13,000 fall into homelessness in LA county EVERY MONTH

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

In Sydney prices are horrific, in my location ,Melbourne (australia's second largest city), you can still rent older style homes for under $400 a week within 30 minutes the city centre link. The high prices of homes in australia is caused by Chinese investment which is starting to cool off. Chinese government is trying to reduce the enormous outflows from their economy.

a reply to: onequestion

Chronic abuse of drugs is somehow bounded to socioeconomic status. If are people poor because they abuse or if they abuse because they are poor thats the question. For sure rich and successful prefer coc aine. Middle class tend to abstain or use "milder" or legal substances like alcohol and prescription drugs. It is in fact hard to tell who is junkie in USA. From my point of view its about 70%.

We have special institutions for people who evidently collapsed after heavy intoxication. Yes, they are escorted by pigs, those institutions are harsh but this system significantly limits deaths by overdose, suffocation, traffic accidents or cold. It is always possible that this fella had just a bad day finished by too much of whatever. Unwilling visit of such facility will cost you some money, but you will at least leave clean and if you want hear you will be advised how to try to solve your problems. Chronic users are for sure unable to pay, still it is cheaper for society in many ways to provide such service. Believe it or not this is not felt as personal rights violation here.
25 years ago was alcoholism officially mental illness, so it was possible to lock person in some sort of "asylum". At least from 70's there were specialized institutions for alcoholics with quite good rate of "cured". This system was successful in part because it was bounded to social rehabilitation. It was quite normal to return to your previous position in company/office after few month of rehab - in fact it was payed medical leave.
Public good often goes against liberal economic folklore.

a reply to: glend

Australian cost of living has been high for some time, the historical data is pretty clear on that. There may be locales where it is not as noticeable but compared to the United States (24th or 25th) it is much higher.

originally posted by: JanAmosComenius
Yes, they are escorted by pigs...

See, I always told people that bacon is the best hangover remedy.

I also live in Santa Ana and the amount of homeless people here is insane. They have been picking up the homeless in Long Beach and dropping them here.

originally posted by: SlapTheGinkels
I also live in Santa Ana and the amount of homeless people here is insane. They have been picking up the homeless in Long Beach and dropping them here.

The courthouse is insane have you ever checked it out? It's like 3 blocks of encampment.

a reply to: onequestion

Its not just LA.. NYC is seeing a serious homelessness problem in numbers not seen since the 80's.

Obama assures us the economy is doing great.
Hang in there, California...HOPE & CHANGE is on it's way real soon.

a reply to: JanAmosComenius

Shame on us. Now we are slaves of nameless "investors".

Sounds like we are in the same boat.

Maybe that is part of the plan. To keep us so busy rowing, trying to stop from drowning, that we don't notice who is controlling the locks on the canals.

Cali has ruinous policies that lead to abnormally high cost of living. Between the enviro lobby and similar factors, the cost of real estate is terrible out there. So you can't afford even modest accommodation easily.

More and more, the entire state is a welfare state supported by its own administrative state with a thin slice of the super rich thrown in.

You have to take Government numbers like that with a grain of salt. I came back home in 1990 when my Father's health went bad. At the time I was working contracts for an aerospace service company. After my father passed away, I decided to stay and help out my family. When I went to the state employment office, I was declared to be a "Homeless Veteran" because I was staying with my Mother.

When my younger sister had her daughter, for the purpose of the Department of Public Welfare, she and her daughter were declared to be homeless even though they lived with me.

The idea behind this is to broaden the definition of homeless, to make a problem appear worse than it actually is, so that the Government Department or Agency can get more funding.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
You have to take Government numbers like that with a grain of salt. I came back home in 1990 when my Father's health went bad. At the time I was working contracts for an aerospace service company. After my father passed away, I decided to stay and help out my family. When I went to the state employment office, I was declared to be a "Homeless Veteran" because I was staying with my Mother.

When my younger sister had her daughter, for the purpose of the Department of Public Welfare, she and her daughter were declared to be homeless even though they lived with me.

The idea behind this is to broaden the definition of homeless, to make a problem appear worse than it actually is, so that the Government Department or Agency can get more funding.

Good point. I actually meant to point this out in my post regarding the math not making sense. Many bureaucracies love to over inflate things by broadening the definition. This is why ask what was meant by defining "homeless" from chronic homeless living on the street. There is a significant difference. Many people find themselves homeless for a variety of reasons as you stated and in many cases it is a temporary condition and the people may not even be in distress.

You see social services groups playing these games with other numbers like inflating the number of people who live in poverty. They will use income numbers, but ignore that many people might actually be wealthy. For example, is an elderly lady making $20k a year poor? What if she owns her own outright with no mortgage and has $300k in the bank? I know an elderly lady that fits this description yet she would be classified as "poor" based on her income.

You also see these games with the minimum wage. They will state number of minimum wage workers but gloss over how many of them actually live in households with other income. I know a couple of minimum wage workers whose spouses making really good money and they are far from being impoverished but that doesn't help the narrative.

I remember visiting LA for business about 10 years ago and meeting an old friend for lunch by the Santa Monica pier.
Homeless people and tents were all over the beach and business area.
I asked my friend what was going on...and he said the homeless people are actually given regular payments by the city...so they gather there from all over.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Well living here I see it constantly, I mean constantly and it's not always the same people either. They are hear in endless droves and there is encampments all over the city. You should see how many people I see living in rvs and out of their cars. I go for long walks at night and catch people sleeping in cars everywhere.

The other problem is the shortage of apartments. A lot of people that lost their jobs and homes are forced into rental units.
In California it's very hard for a land lord to evict a bad tenant. So they are extremely picky about who they rent to.
You need to have very good credit and a have been working at the same place for a while.
Even then when you go to look at an apartment 15 other people are there looking to get into the same place. They also want you to stay a year or more if possible.

I've been homeless in L.A. and I've never done drugs or drink. One job ends and you don't pick up another for a couple of months. Next thing you know your savings are gone. I make a very good living and I can't even come close to buying a house out here. The cost of a former crack house in L.A. will buy a very nice house in another state.

Schadenfreude left coast

Maybe if you weren't subsidizing so many illegals or bankrolling multi million dollar programs so they can have drivers licenses things would be different. But you did and now you shall suffer.

At least you're all vaccinated.

a reply to: mash3d

Yeah it's hard to find decent work out here man. To many people. They just keep flooding in from other parts of the country that are worse.

a reply to: onequestion

Come on over to AZ. Wages are good if you have skills or an education. Housing is cheap. I have a 4br 2ba 2000 sqft home I pay 1100 a month for. My brother rents a 2br 2ba 1200 sqft apartment for $900 and this is all in the city. Hop on any freeway and your 30 to 45 min from anything in the valley. You Californians are always getting ripped off. I can't wait until Cali sinks into the ocean and we get a beach.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

I'm in.

originally posted by: PraetorianAZ
a reply to: onequestion

I have a 4br 2ba 2000 sqft home I pay 1100 a month for. My brother rents a 2br 2ba 1200 sqft apartment for $900 and this is all in the city.

Uggh. That's just not fair. Studios in still gentrifying areas are going for upwards of $1200/mo in LA.