13,000 fall into homelessness every month in L.A. County | Hacker News Reader

13,000 fall into homelessness every month in L.A. County

latimes.com

148 pointsFuturebot80 comments

> The latest official homeless count found 44,000 people living in county streets in a three-day period in January, a 12% increase in two years

This means that the number of homeless is up from 39,285 (44,000/1.12) to 44,000 in 2 years. That's an average increase of about 196 per month. So out of the 13,000 falling homeless each month, another 12,804 pull themselves out of it. That's a much more sensible number.

I absolutely think this is a problem that needs attention, but it's not at "the number of homeless is increasing by 13k each month" levels.

> another 12,804 pull themselves out of it

That does only take the possibility of "pulling themselves out of it" into regard as possibility to get out of the statistics. I can think of several other ways to get out of the statistics: E.g. Dying, moving into an other area ...

I accept, that the numbers are not complete and somehow misleading, but simple conclusions are too!

That would still mean that a single country, albeit the largest one turns 1.56% of it's population into homeless each year. Looking at statistics for California as a whole there's no room to account for those homeless people so it doesn't look like they are being dumped beyond the county lines.

So either they all died which would greatly skew the population statistics in the US as a whole, moved out of California (which doesn't seem to be the case since homelessness in adjutant states didn't sky rocket) or the truth is more closer to what was stated than to yours.

(I would concede that perhaps that they might be in Mexico if you really want to explore this further)

Also 9 million residents received "public assistance"? Even if it's over 8 years it's still a huge number considering that the LA county has a population of about 10M, so unless going to school, voting, going to a hospital or being borne counts as "public assistance" I would really like to see exactly how they got to that number since the immigration statistics for that country cannot account for a transfer of so many residents to have 9M requiring actual "public assistance" over any reasonable period of time yet alone 8 years...

It's not like the entire 9 million residents were on public assistance for the entire 8 years. People come and go, most public assistance programs are time-limited.

Yes I've addressed that but still 9M people out of 10M over 8 years is a huge part of the population even when accounting for natural population changes and migration patterns.

With ballpark numbers on migration[1] and natural population growth it would mean that approximately 70% of the current LA county population today would've used "public assistance" given the 9M figure.

This is why the definition of "public assistance" is very important since all the statistics and the numbers in that article don't pass a simple smell test.

[1]https://www.census.gov/hhes/migration/files/acs/county-to-co...

According to a report that came out a few months ago, there has been a 12% rise in homelessness in LA in the last 2 years. [1]

I believe that number is way underreported.

I don't have any evidence to point to. I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life and have spent a lot of time in and around the skid row area since the late 90's.

All I can say is that in the last year, the population on skid row has exploded. I don't know if its due to people being corralled into the area because of development in the Arts District, LA Live, etc, but the radius of skid row has at least doubled in the last year.

A couple weeks ago I drove through the area on a hot Sunday afternoon and I had to pull over because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Block after block after block of streets full of homeless people. Not just the sidewalks, but the streets were full of crowds too. I've been to plenty of third world countries around the world, large and small, but never once have I seen so much misery in one place as I saw in DTLA a couple weeks back.

1. http://circanews.com/news/us-homelessness-recession-1

I'm curious how they do get accurate numbers on homeless. Is it just people checking into shelters? I've been living in my car for 5 months now. I'm not on any homeless radar/reports/etc. How many more people like me are there that fly under the radar.

I'd love to hear details about why you're living out of your car.

Not that guy, but spent the last 6 months in my van.

Needed to leave my job, didn't have a new one lined up yet. Would have loved to keep renting my place, but bay area rents are absurd. Bought a van, will have lost about 1k after selling it, and so that was my 6mo of rent instead.

The amount of people living out of their vehicles is staggeringly high. Any attempt to count the homeless, even in LA (which I understand does the best job in the nation) will wildly undercount, as we're all doing our best to stay out of sight and not get the cops called on us.

Thank you for sharing!

"...and approximately 82,000 people are homeless on any given night." [1]

82,000 homeless on a population of 9,818,605 [2]; 0.835%

I just compared it to the 2012 stats for The Netherlands (highest homeless count in 2012).

27,300 homeless [3] on a population of 16,779,575 [4]; 0.163%

That was a bit surprising to me. It looks like there are 5 times more homeless per capita in LA than in The Netherlands...

[1] http://www.laalmanac.com/social/so14.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California [3] http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/ar... [4] http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=...

I'm surprised there are any homeless people in the Netherlands.

Some people refuse even pointed attempts to help them. They'll say no to shelters; they'll say no to social workers; they'll even say no to the police. And the bar for involuntary confinement is high in some places.

He might also have been thinking about the "winter" [0] part.

[0] http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/climate/The-Netherlan...

A fairly common situation in the U.S. is that people with drug and alcohol problems usually need to get clean before they get housed and it is not at all easy to get clean if you are not housed.

In my immediate area social services are very good and anybody who is on the street who will comply with what DSS mandates can get off the street pretty quick, but many people won't do it for many reasons.

>A fairly common situation in the U.S. is that people with drug and alcohol problems usually need to get clean before they get housed and it is not at all easy to get clean if you are not housed.

Hurray for protestant ethics in 2015. As if a drug-using homeless person doesn't need shelter...

They evidently don't in LA or SF (as opposed to Norway in the winter). Otherwise, we would necessarily see far lower rates of homelessness in those places.

Yeah, because SF winter is warn and fuzzy.

Is the weather in NY "much more hospitable" than that of the Netherlands? Because it has as many homeless as in LA.

Utah's taken a different approach, and it seems to have worked pretty well, though I'm not sure how many urban cities want to (or can) follow that lead.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-utah-housing-first-20150...

You wouldn't be able to survive winters in Netherlands. Also social system is probably better.

Coming to LA and accidentally wandering few miles off downtown to warehouse district left me in shock. I was ready to jump in front of police car just to get me out of there.

I knew about the ghettos and drug problem just wasn't expecting it to hit me so hard. People living in tents, some lady sort of dancing or having convolutions. I've seen plenty of poor people in various countries, but nothing like this. Heck, homeless beggar in London will say good day to you.

Edit: I actually have some anecdotal experience about social care in Netherlands. One morning I woke up in acquaintances house after night of doing MDMA (and him, speed). Some lady was staring at me. She explained as the guy was living off social care, he was being monitored in case he needed some help or something like that. She didn't ask anything in particular or was judgmental. Looked like he had everything, a computer, decent place, skateboard and bmx bike. A night earlier he explained his both parents deceased.

The downtown eastside of Vancouver, BC is pretty bad just for its sheer in your face drug use and rampant poverty. But at least it's the warmest place in Canada to live if you're homeless.

But you bring up a good point I can't imagine how people in Canada can survive being homeless in -40C weather in Winnipeg for example.

Homeless people with addiction to alcohol in Ulan Bator

http://visura.co/user/MikeA/view/40-96

What's also interesting is the contrast. Downtown LA and the "Arts District" are getting gentrified. People live in very fancy lofts. Check AirBnB for pictures of them. Some are incredibly amazing. But, right in between downtown LA and the Arts District is Skid Row. Drive down 4th street and see all the tents and homeless and fires.

I stayed at the Barker Block building for a month last October. 1/2 a block away there were tents.

https://www.google.com/search?q=barker+block&tbm=isch

http://www.hulu.com/watch/460340

>That was a bit surprising to me. It looks like there are 5 times more homeless per capita in LA than in The Netherlands...

Why wouldn't there be? US/California is famous for its homeless multitudes. You cannot miss them in downtown SF for example.

The Netherlands (and most of Western Europe) has much better social protection.

Let's face it - the weather in LA is much more hospitable to homeless than that of the Netherlands.

People keep saying that as if it's some kind of excuse, with homeless people taking in the LA sun.

In fact there are as many homeless in LA as they are in NY (around 30.000 - 50.000 in either place according to Wikipedia).

Is the weather in NY "much more hospitable" than that of the Netherlands?

Some more numbers:

    US         578,424   318.9M      0.18%
    LA County   44,359    10.02M     0.44%
    LA City     25,686     3.88M     0.66%

https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2014-AHAR-P... http://www.lahsa.org/homelesscount_results

There are only 578,424 homeless in the U.S.? That number seems much too low.

Why? If California is your norm, keep in mind that California has 20% of the U.S.'s homeless population (California, Texas, and Florida have 58% of the under-18 homeless population). It's really not a universal problem.

Yep. It's hard to be homeless in Michigan.

I can understand the reasoning, but in fact there are many homeless in northern cities. New York, for example, has a large number. Perhaps migration isn't common among the homeless.

That number is the result of the massive, largely volunteer effort led by HUD to count the homeless that is done every January. There are other numbers, but they tend to involve a lot more guesstimating and a lot less data.

There should be zero homeless (or close to it) in the United States. The U.S. is the richest country in the history of the world, by a long shot, and growing wealthier every year. Certainly Americans can afford to provide basic food and shelter (and healthcare) to everyone. We lose sight of concrete reality when we get caught up in the economic and social philosophizing and political conflict; nothing justifies leaving a human being on the street, like a stray dog, when you can do something about it. There is no excuse.

But we don't leave dogs on the street.

Of course, what happens to stray dogs a little while later is unthinkable for humans. Unless you are into eugenics, which many HN readers are. Social Darwinism and similar 19th century outmoded beliefs are extremely popular today. This classism and general elitism is the first part of the problem.

This might not be popular here (and I'm not advocating it, merely bringing it into the discussion), but Guaranteed minimum income (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income) has been proposed as a possible solution to homelessness in the US.

cgrubb's comment puts the US-wide estimate at 0.18%, so actually pretty close.

Comparing data from different countries is very tricky. You don't know how the statistics define homelessness (they aren't consistent even in a single country), you don't know who they count or how they count them. For example in Europe the homeless statistics do not count or do not count the migrant population very well (at least in some countries cannot say for NL). Number of homeless at any given time is also not the only factor if a person in NL is homeless for average for 3 months and in the states for 6 or 1 it makes a bigger impact than the total number.

The UK for example is probably very very bad at counting homeless they don't even want to call them that they call it "sleeping rough" (people who actually sleep on the street and not in housing) here according to the official figures England has only 2414 (est. 2014) homeless people (at any given time). London apparently has only 400 or so homeless people at any given night and even by living in the 2nd most expensive borough in London i can easily go BS about it without the need to jump to east London. That said if you are arrested and are put in holding for the night you don't count for the "sleeping rough" statistics so it's very easy to poison such statistics with even simple police enforcement. Not claiming that the Dutch authorities are doing anything like that (although I've seen quite a few homeless people being picked up if they are in central Amsterdam) but playing with the numbers of people who "don't count" in the eyes of many is far too easy.

There's no doubt that the dutch social net is better, but large populations generate a large overhead it's always much easier to handle and provide social services to small population even at a fraction of the per-capita costs that the budgets of populated countries allow.

A lot of homeless people in the south of Europe comes from the north. I heard a lot of them speaking polish, for instance. They are running away from the hard winters.

I suppose is the same case in Los Angeles.

So, maybe, the homeless people from the Netherlands are not in the Netherlands.

What is sad, a lot of homeless have serious mental health issues, anecdotal evidence, I seem to see a lot of former military.

Same here, I often talk to them, give them money (you can't give them food, so sometimes if they are nearby fast-food place or some store take them with you and buy the things they need).

There was a guy years ago that lived outside a store across West-side Pavillion (near Pico & Overland).

He talked to me that he was stationed in Germany long time ago, then came back here, something happened, lost all of his documents, but something was going to happen for him, and he really liked going back to Germany.

Years before this, somewhere on Ocean Park Blvd, across the Activision HQ, there were these two homeless old dudes, drunk and barely walking - and we said that we are programmers - and he asked as about "C" and that he worked at AT&T long time ago with Denis Richie, Ken Thompson, etc... and I don't know whether to believe him or not, but I doubt many people would know about the founders of the "C" language.

> you can't give them food

Why can't you give them food?

Law forbids it. If you are concerned that they might spent their money of drugs/alcohol, then you should invite them with you to the store/restaurant and buy them what they want.

We were with my family at a very cool Greek Restaurant (Papa Cristo's in Los Angeles), and I went outside and saw someone without shoes with hat, that looked he walked quite the distance - not homeless, but more looked like recent immigrant, barely spoke english - so I invited him in, and let him and helped him order what he wanted, then asked him does he has place to stay, and he said that he's walking to his sister. I didn't asked anymore as that was not my point.

The thing is, it's very easy to help someone, and we do it, or at least I, because my central nervous system feels good after that - I'm atheist, don't believe in karma, but I like this feeling. I'm actually being egoist about it. Not sure how we as humans developed it, and recently read some articles that dog might exhibit the same behavior, but definitely I don't see the point of not helping someone, if you can. Humans have been helping each other not only recently (as in thousands of years), but there are fossil records of our ancestor helping their own, where people clearly with disabilities (born, or later broken arm, teeth, etc.) were being helped, as the findings show that they were able to live much longer compared to if they were not helped.

And sometimes I won't help them. There is a guy, that had a very exciting story of him finding a new job and wife, and I always helped him, but then understood it's a lie. I'm a bit of a introvert when comes to such situations, and instead of confronting him, I just decide to avoid. I just don't know how to judge people fallen into such situations.

That's a myth. You absolutely can donate food and there's no any law forbidding or giving you any legal consequences. Stupid myth that gets tons of food wasted every day. Check out the recent John Oliver piece about it, http://youtu.be/i8xwLWb0lLY

> Law forbids it.

If you're going to cite "the law" I'd ask you to point to a specific law. I did a quick Google search and apparently some smaller municipalities have bans on feeding the homeless, but those bans seem to be targeted primarily at unlicensed soup kitchens and such.

I'm not sure how you would even devise a law which makes it possible to forbid giving the homeless your leftovers while not simultaneously making it illegal to share a candy bar with a friend.

Until you present some actual evidence of this supposed law, I'll continue to feed the homeless.

> Law forbids it.

I believe some cities do have ordinances against giving food to the homeless. I'd be very surprised if they are enforced. Even if they are, here's a simple solution: How do you know who is homeless? Simply don't ask about their living accomodations.

You will quickly learn that many of those panhandling in urban areas will not take you up on the offer for a mean. They want the dollars for their habit. Happens all the time here in Santa Cruz. Offer leftovers, no. Offer to buy food, no.

In the discussion around homelessness, there are individuals that are on a self-destructive path involving drugs and until they want to change, they won't. The catalyst will vary, but often requires hitting rock bottom.

I hear this story a lot but it has never been my experience; I've provided many meals to people who've wanted them (I can't say they were homeless, but it looked that way), and I've been asked for more. Could you provide any data or research to back it up?

I'm concerned because so many myths, such as the 'welfare queen', are spread to undermine social welfare programs and, at the same time, cynically denigrate the weakest in our society. (I understand that might not be your intent, and you could simply be reporting what you've seen.)

Odd. I hear a lot of people claiming this.

And yet I've never seen a homeless person in L.A. turn down food. They're so grateful for it, it makes you feel ashamed that it actually didn't matter to you to give that food.

I'm curious: Is that personal experience, or are you stating something friends told you?

It is something I've personally experienced here in Santa Cruz. Maybe other places, it is different. But, downtown as well as a regular crew along Ocean St as you come into town, happens with regularity.

Going from employed to homeless can happen pretty quick--to most professions. For some reason, I know too many homeless people who were former Programmers?

The stories are varied. One guy was screwed out of his contribution to Word Star--I think? Another fell behind on his programming skills. The two are trying to make the best of it, but will never be employable again. I have seen them get jobs, but are fired after the first day. It seems like after you have been homeless for a period of time, a suit from Goodwill and good intentions are not enough?

People see these guys and ask the rude questions, like "Hay, I hear Google is a great place to work!". They are well meaning, but don't have a clue to what a winter homeless can do to a person.

The guys on the streets say around the one year mark of being homeless, your personality changes. The stress of being homeless takes its toll. Being harassed by Cops, daily, plays on your mind. Not having a safe, secure, legal spot to make camp becomes very stressful. They all can't find a place to use the restroom. If they happen to find a outhouse, you would think they found gold.

The homeless guys, I know, just want a place to sleep that isn't illegial, and a outhouse. They don't want much.

I think what too many people, in charge, don't realize is once you go homeless, it practically impossible to be that rent paying, employee again?

People/Politicians mouth the words of help, but it's just words. Politicians just want to rid their town of the homeless. I guess it's denial?

Actually I started working at Google (Los Angeles) almost a year ago, and our office in Venice is full with homeless, but I haven't approached anyone yet. I'll be there all the time, and I feel that awkward situations might arise.

I don't know how to help them really. There are tons of organizations supposedly dealing and helping, but I don't know what really goes on.

(I've been "homeless" by my choice early in my student years, but it was more of a "beta" test done for fun and "education" - I was no longer eligible for the dormitory, back in Bulgaria - that would be one of the 40-50 high-rise buildings, and I slept in the "library" room for about a year, but lots of friends lived in the same building and I've used bathroom, even good bed, etc.). It was easy, as I was careless, hadn't been in the army (which made me a bit better in that respect), and lied to my family about my situation (they were still sending money). So clearly not really homeless, and on my own, but was able to touch little of the issues these people might hit, though very little.

Hey office mate :)

Most of them are decidedly harmless. I don't exactly have extended conversations with them, but I treat them like I'd treat any neighbor - say hi, give a nod when seeing them, and if they're interested in chatting, chat a bit.

If you want to help in a non-personal way, St. Joseph's is a great place. (Other homeless shelters: http://www.suntopia.org/venice/ca/homeless_shelters.php).

If you want to get a bit more involved, ping our community affairs people.

> I have seen them get jobs, but are fired after the first day.

For what reasons are they fired?

Are there any apps that A) make it easy for people to host homeless families or individuals, or B) let people offer housing at reduced rent after some type of qualification or just based on a profile or C) allow people to pay into pools similar to Section 8 to sponsor housing and then access funds from them -- sort of like a privatized streamlined Section 8 app.

This is a very interesting idea. Airbnb (or the sharing economy in general) for providing homeless housing in spare bedrooms.

Obviously a big problem is the fear many people have of poor people. I think it's mostly just fear of people who are different, but someone would have to give hosts confidence in their own safety. If you could solve that ...

How different are they though, really? How many paychecks could the average person miss and still afford their mortgage or rent?

What would happen to you if you became mentally ill and didn't have family or friends to take care of you?

If, for whatever reason, you had no apartment or home to stay in and actually had to sleep in a box without a shower, shave, or change of clothes, would you become dangerous? Or just unshaven and smelly?

To be clear: I think the fear is unfounded and generally agree with what you say. However, that fear really exists for many people and would have to be addressed.

Safety, property, damages, etc.

When the homeless population in your area skews significantly mentally ill, this ceases to be mere "fear of people who are different".

> When the homeless population in your area skews significantly mentally ill, this ceases to be mere "fear of people who are different".

I think that's the same thing applied to mental illness; people don't understand mental illness and fear it. Why is someone who is depressed or bipolar threatening? What do we really know? Does mental illness make people more likely to commit crimes?

* It's the wrong question, because if there is any effect (and I don't know that there is), it probably depends on the illness and its severity.

* Mentally ill people commit crimes, but so do mentally healthy people - in fact I expect that 99% of crimes are committed by the latter.

* What is mental 'illness'? It's not a binary condition; it's a continuum. Also, many people living in homes and probably working at your office are mentally ill; would you trust them in your guest bedroom?

* Finally, homeless people (especially those who are mentally ill) are often the weakest in our community, often poorly fed and unable to care for themselves. Those are not the people to fear (fear strong, healthy, bold young men). If the homeless people were criminal and had intiative, they wouldn't be living on the street.

I understand mental illness. Judging by your rhetoric, perhaps better than you. I know full well how dangerous someone suffering hallucinations can be. You'll have to forgive me for not wanting to welcome such a person into my home.

Please, spare me your "Not everyone suffering mental illness is violent!" rhetoric. I know that. It's neither a helpful nor useful point in this context. I also know that some are, that a given homeless person is disproportionately likely to be such a person compared to the general population, and that there's no reliable way for a layman to mitigate this risk other than keeping the person at a reasonable distance.

Please, just for a moment, stop and consider that maybe I am not just some terrified waif, shaking in my boots because someone said "OH TEH NOES! MENTAL ILLNESS!". Perhaps some of us have real concerns about what you propose. Perhaps some of us are aware that being homeless, mentally ill, or both doesn't magically render a person incapable of offering significant violence, despite your claim.

Also, try being less condescending about it. I'm (poorly) fighting the urge to tell you to go do something anatomically unlikely because of all the silly things you just wrote.

There are programs like this. Not necessarily sharing economy, because chronically homeless need much more than just a place to rest their head. They need critical social care, job training (and placement), often psychiatric help, et cetera. This is the kind of thing that organizations like the Doe Fund here in NYC do.

Unless you're talking about trying to short-circuit the downward spiral and help keep people from becoming chronically homeless.

I've been knocking an idea for a mutual aid organization / app, but haven't really nailed anything down yet.

'Cause the truth is, even if you're employed with good health insurance, quality psychiatric/psychological care is really fucking expensive.

I wonder how we could get a hold of this actual dataset. Additionally I wonder how it compares to vacancy rates/data in LA County

This is the person to ask: https://twitter.com/abhinemani

This is an explanation forwarded by my mother, who knows a thing or two about scraping by to make ends meet:

Being poor sucks.

Yes, that's right: being poor. I'm talking about the constant stresses placed upon a person that is working a minimum wage job, barely able to afford their rent. Constant stress about money.

Now imagine for a minute I could tell you that stress is a choice. The alternative, the very scary "homelessness", "on the streets" --- is it really much worse? Could it actually be less stressful?

I think what happens is some of these people become homeless and realize that it isn't all that bad. For a subset of the population who can already get by on not a lot, not having a home (and the stress that comes with it) must be welcome. They become homeless and realize "I can do this, this could be my life. Let's live in a tent."

And there you go, someone who has decided to become "chronically" homeless.

I'll have to say there is something to be said about releasing all the conventional trappings of modern society: you no longer have to worry about bills, responsibility. You get to be outdoors. Sure, there are other problems, like where to find food and keep clean, and avoiding the police, but for some that is better than competing in the rat race of life, at what is the very hardest and poorest levels of society.

This is a good point. Homelessness is often a lot less stressful and scary than the modern rat race. Having spent a year living in my car I can see how very few want to go back to working all day to live paycheck to paycheck.

I have family that work for homeless shelters in NYC. Usually the ones he works with are the fresh homeless. These are foster kids that age out of the system, abused kids turned adults, and male spouses. The first 72 hours are the most critical. After that they start to have a mental breakdown. Being homeless becomes the new normal and they go feral. These are the homeless most people think of. They can no longer function in society. They are antisocial, unemployable, and have poor hygiene.

These homeless aren't living a hobo dream. They traded one form of stress for another. Now instead of worrying about rent they have stress from lack of sleep. The ones that choose to live in a tent because it is less stressful is actually quite small group.

That sounds like a decision made long after becoming homeless. I seriously doubt may people who have homes decide to abandon the lifestyle and take to the streets.

This post seems a little naive to me, and certainly couldn't apply to every single person who no longer has a home in California. We've developed technology and built homes so that we didn't have to deal with living in the outside world - to keep the outside from coming in, so to speak - and it gives us choice and stability, if we are able to maintain our possession of it without too much stress and trouble. That it is still hard to keep a home in a lot of places should be a real concern - things like that are not good for anybody. Homelessness can hurt people and hurt communities. I'd want to see some real investigation rather than conjecture about whether these specific people are doing it out of choice, or whether they are capably dealing with the extremely difficult and unpredictable circumstances that often accompany homelessness. The perspective you are arguing from kind of seems sheltered to me. There have been many more people protesting across the U.S. in the last few years than have been living the idyllic and romantic hobo life, free from stress and want.

Your mother does not seem like much of an unassailable source of wisdom when it comes to the realities of poverty - maybe you should argue from a more personal or sourced perspective about what it is like to be poor or homeless and what kind of conditions folks in such a position experience?

It's reasonable that just sinking into homelessness can seem like a relief from some things. But don't assume that it's some easy "return to the wild" - anyone living in tent is at risk at having that tent knocked down (since it's on land to which they have no right, they being homeless) and being arrested for trespassing. Then given a ticket (that they can't pay) and then watching their fines go up for non-payment until they face serious jail-time that doesn't remove the ticket. And so-forth.

And without the tent, you risk death by exposure, as happens regularly to homeless people in any place without perfect weather.

And the campaigns the police conduct, to make it impossible to sleep in any given location, result in chronic sleeplessness in the homeless, which results in a variety of psychiatric disorders, a process which feeds on itself until the result is utterly destroyed human being one occasionally sees by the side of our roads.

A few people do competently navigate these problem to be successful hobos/tramps but this is not paradise.

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> The latest official homeless count found 44,000 people living in county streets in a three-day period in January [...]

Sounds like most of those 13,000 newly homeless people are the same every month - falling in and out of homelessness periodically.

> The group's analysis was based on records for 9 million county residents who received public assistance at any point between 2002 and 2010.

How can they have so many poor people when the total population of the county was 9,818,605 in 2010 according to Wikipedia? Do they give "public assistance" to rich people too?

L.A. is famous for being a place where people only live temporarily, so it's likely that both the people who fall into homelessness and the people on public assistance don't stay long and get replaced with a new group of people who fall into the same situation.

The New Kid in Town.

This commenter's tone is flippant but he brings up a really good question! Why do 9 mil people get benefits in a city of 10 million? I spent a few minutes googling "la population churn" until I realized that sociologists use the more polite term "turnover".

Between 1985 and 1990, the mean migration turnover rate was 35%.[1] And if you look at the map, LA county is shaded the color of 41-65% turnover. Let's guess 50%.

So if we guess 50% turnover per 5 years still applies between 2002 and 2010, then it's reasonable that 15million - 20million people have lived in LA county during that time period. Given that 49% of the US population get government benefits [2], this checks out. Especially since LA county has a higher poverty rate than the rest of the country. [3]

[1] Migration Turnover Rates in United States Counties [2006] http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=13...

[2] Census: 49% of Americans Get Gov’t Benefits; 82M in Households on Medicaid http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-49-...

[3] L.A. County leads California in poverty rate, new analysis shows http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/30/local/la-me-poverty-...

>Given that 49% of the US population get government benefits [2], this checks out.

>[2] Census: 49% of Americans Get Gov’t Benefits; 82M in Households on Medicaid http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-49-...

According to that page, they included Social Security (49.9 million people) and unemployment (5.1 million people) as government benefits.

> Especially since LA county has a higher poverty rate than the rest of the country. [3]

Hate to nickpick but this should be "rest of the state." since this is what the article says instead of country.

"How can they have so many poor people when the total population of the county was 9,818,605 in 2010 according to Wikipedia?"

"The Census Bureau does not produce or publish a total count of the homeless population[0]."

So it is very likely the 9.8M you quoted for the total population is off. An additional factor is that this number does not likely include immigrants who may not wish to be counted for social or legal reasons. Whereas the 9M "county residents" probably did include many homeless and/or immigrant residents.

FTA, "9 million county residents who received public assistance at any point between 2002 and 2010."

That's a total count of distinct residents over 8 years. The 2000 census shows a population of about 9.3M[2]. But that .5M increase isn't just people who moved (or were born) in the county. Due to geographic mobility/migration[1], births, deaths, etc, the people who lived in LA county in 2002 are not necessarily the same people who lived in LA county in 2010.

FTA, "who received public assistance at any point ... 2007 to 2010 recession also drove many out of their homes".

Just about everyone I knew took government assistance during the recession. Whether it was food stamps, mortgage help, school lunches, unemployment or whatever. So the statistics maybe a little skewed since it contains a period of significant recession. (unemployment isn't technically public assistance, because an employee pays into it, but for people I know, it's still lumped in the same category as the other types of help)

[0] - https://www.census.gov/2010census/news/releases/operations/c... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_mobility#In_the_Uni... [2] - http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/00_SF1/DP...

> "The Census Bureau does not produce or publish a total count of the homeless population[0]."

> So it is very likely the 9.8M you quoted for the total population is off.

Note that the decennial census is supposed to include homeless people, marked as residing in whatever census tract they consider their current home or spend the most time.

Cities generally have a pretty strong incentive to try and get as many homeless people assembled and counted on census day as possible (since more population = more federal money), though the slapdash nature of census operations and the lack of any real explicit local power for census management (rather than that implicit quid pro quo) means there are inevitably some who are overlooked.

For example, in my city, I was part of the effort during the 2010 census to get homeless shelters, police, hospitals, soup kitchens, churches, etc all through the county stationed with Census employees to try and get a more or less homeless count. On our own we would have missed plenty, but we fortunately had the aid of local homeless advocaccy groups to help with publicity and outreach ahead of time, as well as a copious supply of free food and other services to draw the local homeless in to centralized locations on the census day itself.

> this number does not likely include immigrants who may not wish to be counted for social or legal reasons

At least when I worked with the Census, this was a bigger worry than accurately counting the homeless population, since at the time there were a number of groups on the local level actively trying to persuade Hispanic individuals to avoid being represented in the census. Some of it seemed like a genuine (if painfully misguided) attempt at protest, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that at least some of it must have been false-flag efforts meant to suppress minority representation.

If I extrapolate that (44000 mentioned in another post) to the size of my country we should have some 20000 homeless people here... Jeez, the US calls itself the "richest country in the world"....

We have practically no homeless people, maybe a couple of hundred who don't want the help.

How is it that you can't take care of the less fortunate even though you have money to by all the crap in thew world? Sorry for being a harsh, smug, nordic country resident, but sometimes the wonderland of the US does seem a little cold.

Does the US call itself the "richest country in the world" more frequently than anyone else does? Which country do you reside in, incidentally?

You'll also find people here claim the homeless "don't want help." It doesn't mean they're correct in their assessment.

Speaking of a little cold, in some places being homeless is more feasible than others. LA is certainly one of those places.

It also depends on your standards. I'm not saying we don't have a huge homeless problem -- we absolutely do. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to some of the most expensive housing in the world, and there are many homeless here (or at least in SF proper).

It also depends on who you consider a person. When I was living in France, I once remarked that I was surprised that there were so many homeless people, and that it seemed like there were almost as many as my hometown. The reply was "oh, no, they're not homeless, they're Roma."

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