19 ms·

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

148 points by Futurebot 11y ago

Kinnard 11y ago
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
- mayneack 11y ago
  This is the person to ask: https://twitter.com/abhinemani https://twitter.com/abhinemani
stefantalpalaru 11y ago
> 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?
- ewzimm 11y ago
  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.
  - sjg007 11y ago
    The New Kid in Town.
- civilian 11y ago
  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=1327&context=eri 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-americans-get-gov-t-benefits-82m-households-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-20131001 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/30/local/la-me-poverty-...
  - differentView 11y ago
    >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-americans-get-gov-t-benefits-82m-households-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.
  - aninteger 11y ago
    > 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.
- dsp1234 11y ago
  "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/cb12-183.html https://www.census.gov/2010census/news/releases/operations/c... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_mobility#In_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_mobility#In_the_Uni... [2] - http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/00_SF1/DP1/0500000US06037 http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/00_SF1/DP...
  - zyxley 11y ago
    > "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.
ilaksh 11y ago
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.
- hackuser 11y ago
  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 ...
  - ilaksh 11y ago
    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?
    - hackuser 11y ago
      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.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    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".
    - 11y ago
delecti 11y ago
> 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.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  > 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!
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    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...
jorgenhorstink 11y ago
"...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 http://www.laalmanac.com/social/so14.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California [3] http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2015/stijging-aantal-daklozen-lijkt-voorbij.htm http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/ar... [4] http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=71090ned&HD=150827-2232 http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=...
- hnpc123 11y ago
  I'm surprised there are any homeless people in the Netherlands.
  - johan_larson 11y ago
    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.
    - sliverstorm 11y ago
      He might also have been thinking about the "winter" [0] part. [0] http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/climate/The-Netherlands.htm http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/climate/The-Netherlan...
    - PaulHoule 11y ago
      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.
coderbrew 11y ago
What is sad, a lot of homeless have serious mental health issues, anecdotal evidence, I seem to see a lot of former military.
- malkia 11y ago
  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.
  - morgante 11y ago
    > you can't give them food Why can't you give them food?
    - malkia 11y ago
      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.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
strathmeyer 11y ago
Continue reading for only $0.99 and get 10 days of Unlimited Digital Access.
iamleppert 11y ago
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.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  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.
- ohsnap 11y ago
  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.
- yardie 11y ago
  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.
p_monk 11y ago
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 http://circanews.com/news/us-homelessness-recession-1
- carcamper 11y ago
  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.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I'd love to hear details about why you're living out of your car.
    - RandomSeeded 11y ago
      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.
kisstheblade 11y ago
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.
- rconti 11y ago
  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."

148 points by Futurebot 11y ago

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

mayneack 11y ago
This is the person to ask: https://twitter.com/abhinemani https://twitter.com/abhinemani

stefantalpalaru 11y ago

> 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?

ewzimm 11y ago
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.
- sjg007 11y ago
  The New Kid in Town.
civilian 11y ago
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=1327&context=eri 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-americans-get-gov-t-benefits-82m-households-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-20131001 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/30/local/la-me-poverty-...
- differentView 11y ago
  >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-americans-get-gov-t-benefits-82m-households-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.
- aninteger 11y ago
  > 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.
dsp1234 11y ago
"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/cb12-183.html https://www.census.gov/2010census/news/releases/operations/c... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_mobility#In_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_mobility#In_the_Uni... [2] - http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/00_SF1/DP1/0500000US06037 http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/00_SF1/DP...
- zyxley 11y ago
  > "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.

ilaksh 11y ago

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.

hackuser 11y ago
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 ...
- ilaksh 11y ago
  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?
  - hackuser 11y ago
    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.
- Kalium 11y ago
  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".
  - 11y ago

delecti 11y ago

> 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.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
> 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!
- dogma1138 11y ago
  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...

jorgenhorstink 11y ago

"...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 http://www.laalmanac.com/social/so14.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California [3] http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2015/stijging-aantal-daklozen-lijkt-voorbij.htm http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/ar... [4] http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=71090ned&HD=150827-2232 http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=...

hnpc123 11y ago
I'm surprised there are any homeless people in the Netherlands.
- johan_larson 11y ago
  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.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    He might also have been thinking about the "winter" [0] part. [0] http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/climate/The-Netherlands.htm http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/climate/The-Netherlan...
  - PaulHoule 11y ago
    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.

coderbrew 11y ago

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

malkia 11y ago
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.
- morgante 11y ago
  > you can't give them food Why can't you give them food?
  - malkia 11y ago
    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.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

strathmeyer 11y ago

Continue reading for only $0.99 and get 10 days of Unlimited Digital Access.

iamleppert 11y ago

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.

sandworm101 11y ago
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.
ohsnap 11y ago
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.
yardie 11y ago
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.

p_monk 11y ago

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

carcamper 11y ago
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.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I'd love to hear details about why you're living out of your car.
  - RandomSeeded 11y ago
    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.

kisstheblade 11y ago

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.

rconti 11y ago
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."