L.A.’s homelessness surged 75% in six years. Here’s why the crisis has been decades in the making

L.A.’s homelessness surged 75% in six years. Here’s why the crisis has been decades in the making:

Some of the poorest people in the city spend their days in the shadow of Los Angeles City Hall, napping on flattened cardboard boxes.

On any given day, as many as 20 people take to the City Hall lawn, across the street from LAPD headquarters. They’re there to “escape the madness” in downtown streets, a 53-year-old homeless man named Lazarus said last week. At night, they fan out to doorways or deserted plazas to wait for daybreak.

The growth of a homeless day camp at the halls of civic power speaks to the breadth of Los Angeles’ burgeoning homelessness problem.

The number of those living in the streets and shelters of the city of L.A. and most of the county surged 75% — to roughly 55,000 from about 32,000 — in the last six years. (Including Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach, which conduct their own homeless counts, the total is nearly 58,000.)

 H/t reader squodgy:

“So is this where the supposed growth in the economy manifests?”

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3 thoughts on “L.A.’s homelessness surged 75% in six years. Here’s why the crisis has been decades in the making”

  1. At the point on a circle where the two social and economic extremes meet, socialism and capitalism, their differences become blurred as fascist despotism and dictatorship blossom.

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