. Affluent Angelenos will complain that their tax dollars shouldnât be spent on people suffering from mental illness. And theyâre not entirely wrong that the costs are staggering; transitioning people into stable housing and connecting them to sustained treatment requires enormous, consistent funding that nobody has fully committed to. Who will fund it?
That being said, the homelessness crisis canât be allowed to keep growing, both for humanitarian reasons and because the economic cost of inaction keeps compounding. We Angelenos should be having an honest conversation about what the actual end goal is. Is it permanent supportive housing with wraparound services? Mandatory treatment for those who canât make decisions for themselves? Some combination? How will housing be built and generated when working class and middle class people also struggle with finding affordable housing. The whole âget them off the streetsâ retort without answering those questions just moves the problem around.
The solution will be expensive, politically uncomfortable, and wonât look clean. The question is whether Angelenos are willing to fund what actually works rather than whatâs cheapest in the short term
36
u/thisisntmineIfoundit 1d ago
Youâre sayingâŚLA and CA have not spent enough money? That canât possibly be what youâre saying.
6
u/realdeal505 8h ago
Ca/LA is spending billions every year on a homeless problem. Funding isnât the problem, itâs the one size diagnosis (not just a homeless problem).
9
1d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
4
u/Gnagus 1d ago
The other problem with fixing this issue that people tend not to talk about is that it's much harder to solve just at the municipal or even county level. It would likely require going to the state and possibly Federal level. It's very possible that you'll never get that kind of cooperation in our system you too ideological disagreements on the one hand and the periodic homeless epidemics being politically useful to a number of politicians.
0
u/ModPolBot Imminently Sentient 1d ago
This message serves as a warning that your comment is in violation of Law 3:
Law 3: No Violent Content
~3. No Violent Content - Do not post content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people. Certain types of content that are worthy of discussion (e.g. educational, newsworthy, artistic, satire, documentary, etc.) may be exempt. Ensure you provide context to the viewer so the reason for posting is clear.
Due to your recent infraction history and/or the severity of this infraction, we are also issuing a 30 day ban.
Please submit questions or comments via modmail.
4
13
u/ViskerRatio 22h ago
There are actually two problems here: homelessness and drug addiction. These are not the same problem.
If you think you're bothered by those drug addicts, consider how it is for actual homeless people.
After all, you can go home and lock your door to keep out the chaos. Homeless people can't. Everywhere homeless people go, they're not being treated like people who are just down on their luck. They're being treated like drug addicts.
The reason that Starbucks bathroom is locked? It's not because of homeless people. No one at that Starbucks cares if some homeless person refills their water or uses the bathroom like anyone else - even if they're not technically a customer. They care very much if a drug addict is using that bathroom as a shooting gallery and fouling it in the process.
Services aimed at helping homeless people get flooded with drug addicts - and eventually become useless to actual homeless people. That "homeless" shelter near you? It doesn't have many - if any - homeless people. It just has drug addicts because the drug addicts have made it unlivable for homeless people. Homeless people would literally prefer to go camp out in the rain in the woods and wash up in the public library sink than take the risk of spending a night in a homeless shelter.
Talk to any social worker who deals with "homelessness" and you'll get an earful that more or less boils down to "you can't help these people" frustration because most of their job isn't dealing with homeless people. It's dealing with drug addicts. All of the time they could spend and resources they have are thrown away on drug addicts instead of helping homeless people.
Solving homelessness is actually pretty easy. Ever hear the song YMCA? It's not just a peppy dance number. It's describing a real thing that used to exist in this country. You could go down to the local YMCA and rent a prison cell-style room with little more than a cot and a sink. Kitchen and communal shower down the hall. The minimal amenities meant it was cheap enough that you could afford a place to store your stuff and keep out of the weather even in a place like New York City on a busboy's part-time salary while you figured out how to build/rebuild your life.
These places still exist in other countries. Why don't they exist in the U.S.? Simple: drug addicts. The addicts started using these sorts of places and pretty soon they weren't much good for the people who could use them responsibly.
So if you're actually concerned about homeless people, you don't need to build multi-million dollar graft factories. You need to arrest the drug addicts. Set up a parallel system where you don't direct them to ordinary prisons but secure installations aimed at dealing with their problems. You don't even need to wage a "War on Drugs" with law enforcement. The ordinary operations of law enforcement will eventually round them up.
Once the addicts are out of the way, suddenly the homeless problem becomes more about tweaking municipal land use policies than anything else. It becomes cheap and easy. You no longer need to funnel billions of dollars to NGOs designed to raid the public coffers rather than help anyone.
For far too long, our policies have been guided by an ignorant form of empathy where people view the folks on the streets as just being unjustly punished by society rather than actual human beings with problems specific to that individual. This has led to a system that doesn't care about solving those problems but perpetuating those problems.
6
u/cokeguythrowaway 14h ago
This reminds of the UK when Farage said he'd move migrant shelters to areas that vote for pro-immigration parties. All the "hate has no home here" types complained that would be a punishment.
43
u/awaythrowawaying 1d ago edited 1d ago
Starter comment: The Los Angeles Mayorâs race has been attracting large amounts of public and political attention in recent months as conservative-aligned media personality Spencer Pratt has unexpectedly disrupted what was expected to be a safe race for Democrats. Prattâs campaign as focused on what he characterizes as the cityâs lackluster response to a growing homeless problem that hurts the economy and puts LA residents in danger. Los Angeles has experienced a rise in tent cities, and in fact some of them even have names and are considered de facto towns within themselves (ie. Skid Row) Far left progressive Nitya Raman made comments during a recent mayorâs debate that further inflamed the issue. When asked whether she would support restricting homeless encampments from within 500 feet of daycares or schools, she responded:
âI donât think a kidâs gonna be safer if they are 10 feet or 500 feet away from a school.â
In response, a group of activists cheered on by Pratt set up a fake homeless encampment outside Ramanâs house - complete with fires, trash, and tents. In a follow up interview, Raman blasted them for forcing her family to be exposed to unsafe conditions without their consent:
âI have two little kids. They didnât see it, luckily, this morning. I feel bad that Iâm even subjecting them to that at all. But definitely, this has gone far beyond what I expected this campaign to be about.â
Is homelessness a significant political problem in L.A. as Pratt and other conservatives have alleged? If so, does the dominant Democratic Party have responsibility for creating it or failing to address it? What public policy solutions would help? More specifically to the subject brought up in this article, is protecting childrenâs spaces from homeless camps a good policy or does it unfairly discriminate against innocent unhoused Americans?
103
u/Haunting-Detail2025 1d ago
>is homelessness a significant political problem as conservatives have alleged
Is this really just a conservative allegation? Iâm pretty sure Raman and Bass and frankly nearly every politician in the city has described it as a major issue, even if the two parties and various candidates donât perfectly align on how to resolve it.
50
u/carneylansford 1d ago
LA has tens of thousands of homeless people in the streets. The largest encampments have thousands of members living under freeways and taking up entire city blocks. They include tents, makeshift structures and even the odd RV. Is there someone who doesnât think this is a problem? The framing of the question here is a bit bewildering.
11
-6
u/ModerateCommenter 1d ago
Itâs really not hard to understand why a city like LA that you can live outdoors year round has a large number of homeless people in encampments.
17
u/carneylansford 1d ago edited 1d ago
It is not. What IS hard to understand is why the local government chooses to selectively enforce (or not enforce at all) laws like "no overnight camping" and "no panhandling" and "no defecating in the street".
→ More replies (1)25
u/justafutz 1d ago
I think the main distinction is that because Bass and Raman are in power, both have also attempted to claim they've made major progress against it, thereby downplaying the significance of the political problem implicitly if not explicitly. For example, during the debates, Karen Bass said:
"Homelessness was going up year after year, and under my watch, it is the first time we've had a decrease in street homelessness...While it went up in the country, 18%, it came down in Los Angeles, 17.5%. I have expedited the building of housing because our number one issue in this city is affordability."
There are a lot of reasons to believe that number is incorrect. For example, the Rand Corporation (a nonprofit, non-partisan think-tank) found, looking at three neighborhoods (Hollywood, Skid Row, Venice, the epicenters of homelessness):
1) "[T]he combined unsheltered population was statistically unchanged between December 2024 and January 2026..."
2) "[B]ut the composition of the population shifted substantially: rough sleepingâsleeping without a tent, vehicle or other shelterârose by 20%, reaching its highest level in four years of monitoring."
Rand also found that LA's successes against homelessness are marred by undercounting. Rand's study used professional counters and internal checks, which LA does not (it relies on volunteers), and it found that LA's undercounting has become a huge problem from 2022-on.
Although the PIT was within 5 percent of LA LEADS in 2022â2023, this strong agreement eroded sharply in 2024, when a 26 percent PIT shortfall emerged. That gap widened to 32 percent in 2025.
When LA might be undercounting the homelessness problem by 32%, and that undercount is increasing, it makes the numbers unreliable. So while Bass may say it's a big problem, it is notable that she touts success based on numbers that appear very, very flawed, which implicitly downplays the significance of the problem. I think that's what OP is getting at.
34
u/airforceCOT 1d ago edited 1d ago
I donât think most people take it seriously when Democrats state they think homelessness is a big problem yet have done nothing to solve or even decrease it despite 25+ years of total control of these cities' governments.
3
u/More-Ad-5003 1d ago
The issue is that while âDemocratsâ have indeed controlled LA City government, they are not an ideological monolith, ESPECIALLY on homelessness. Many council members move to block new housing development, density increases, and the implementation of SB79. Raman has at least identified that we have a much larger unsheltered homeless population compared to other major cities because our shelter capacity is so abysmal. In comparison, NYC has far far less people sleeping on the streets at night, so less need for encampments.
TLDR; âDemocratsâ in LA government donât all agree on a whole lot, and it feels similar to having multiple parties to me, an LA City resident.
→ More replies (1)-11
u/J-Jarl-Jim 1d ago
Homelessness has dropped in LA for the past two years. In fact, by raw numbers, California has led the country in getting people off the streets.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/31/california-homelessness-hud-data
A lot of people's perceptions about California are stuck in 2020. We should applaud progress here.
11
u/azurite-- 1d ago
That is good but the reality is that I'd bet the majority of those people are not the visible problematic homeless population that people have issues with.Â
15
u/Beautiful_Finger4566 1d ago
if you know anything about LA, then you'd know that LAHSA numbers are not to be trusted
I trust my own eyes over an NGO whose sole existence hinges on them showing numbers improving
If I walk to the west, I hit an encampment in two blocks. If I walk to the east, I hit an encampment in one block. If I walk to the north, I hit an encampment in two blocks. If I walk to the south, I hit an encampment in three blocks.
I literally cannot avoid the homeless. Things are worse, not better.
→ More replies (5)21
u/OpneFall 1d ago
I don't think slight improvements over the last two years of a 25+ year span are an accomplishment worth bragging about yet.
0
u/capitolsara 1d ago
Yes by all means let's let perfect be the enemy of good
9
u/Geekerino Undo the duopoly, vote third-party! 1d ago
I learned to play a single song on the piano after 25 years of practice. I guess that means I should keep paying for $200 weekly lessons until I become a modern-day Beethoven. At this rate, it'll happen after I'm dead. But by your logic, being disappointed with my progress means I'm trying for perfection?
-7
u/J-Jarl-Jim 1d ago
I never said it was worth bragging about nor should they take a victory lap. There is still a lot of work to do.
I am just correcting the claim that LA leadership has "done nothing to solve or decrease it."
20
u/carneylansford 1d ago
Is âMade a series of decisions that exacerbated the problem but then changed course (to minimal effect) after it became politically impossible to do anything elseâ better?
-4
u/J-Jarl-Jim 1d ago
Look, I applaud Mississippi for reversing their poor literacy rates with the "Mississippi miracle," even though they still rank 48th on overall education. I'm not gonna shit on them for that.
Any progress is good because these are our fellow Americans.
15
u/JussiesTunaSub 1d ago
I applaud Mississippi for reversing their poor literacy rates with the "Mississippi miracle," even though they still rank 48th on overall education
From your source:
Despite the stateâs overall ranking of 48th, we are extremely encouraged that Mississippi now ranks 16th in education.
They are 16th in education now. Compared to 24th for California.
-7
→ More replies (1)-3
u/cigarette-wizard 1d ago
From your source:
New Hampshire is 16th in education
Just because education/state officials in Mississippi are "extremely encouraged" about how they think their state ranks, it doesn't really seem to translate into actual studies/rankings.
14
u/More-Ad-5003 1d ago
Yeah lol this is a bit goofy. Much of her campaign is structured around the issue. Everyone in LA is acutely aware there is a homeless problem, and in my opinion, Raman has done a great job explaining the issue. I also fail to see how Raman is âfar leftâ in this race. I think that title should go to Rae Huang.
25
u/Ok_Tip740 1d ago
Raman is in favor of rent control and that's pretty universally considered a bad policy
→ More replies (9)34
u/BackupChallenger 1d ago
âI donât think a kidâs gonna be safer if they are 10 feet or 500 feet away from a school.â
The further away the better. But if she intended to say that 500 isn't enough then I'd agree. I have a feeling that wasn't what she meant however.
-1
1d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
1
u/ModPolBot Imminently Sentient 1d ago
This message serves as a warning that your comment is in violation of Law 0:
Law 0. Low Effort
~0. Law of Low Effort - Content that is low-effort or does not contribute to civil discussion in any meaningful way will be removed.
Please submit questions or comments via modmail.
52
u/556or762 Progressively Left Behind 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is homelessness a significant political problem in L.A. as Pratt and other conservatives have alleged?
Homelessness is a huge problem all across California and the west coast, but it is especially bad in the city centers. This isn't an "alleged" or political thing. You can see the tent cities from interstate 5 in every major population center from San Diego to Stockton.
If so, does the dominant Democratic Party have responsibility for creating it or failing to address it?
The Democrats have been in total control of California since Schwarzenegger. Even before that they have had a majority in every level of government. They have been in power in LA since 2001 and for 60 of the last 70 years.
Yes, the democratic party 100% owns the responsibility for creating, failing to address it, and the billions of tax dollars thrown down the drain while somehow homelessness became an industry for dollars to get siphoned out of.
What public policy solutions would help?
Lots of them, but you would have to start with being really really honest about what is going on.
More specifically to the subject brought up in this article, is protecting childrenâs spaces from homeless camps a good policy or does it unfairly discriminate against innocent unhoused Americans?
Anyone who has ever seen what a homeless camp looks like would never ask this question. It it something that a limousine liberal or champaign socialist would say without a hint of understanding or irony.
These are not just "innocent unhoused Americans." First off, almost all of them are in violation of a dozen or so laws at any given time, but regardless of that, These are dangerous and drug addicted men. Most have mental health problems. They have actual major communicable disease issues.
People think this is some poor single mother on the street. It isn't. It is a grown man wearing rags, covered in sores, passing out on the side of the road with shit on his pants, a needle in his arm and his dick hanging out.
This type of ridiculous out of touch talk like Raman is saying is either she truly is so privileged she believes the nonsense about the clean down on their luck tent dweller who's just a victim of an evil system.
Or more likely, she has been caught in a scenario where she would have to commit the severe crime of admitting that the left wing/progressive/democrat policy they are all torch carrying for is just a way to channel money from tax coffers to pet projects and special "nonprofits."
Homeless camps are disgusting. You can smell them from hundreds of yards away. They are covered in trash and feces.
They biohazards in every sense of the word, and filled with varying degrees of insane men who have nothing to lose except the freedom to do meth and fent without interference.
This is one of the performative over the top stunts that I approve of.
15
5
1d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
1
u/ModPolBot Imminently Sentient 22h ago
This message serves as a warning that your comment is in violation of Law 0:
Law 0. Low Effort
~0. Law of Low Effort - Content that is low-effort or does not contribute to civil discussion in any meaningful way will be removed.
Please submit questions or comments via modmail.
→ More replies (1)5
u/lostroadrunner22 1d ago
These fake videos pop up quite frequently in all honestly. They are comical if you watch em. Homeless people donât wear brand new Nikes or grill from brand new Weber grills with charcoal and steaks. Always a giveaway when they look like they just left a spa.
16
u/DarkRogus 1d ago
When youre running neck and neck with Spencer Pratt, that tells me there are nothing but terrible options for Mayor of LA.
→ More replies (2)
5
u/Ok-Wait-8465 1d ago
Confusingly I just saw a Spencer Pratt sign in Austin the other day. He does have a good logo though idrk anything about him
14
u/MUjase 1d ago
Heâs getting a ton of national attention and support from people in other regions who are âfed upâ with the homelessness issue.
Or as Pratt would put it, the street drug addict issue.
9
u/the_squeeky_chicken 22h ago
thats actualy a useful distinction to make,
every time "homelessness" is brought up many are quick to point out how so many homeless are actually good people and shouldnt be lumped in with addicts, mentaly ill, criminals
at this point you have somone actively not lumping in all other homeless with the detrimental kinds and youre critisizing it
virtue signalers and holier than thou empathy preachers actively make it more dificult to address these "root causes" they always bring up
because the root cause for a criminal fent zombie , is wildly diferent from the down on their luck citizen
those that do not want to live like a citizen should be seperated from the society they are a detriment to
those that are in need, want and try for themselves should be helped
this isnt and has never been the unsolvable, impossibly complicated issue its portrayed as, but any meaningful productive talk or action requires separating those who do not give a fuck from those that do
5
u/Ruffles98 1d ago
âI donât think a kidâs gonna be safer if they are 10 feet or 500 feet away from a school,â she said.
She later clarified that she is focused on building a citywide response to homelessness and is less interested in moving encampments from one place to another.
She has a good point but she fell for a political stunt. This proposed law just shuffles homeless people around the city without actually solving the issue.
It feels like LA has given up on actually solving the issue and would rather push them out is sight. It's unfortunate she failed to articulate her point.
4
1
-8
u/Carameldelighting 1d ago
I am admittedly not very well versed on the issue. Has the impact of (mostly) red southern states bussing/delivering their homeless to the bigger sanctuary cities been accounted for?
I would have to assume dropping tens to hundreds of people off daily/weekly/monthly in a place where they have no connections and no money would only make the problems worse.
24
27
u/azurite-- 1d ago
The idea of the red states bussing homeless to blue states is a half-truth. It's not a one-way pipeline as blue states do it as well. It's also voluntary, red states can't force people onto a bus to go to another city
→ More replies (1)
0
u/guitarguy1685 1d ago
The way I see it there are only solutions.Â
1) Make LA completely inhospitable for the homeless....in beautiful sunny CA. This is obviously the most inhuman option.Â
2) tax your way to build mass amounts of shelters. There seem to be plenty of wealthy individuals in LA.
Honestly If I were homeless I would do all I can to move to LA.
I suppose bringing back involuntary commitment. But only addresses part of the homeless situation.
LA is NEVER going to get out of this mess.
-12
u/persian_mamba 1d ago
I've actually started to see these disgusting "flip flopping Raman" ads that is an uncomfortable AI depiction of her at a beach walking around. It's unbelievably vile and dystopian. Made me ultimately decide to vote for her.
85
u/Sarcastic_fringefish 1d ago
Didn't this woman vote against moving a homeless encampment a minim of 500ft away from a school.... but now she's upset HER kids have to see a fake homeless camp outside? đ
The hypocrisy is staggering lol