Thread by @barkflight

Hmm. That's interesting, because I live here and that's not what advocates on the ground say.

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1120494901685379072

What's more, three other states and D.C. have more homeless per 100,000 people than California.

statista.com/statistics/727…

And, if you count the number of homeless per 100,000 people in America's largest metro areas, Los Angeles is not No. 1.

seattletimes.com/seattle-news/h…

What is behind our homelessness problem? It isn't simple, but major rent increases are a big component. And court cases have led to the encampment scene we have today.

lafh.org/causes-solutio…

latimes.com/local/lanow/la…

So what are people doing about it?

This campaign by the United Way works with the city of Los Angeles:

everyoneinla.org/about-us/

And @LACANetwork works directly with people experiencing poverty and homelessness.

My neighborhood is a peculiar one but illustrates our problem. Single- and old multi-family rental housing is being torn down in favor of wildly expensive new apartment buildings.

These units can easily run you $4,000 a month. You may have expensive restaurants like Providence one street down from encampments. Tony Hancock Park is close by.

People set up their tents on the sidewalk and stay for a while but deal with cops and city crews regularly. Eventually the sanitation department sweeps them out and confiscates whatever they can't carry. And so they move somewhere else. And it continues.

Owners of one soon-to-be-demolished apartment building put up chainlink fencing and placards that read, "No loitering. Police enforced" while people still lived there. Business owners complain, but little happens.

The city has banned RVs from parking on my street overnight; any space at all is at a premium in L.A. Solutions in general aren't easy. Humanity stares you in the face, and sometimes you see yourself.

Full disclosure: I'm very lucky to have family that helps me out with rent here. There is no way I could afford it being disabled. But the truth is that so many are one bad break away from ending up on the sidewalk. Who can afford to pay 47% of their income toward rent?

To sum up, no, I don't blame "immigrants" for the homelessness crisis here. Republicans love to hate my city and state and insist it would be better served by them; I can't see them forking over the money required to even start.

@threadreaderapp unroll please