How We Found New Patterns in LA’s Homeless Arrest Data(source.opennews.org)
source.opennews.org
How We Found New Patterns in LA’s Homeless Arrest Data
https://source.opennews.org/articles/how-we-found-new-patterns-la-homeless-arrest/
88 comments
I was having dinner with a buddy last week, and we were discussing the issue, as he lives in Mar Vista and I live in Beverly Grove (just recently having moved from Santa Monica). It's become a remarkable problem for the city, and it's hard to convey the impact if you don't live here.
One thing I wondered was how we properly incentivize the city to take steps to manage the situation. Right now, the city brings in $6B in annual revenue (almost 25% of its budget) in property taxes. Despite the remarkable climb in homelessness, property tax revenue continues to climb, because property values are seemingly skyrocketing despite the issue.
As an example, I live on a street where one half of a 100 year old duplex would run > $1M, with dozens of homeless people living within a hundred yards of my house. It's not uncommon for one to walk up and down the street, ringing doorbells asking for assistance, or harassing you as you walk down the street. Never mind the piles of trash & excrement left on the street. I've learned not to drive down the alleyway that runs perpendicular to my street, as it's not uncommon to have people sleep in the middle of the road.
If property values were sinking because of the issue (which in a normal housing market would happen because of safety concerns), the city would be more well incentivized to come up with solutions. But, outside of just citizen complaints, city hall doesn't really have any skin in the game.
Now, you could say, "You're part of the problem. If people like you are willing to move there, you cause the property values to rise." Well, yep, you're right. However, I WANT the city to solve this problem responsibly, and moving away doesn't help me be a part of this solution. I'm hopeful that the sales tax we self-imposed to raise funds to address the issue begin to help, but I'm mostly unimpressed with the changes thus far.
One thing I wondered was how we properly incentivize the city to take steps to manage the situation. Right now, the city brings in $6B in annual revenue (almost 25% of its budget) in property taxes. Despite the remarkable climb in homelessness, property tax revenue continues to climb, because property values are seemingly skyrocketing despite the issue.
As an example, I live on a street where one half of a 100 year old duplex would run > $1M, with dozens of homeless people living within a hundred yards of my house. It's not uncommon for one to walk up and down the street, ringing doorbells asking for assistance, or harassing you as you walk down the street. Never mind the piles of trash & excrement left on the street. I've learned not to drive down the alleyway that runs perpendicular to my street, as it's not uncommon to have people sleep in the middle of the road.
If property values were sinking because of the issue (which in a normal housing market would happen because of safety concerns), the city would be more well incentivized to come up with solutions. But, outside of just citizen complaints, city hall doesn't really have any skin in the game.
Now, you could say, "You're part of the problem. If people like you are willing to move there, you cause the property values to rise." Well, yep, you're right. However, I WANT the city to solve this problem responsibly, and moving away doesn't help me be a part of this solution. I'm hopeful that the sales tax we self-imposed to raise funds to address the issue begin to help, but I'm mostly unimpressed with the changes thus far.
One of the problems is people get interested in "helping the homeless" which often goes bad places, instead of reducing incidence of homelessness. One of the things we need to solve the latter issue is more housing being built, especially entry level housing.
Some stats:
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/seattle-sta...
Some stats:
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/seattle-sta...
It may be the right place, if lack of home is not the person's biggest problem.
Some of the ways it goes bad places:
1. Defining the help based on their status as homeless. This means they need to be on the street to get help. Getting off the street can disqualify them for ongoing services.
2. Many programs to help people with serious problems come with a lot of strings attached. They are often highly controlling. Jumping through the hoops involved can be a huge burden in its own right.
3. Terrible, terrible "concentration of poverty" effects.
One of the problems with living in, for example, public housing projects is that everyone you know is poor. You lack access to human capital, to people in the know, to people with connections and power.
Homeless programs take that issue and cube it. You are standing in line with addicts and people who are seriously ill, who are smoking while you wait or who smell strongly of cigarette smoke or of marijuana and who are very germy, coughing and sniffling constantly. It's a great way to make sure you stay sick and get sicker. It's also a very challenging social environment to crowd together a bunch of people who are very stressed out and who typically lack good coping mechanisms for dealing with social friction.
4. Some of the worst programs charge money to participants and/or use them as free labor to help sustain the service. These services typically have a very poor track record of actually helping people solve their personal problems.
Anyone's personal problems are always a combination of two factors: Them and the rest of the world. If you are the wrong gender in a sexist environment or the wrong color in a racist environment or the wrong socioeconomic class in a classist environment, other people can be an active barrier to you being able to solve your problems.
I have about six years of college. I was homeless because I have an incurable medical condition and I was clear that working a corporate job and living in a mold filled apartment were barriers to me being healthy and solving my problems. I'm not mentally ill and I don't take drugs. I chose to go sleep in a tent while figuring out how to make money online so I could get myself healthier.
The one thing I consistently asked in various online forums was for help figuring out how to make money online. I mostly didn't get any such help. I got pissed all over and told I was "panhandling the internet" and just a charity case.
I did eventually figure out how to make a little money online. That plus paying off my student loan helped me get off the street. My income is still incredibly low. I still have an incurable medical condition. I still deal with sexism and classism as barriers to my income goals.
If I had been treated with the same respect as anyone else on Hacker News who is trying to figure out how to create a profitable online business and taken seriously in my goal of developing an earned income, I believe I would have developed that income much quicker and would be making a lot more money. Having to figure it all out myself with no one willing to toss me a clue and people actively pissing on my efforts has been quite the uphill battle.
So when I hear you say that things going what I describe as "a bad place" may be the right place if lack of a home is not their biggest problem, what I hear is justification for intentionally keeping people's problems alive out of prejudice. What I hear is the assumption that people who are currently very poor or who have mental health issues or an addiction don't really deserve the kind of help that would give them a shot at getting a good life.
Because that's how I got treated and it actively made it harder to resolve my issues.
1. Defining the help based on their status as homeless. This means they need to be on the street to get help. Getting off the street can disqualify them for ongoing services.
2. Many programs to help people with serious problems come with a lot of strings attached. They are often highly controlling. Jumping through the hoops involved can be a huge burden in its own right.
3. Terrible, terrible "concentration of poverty" effects.
One of the problems with living in, for example, public housing projects is that everyone you know is poor. You lack access to human capital, to people in the know, to people with connections and power.
Homeless programs take that issue and cube it. You are standing in line with addicts and people who are seriously ill, who are smoking while you wait or who smell strongly of cigarette smoke or of marijuana and who are very germy, coughing and sniffling constantly. It's a great way to make sure you stay sick and get sicker. It's also a very challenging social environment to crowd together a bunch of people who are very stressed out and who typically lack good coping mechanisms for dealing with social friction.
4. Some of the worst programs charge money to participants and/or use them as free labor to help sustain the service. These services typically have a very poor track record of actually helping people solve their personal problems.
Anyone's personal problems are always a combination of two factors: Them and the rest of the world. If you are the wrong gender in a sexist environment or the wrong color in a racist environment or the wrong socioeconomic class in a classist environment, other people can be an active barrier to you being able to solve your problems.
I have about six years of college. I was homeless because I have an incurable medical condition and I was clear that working a corporate job and living in a mold filled apartment were barriers to me being healthy and solving my problems. I'm not mentally ill and I don't take drugs. I chose to go sleep in a tent while figuring out how to make money online so I could get myself healthier.
The one thing I consistently asked in various online forums was for help figuring out how to make money online. I mostly didn't get any such help. I got pissed all over and told I was "panhandling the internet" and just a charity case.
I did eventually figure out how to make a little money online. That plus paying off my student loan helped me get off the street. My income is still incredibly low. I still have an incurable medical condition. I still deal with sexism and classism as barriers to my income goals.
If I had been treated with the same respect as anyone else on Hacker News who is trying to figure out how to create a profitable online business and taken seriously in my goal of developing an earned income, I believe I would have developed that income much quicker and would be making a lot more money. Having to figure it all out myself with no one willing to toss me a clue and people actively pissing on my efforts has been quite the uphill battle.
So when I hear you say that things going what I describe as "a bad place" may be the right place if lack of a home is not their biggest problem, what I hear is justification for intentionally keeping people's problems alive out of prejudice. What I hear is the assumption that people who are currently very poor or who have mental health issues or an addiction don't really deserve the kind of help that would give them a shot at getting a good life.
Because that's how I got treated and it actively made it harder to resolve my issues.
The problem is that areas that are affordable enough to create more, cheap housing are not near the services that the homeless need and use. I'm in Denver and housing in the city is somewhat pricey but there is tons of land just outside the city that could be developed but you'd be hard pressed to claim that would help homelessness because all the services they use and people they accost are downtown
We don't need to create cheap housing near homeless services. We just need to a) create a lot more housing and b) make sure some of it is affordable. It doesn't necessarily have to be in a particular area.
If we create enough housing, it increases affordability. If people don't wind up homeless to begin with because astronomical housing prices are no longer one of the issues complicating their lives, they don't need homeless services.
If we create enough housing, it increases affordability. If people don't wind up homeless to begin with because astronomical housing prices are no longer one of the issues complicating their lives, they don't need homeless services.
If we talk california, the core issue is housing. Housing is a state-wide policy problem: the most onerous building codes in the country, hardest NIMBYism, and uneven taxation: income taxes and sale taxes that hit the renters and not the landlords.
The solution is Land Value Tax. Just that will jettison the NYMBY attitude into anti-regulation, as opposed to pro-regulation, and then buildings will lower rents, which are the main cause and cost of homelessness.
The solution is Land Value Tax. Just that will jettison the NYMBY attitude into anti-regulation, as opposed to pro-regulation, and then buildings will lower rents, which are the main cause and cost of homelessness.
Are high rents really the root cause of homelessness in places like Tenderloin or the Skid Row? Mental health, drug abuse, etc. seem more likely culprits.
Just because I can't afford a mansion in Beverly Hills, I don't choose to be homeless on someone's doorstep. I live more modestly somewhere else more affordable.
Just because I can't afford a mansion in Beverly Hills, I don't choose to be homeless on someone's doorstep. I live more modestly somewhere else more affordable.
One of the most depressing moments I've experienced was when I was still in school and we did a charity thing for a month where we'd go to the local homeless shelter and help out with various tasks and interact with the homeless people who would come by the shelter.
The reason it was depressing wasn't what you'd expect, I had expected to feel sorry for them but in turned out that the vast vast majority of them were perfectly happy to be homeless they had no want for a better life, they just wanted handouts and felt entitled to them, it was really a strange experience that stuck with me.
The reason it was depressing wasn't what you'd expect, I had expected to feel sorry for them but in turned out that the vast vast majority of them were perfectly happy to be homeless they had no want for a better life, they just wanted handouts and felt entitled to them, it was really a strange experience that stuck with me.
Not a single one of those people asked to be born. Many of them still haven't decided whether their birth was even a good thing, and a few have decided it wasn't. Some are considering suicide (and you often wouldn't know by talking to them). What should we do with people like this?
I've been close to the edge in the past, a few different turns of luck and I could have easily been on the street. Fighting off thoughts of self-imposed euthanasia was one of several Bad Things I went through.
At any point during my worst struggles I would have happily checked myself into a competently run mental facility for long term, inpatient care. There is no such place.
Folks in these situations, without intervention, end up either dead or on the streets. Once they realize they can actually continue existing without being trapped in a constantly uncomfortable dystopia, they might find they are able to smile when offered a free meal, and relax into the generosity of others for a few minutes. After they've spent countless hours fearing for their safety and exposed without shelter while getting dirty looks from hordes of strangers, I think that's probably a little bit okay.
I've been close to the edge in the past, a few different turns of luck and I could have easily been on the street. Fighting off thoughts of self-imposed euthanasia was one of several Bad Things I went through.
At any point during my worst struggles I would have happily checked myself into a competently run mental facility for long term, inpatient care. There is no such place.
Folks in these situations, without intervention, end up either dead or on the streets. Once they realize they can actually continue existing without being trapped in a constantly uncomfortable dystopia, they might find they are able to smile when offered a free meal, and relax into the generosity of others for a few minutes. After they've spent countless hours fearing for their safety and exposed without shelter while getting dirty looks from hordes of strangers, I think that's probably a little bit okay.
You misunderstood that situation profoundly.
I don't believe so, over that month I spent many hours talking to them and heard many times that they would rather be homeless than live a regular Joe life. I imagine that kind of freedom could be somewhat satisfying.
>heard many times that they would rather be homeless than live a regular Joe life
I suspect a lot of that is just pride. It's very common for people to say that they'd rather be doing what they're doing than something else, even when that's not the case.
I suspect a lot of that is just pride. It's very common for people to say that they'd rather be doing what they're doing than something else, even when that's not the case.
I’ve had several similar interactions with the homeless as well. They would prefer to eek by on the outskirts of society than have to follow society’s restrictions. I’m sure part of this is mental illness, but the gutter punk street kids who turn it into a lifestyle are the kind who make you lose sympathy for them. You can’t help people who don’t want help.
I have seen people develop mental issues because they became homeless with the stress that incurs, and also due to or exacerbated by the alcoholism and drug abuse that affects a lot of homeless people, often only after they become homeless.
As for moving some place else: if you're for some reason financially in ruins, that option might not be really available to you. You cannot buy a home with bad credit, and landlords will more often than not check your credit scores and not take you on as a renter. Just moving to a cheaper area won't help.
Granted, you need the mental and physical capacity to earn money from the get go to even have a chance. I have seen people who had bad injuries, others who were extremely grief-stricken after losing a loved one, who at first could not hold a job. Once they recovered, they'd been homeless for "too long" (even if it had been just a few months) to get back into society, essentially, with nobody wanting to hire the "tramp" and nobody wanting to rent to that "tramp"; and you will only find a place if you're employed, and you'll only find employment if you have an address.
As for moving some place else: if you're for some reason financially in ruins, that option might not be really available to you. You cannot buy a home with bad credit, and landlords will more often than not check your credit scores and not take you on as a renter. Just moving to a cheaper area won't help.
Granted, you need the mental and physical capacity to earn money from the get go to even have a chance. I have seen people who had bad injuries, others who were extremely grief-stricken after losing a loved one, who at first could not hold a job. Once they recovered, they'd been homeless for "too long" (even if it had been just a few months) to get back into society, essentially, with nobody wanting to hire the "tramp" and nobody wanting to rent to that "tramp"; and you will only find a place if you're employed, and you'll only find employment if you have an address.
If you look it up you’ll find various reports that strongly link home prices with homelessness. First hit on google, for instance: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/As-rents-rise-so-does-Cal...
To reinforce this with my own life experience, I lived in Houston for five years, and it was possible for me to buy a two bedroom condo in the core urban area for 100k. There were run down neighborhoods in some of the more industrial areas where you could buy a house for less than that, in some cases as low as 30-40k for run down housing. These neighborhoods had transit access and basic public services. There was essentially zero homelessness.
Those neighborhoods aren’t glamorous, and I’m not trying to idealize them. People got out when they could. Crime was not extreme but it was higher than the rest of the city.
But it turns out that even most people with mental problems could find a way to live with a roof over their head when the cost may be in the low hundreds per month. And just having a home makes the rest of the problems you’re struggling with a lot easier to tackle.
Houston isn’t a beautiful city, I moved there not because I wanted to but when the recession hit because it was the only place I had a job offer. But it gets an unfair bad wrap. It turned out to be quite a nice place to live, with tons of diversity and arts and culture, and the best food scene you can imagine.
It’s not the unregulated Wild West that people like to pretend it is, but in general the building codes are very simple and predictable, and for whatever reason the culture there is strongly anti-nimby (relative to the rest of the US). An extremely common pattern while I lived there was for old bungalows from the 1930’s to be bought up, demolished, and replaced by two modern townhomes.
People complained that they really liked the bungalows and that the townhomes weren’t as pretty. That was probably true. But the people buying those homes were ordinary folks, teachers and firefighters and mechanics and whatnot who could afford to raise a family in the nicer more walkable parts of the city without praying for a public housing assistance lottery or anything like that.
It’s bittersweet, but Houston being willing to let the cute old neighborhoods incrementally turns over into denser more modern neighborhoods is what made it a place that anyone could afford to live, and I think not coinicidentally there was a huge culture of entrepreneurship and loads of opportunity and upward mobility in the local economy.
To reinforce this with my own life experience, I lived in Houston for five years, and it was possible for me to buy a two bedroom condo in the core urban area for 100k. There were run down neighborhoods in some of the more industrial areas where you could buy a house for less than that, in some cases as low as 30-40k for run down housing. These neighborhoods had transit access and basic public services. There was essentially zero homelessness.
Those neighborhoods aren’t glamorous, and I’m not trying to idealize them. People got out when they could. Crime was not extreme but it was higher than the rest of the city.
But it turns out that even most people with mental problems could find a way to live with a roof over their head when the cost may be in the low hundreds per month. And just having a home makes the rest of the problems you’re struggling with a lot easier to tackle.
Houston isn’t a beautiful city, I moved there not because I wanted to but when the recession hit because it was the only place I had a job offer. But it gets an unfair bad wrap. It turned out to be quite a nice place to live, with tons of diversity and arts and culture, and the best food scene you can imagine.
It’s not the unregulated Wild West that people like to pretend it is, but in general the building codes are very simple and predictable, and for whatever reason the culture there is strongly anti-nimby (relative to the rest of the US). An extremely common pattern while I lived there was for old bungalows from the 1930’s to be bought up, demolished, and replaced by two modern townhomes.
People complained that they really liked the bungalows and that the townhomes weren’t as pretty. That was probably true. But the people buying those homes were ordinary folks, teachers and firefighters and mechanics and whatnot who could afford to raise a family in the nicer more walkable parts of the city without praying for a public housing assistance lottery or anything like that.
It’s bittersweet, but Houston being willing to let the cute old neighborhoods incrementally turns over into denser more modern neighborhoods is what made it a place that anyone could afford to live, and I think not coinicidentally there was a huge culture of entrepreneurship and loads of opportunity and upward mobility in the local economy.
Yes because it makes fixing the homeless issue prohibitively expensive both for public and private funds. San Francisco spends 20k a year per homeless person: they must waste most of what they do but it is clear that the two most expensive things for a homeless person is housing and health. Health is a national issue but housing is a local one.
Tenderloin / Skid Row may be special cases where people with mental issues are most concentrated, but in LA it’s not hard to look around many areas (like Santa Monica) and see smaller homeless encampments in parks or people living out of their vehicles, etc.
In Los Angeles or the Bay Area the more affordable places get gentrified (Boyle Heights) and then the people living there who were just getting by financially may have nowhere to go, depending on their living and work circumstances, and the price of renting in other areas (which can be extreme).
My imho / two-cents theory.
In Los Angeles or the Bay Area the more affordable places get gentrified (Boyle Heights) and then the people living there who were just getting by financially may have nowhere to go, depending on their living and work circumstances, and the price of renting in other areas (which can be extreme).
My imho / two-cents theory.
> If property values were sinking because of the issue ..., the city would be more well incentivized to come up with solutions. But, outside of just citizen complaints, city hall doesn't really have any skin in the game.
There's something missing here. Politicians are vote-seekers by selection; whereas city tax revenues are not theirs to enjoy personally. So why do you think there is an incentive to make (public) money rather than keep voters happy?
It's not that you are necessarily wrong. I can imagine various ways governance can get twisted to produce an incentive to maximise revenue. But how do you think it happened in LA specifically.
There's something missing here. Politicians are vote-seekers by selection; whereas city tax revenues are not theirs to enjoy personally. So why do you think there is an incentive to make (public) money rather than keep voters happy?
It's not that you are necessarily wrong. I can imagine various ways governance can get twisted to produce an incentive to maximise revenue. But how do you think it happened in LA specifically.
In a city which basically only votes one way, your primary constituency (liberals) and your donor base become your only constituencies. Your ability then, as a member of city council / as mayor, is your ability to allocate discretionary funds (and keep that primary / donor base happy).
The primary donor base in LA lives in Beverly Hills (which isn't city of LA but often are business owners in the city of LA), Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, & Hollywood Hills. These areas are far more controlled in terms of the homeless population. Areas where the homeless population is much higher are in the gentrifying / growing middle class areas (mind you, in LA, a middle class household income is $250k+ w/ a $1M home) like Silver Lake, Echo Park, Downtown, Central LA (where I live). These areas, the home owners / renters are more likely house poor (notice I said house poor, not actually poor), and are not the heavy donors to local politicians. Here's a fairly good document outlining some historic homeless densities in the area. http://www.vchcorp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-Homel...
The granularity isn't great, and so it's hard to point out exactly where the problem areas are. But, as someone who walks from Beverly Hills to my house in Beverly Grove, I can tell you it's night and day when you cross the boundary in to the city of LA vs. BH.
As for the constituencies that vote in primaries, I don't have a ton of data to back up my assumptions. I'd presume that areas like south-central, east LA, and other high-urban areas are where the majority of the votes come from, which can be more heavily influenced by local endorsements / interest groups (like unions) than by specific issues like homelessness. But, as I said, no evidence to back that assumption up, just instinct from living here.
So, in summary- Your donor base is annoyed by the problem (because they have to drive past the issue) but it's not a burning issue as there aren't homeless encampments in the Palisades. Your heavy voting base is annoyed, but have other serious issues that are a higher priority, like violent crime, poverty, and education issues with LA unified.
I love LA. I really do. But we've got a lot of diverse issues that need addressing on a constant basis, just to keep our heads above water.
The primary donor base in LA lives in Beverly Hills (which isn't city of LA but often are business owners in the city of LA), Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, & Hollywood Hills. These areas are far more controlled in terms of the homeless population. Areas where the homeless population is much higher are in the gentrifying / growing middle class areas (mind you, in LA, a middle class household income is $250k+ w/ a $1M home) like Silver Lake, Echo Park, Downtown, Central LA (where I live). These areas, the home owners / renters are more likely house poor (notice I said house poor, not actually poor), and are not the heavy donors to local politicians. Here's a fairly good document outlining some historic homeless densities in the area. http://www.vchcorp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-Homel...
The granularity isn't great, and so it's hard to point out exactly where the problem areas are. But, as someone who walks from Beverly Hills to my house in Beverly Grove, I can tell you it's night and day when you cross the boundary in to the city of LA vs. BH.
As for the constituencies that vote in primaries, I don't have a ton of data to back up my assumptions. I'd presume that areas like south-central, east LA, and other high-urban areas are where the majority of the votes come from, which can be more heavily influenced by local endorsements / interest groups (like unions) than by specific issues like homelessness. But, as I said, no evidence to back that assumption up, just instinct from living here.
So, in summary- Your donor base is annoyed by the problem (because they have to drive past the issue) but it's not a burning issue as there aren't homeless encampments in the Palisades. Your heavy voting base is annoyed, but have other serious issues that are a higher priority, like violent crime, poverty, and education issues with LA unified.
I love LA. I really do. But we've got a lot of diverse issues that need addressing on a constant basis, just to keep our heads above water.
There's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Imagine you had practically unlimited funds. In other words some large number, but not millions of dollars per homeless individual. How would you solve homelessness?
Let's imagine with the most straight forward solution. You simply make them not homeless by giving them a home. Now you've suddenly set this city to face a massive increase of migration of homeless individuals who'd also like a free home. You're also going to face antagonism from the general population who end up spending huge chunks of their income just to get a small space to call their own. Free public housing, if remotely tolerable, is something many regular people would also be attracted to. And if you kick the homeless out of this free housing once they start earning money, you've created quite the broken incentive system!
And then you have to consider the reason for homelessness. There are absolutely some individuals that end up homeless because of unfortunate circumstance outside of their control. Though for these individuals homelessness is often a brief affair before they get back on their feet anyhow. Among the other reasons for homelessness are mental health issues, substance abuse problems, and even choice where some individuals would rather be 'free' than participate in society.
I think when we look at solutions we often consider all homeless as the group of unfortunate circumstance. And they're indeed relatively easy to solve. Even just giving them a low interest loan would often be sufficient to get them back on their feet. But I'm not sure how large a chunk of all homeless these individuals are. And for the other individuals, homelessness may not even be their most significant obstacle to overcome.
In a way I see this like education. We constantly argue that lack of money is the reason America's educational results are slipping. And we ignore the fact that places like Vietnam outperform us on math and science with educational spending that's a tiny fraction of ours per student, even when parity adjusted. The point there is that money may just be a red herring. You can always claim the problem is not enough of it, when the real problem may be something much more fundamental with no easy solution.
Let's imagine with the most straight forward solution. You simply make them not homeless by giving them a home. Now you've suddenly set this city to face a massive increase of migration of homeless individuals who'd also like a free home. You're also going to face antagonism from the general population who end up spending huge chunks of their income just to get a small space to call their own. Free public housing, if remotely tolerable, is something many regular people would also be attracted to. And if you kick the homeless out of this free housing once they start earning money, you've created quite the broken incentive system!
And then you have to consider the reason for homelessness. There are absolutely some individuals that end up homeless because of unfortunate circumstance outside of their control. Though for these individuals homelessness is often a brief affair before they get back on their feet anyhow. Among the other reasons for homelessness are mental health issues, substance abuse problems, and even choice where some individuals would rather be 'free' than participate in society.
I think when we look at solutions we often consider all homeless as the group of unfortunate circumstance. And they're indeed relatively easy to solve. Even just giving them a low interest loan would often be sufficient to get them back on their feet. But I'm not sure how large a chunk of all homeless these individuals are. And for the other individuals, homelessness may not even be their most significant obstacle to overcome.
In a way I see this like education. We constantly argue that lack of money is the reason America's educational results are slipping. And we ignore the fact that places like Vietnam outperform us on math and science with educational spending that's a tiny fraction of ours per student, even when parity adjusted. The point there is that money may just be a red herring. You can always claim the problem is not enough of it, when the real problem may be something much more fundamental with no easy solution.
I'm pretty sure that if I had unlimited funds, I'd take the naive approach of fixing homelessness by building homes.
I'd design a mini-village for 5000 people, able to stand alone or surrounded by others. Then I'd build that, over and over again. I'd keep building as long as they kept coming.
I know this wouldn't solve the problem, but it would give those with a better handle on the situation more power to solve it.
I'd design a mini-village for 5000 people, able to stand alone or surrounded by others. Then I'd build that, over and over again. I'd keep building as long as they kept coming.
I know this wouldn't solve the problem, but it would give those with a better handle on the situation more power to solve it.
It is absurd that general change in the real estate market should change the tax revenue of the city. It doesn't naturally relate to the income of residents, the need for city services, or the cost to supply city services.
When the tax revenue goes up, the city gets addicted to it. When tax revenue goes down, the cuts are painful. This is part of what led to the various tax caps put in place in many states, which in turn causes problems like people who can't afford to move closer to where they work due to a tax rate reset.
Those tax caps should have been on the per-person revenue. That would tie revenue to population. It would prevent short-sighted politicians from expanding the budget during a real estate bubble, and would eliminate the need to make cuts when real estate crashes. Instead of having the budget be a function of property value and a tax rate, the tax rate would be a function of the population and the property value.
When the tax revenue goes up, the city gets addicted to it. When tax revenue goes down, the cuts are painful. This is part of what led to the various tax caps put in place in many states, which in turn causes problems like people who can't afford to move closer to where they work due to a tax rate reset.
Those tax caps should have been on the per-person revenue. That would tie revenue to population. It would prevent short-sighted politicians from expanding the budget during a real estate bubble, and would eliminate the need to make cuts when real estate crashes. Instead of having the budget be a function of property value and a tax rate, the tax rate would be a function of the population and the property value.
When housing gets more expensive it has a cascading effect. Need a plumber? That just got more expensive because that guy either has more expensive housing costs or commutes from farther away. Want a coffee? That coffee shop's rent has gone up and so are their prices.
The cost of literally everything goes up with property values and that applies to city services as well.
The cost of literally everything goes up with property values and that applies to city services as well.
To some extent yes, but barely.
Basing the budget on real estate value makes two incorrect assumptions:
1. city employees and contractors spend 100% of their money on real estate
2. city employees and contractors are immediately affected -- for example, by paying rent that instantly rises
These assumptions are so far from reality that it is better to assume that the revenue need not increase when real estate value increases.
Basing the budget on real estate value makes two incorrect assumptions:
1. city employees and contractors spend 100% of their money on real estate
2. city employees and contractors are immediately affected -- for example, by paying rent that instantly rises
These assumptions are so far from reality that it is better to assume that the revenue need not increase when real estate value increases.
1. Nobody is making that assumption. I already described two ways non-housing expenses go up with real estate. There are many more.
2. Cities need to build schools, water pipes, roads, traffic signals, etc when new people move to the area. Many of these expenses are immediate and impact fees aren't going to be high enough.
Tax caps are counter productive and there are no shortage of problems with funding fundamental services through municipal budgets. But taxing real estate can make sense.
2. Cities need to build schools, water pipes, roads, traffic signals, etc when new people move to the area. Many of these expenses are immediate and impact fees aren't going to be high enough.
Tax caps are counter productive and there are no shortage of problems with funding fundamental services through municipal budgets. But taxing real estate can make sense.
Tax caps are the lesser evil. Without them, time and time again, city management has shown irresponsibility.
The proposed modification, to a per-person cap, solves your complaint about new people moving to the area. If the cap is $4,000 per person and there are 40,000 people, the budget is $160,000,000. If another 10,000 people show up, for a total of 50,000, then the budget rises to $200,000,000. Each landowner pays their portion of the resulting budget according to land value.
The proposed modification, to a per-person cap, solves your complaint about new people moving to the area. If the cap is $4,000 per person and there are 40,000 people, the budget is $160,000,000. If another 10,000 people show up, for a total of 50,000, then the budget rises to $200,000,000. Each landowner pays their portion of the resulting budget according to land value.
That wasn't a complaint about the per person cap. It was a response to
> Basing the budget on real estate value makes two incorrect assumptions ...
My challenge to the per person cap is that
1) All prices in an area go up when property values go up. This means the per person cost of city services goes up.
2) It's a solution lacking a problem. Where's the benefit of a per person cap?
> Basing the budget on real estate value makes two incorrect assumptions ...
My challenge to the per person cap is that
1) All prices in an area go up when property values go up. This means the per person cost of city services goes up.
2) It's a solution lacking a problem. Where's the benefit of a per person cap?
Property tax caps also incentivize people to not move, which in a city like LA contributes to our traffic issue. If I live in Beverly Grove for 15 years, and my house has appreciated from $350k to $1.2M, and my new job has relocated from Century City to Pasadena (about a 20 mile difference), I may not be willing to move as my property taxes would jump substantially. Now, you're just adding another car occupying the freeway for an hour each way during rush hour.
I lived just east of SM for a few years, in the Sawtelle. As such I voted in LA, not SM, so I may be a bit off base.
One thing to remember is that LA is not very 'votey'. When the mayoral elections were going on, I actually did vote. When I looked up the percentages later, my single vote for the mayor was effectively the voice of 60,000 Los Angelenos. The participation rate in LA City is very low.
Something to factor in.
One thing to remember is that LA is not very 'votey'. When the mayoral elections were going on, I actually did vote. When I looked up the percentages later, my single vote for the mayor was effectively the voice of 60,000 Los Angelenos. The participation rate in LA City is very low.
Something to factor in.
Proposition 13 limits the revenue that localities can realize due to property value rises, of course.
It's my understanding of prop 13 that once a house is sold, the property taxes are re-assessed. I know some of the houses I've looked at in the past year would have had over $1,000 a month in property taxes, as an example.
Even with it being a sellers market w/ low inventory in the area, the property values tripling in the past decade have certainly helped the property tax income for the city.
Even with it being a sellers market w/ low inventory in the area, the property values tripling in the past decade have certainly helped the property tax income for the city.
That's kind of a weird system. Here they normalize your home's value against the average home value, so there's no change in tax owed if everyone's homes increased equally. Is there some reason they don't do that in LA?
The problem is that a city lacks the resources to manage a country-wide problem. A lack of social support, especially mental healthcare means that you have more than half a million schizophrenics aloe on the streets. The war on drugs creates yet another class of “untouchables” and the crossover between drug use and mental illness muddies the issue. This is something the federal government and states need to consider from the ground up, but instead they just shunt money to private sector cronies, prisons, and cops.
I think that's fair, but there's a minimum they could be doing locally that they're not. If we can't fundamentally solve the problem, we can find some better ways to manage it locally.
There's a bridge on RT 2 near the Glendale / Silver Lake area that can't be described as anything other than a public health hazard due to the amount of people, junk, and debris that line the sidewalks. The city chooses not to address it (for, what I optimistically hope are legitimate reasons), but it's been that way for going on 2 years now, so I begin to wonder.
I appreciate the complexity of the drug & mental health issues (have an aunt who has been homeless much of her life b/c of mental health issues), and I also understand how as a society we decided to allow those with mental health issues to have the right to not enter treatment. It's a massively complicated situation (hence me not really stating true solutions, other than finding ways to incentivize better collective action).
There's a bridge on RT 2 near the Glendale / Silver Lake area that can't be described as anything other than a public health hazard due to the amount of people, junk, and debris that line the sidewalks. The city chooses not to address it (for, what I optimistically hope are legitimate reasons), but it's been that way for going on 2 years now, so I begin to wonder.
I appreciate the complexity of the drug & mental health issues (have an aunt who has been homeless much of her life b/c of mental health issues), and I also understand how as a society we decided to allow those with mental health issues to have the right to not enter treatment. It's a massively complicated situation (hence me not really stating true solutions, other than finding ways to incentivize better collective action).
The police aren't the problem. They're just the enforcers. The problem is that nobody wants to deal with homelessness. They just want the homeless to go somewhere else. And one mechanism is harassment by the courts.
California has good weather and spends a ton of money every year on homeless support services.
If you’re homeless, why wouldn’t you come to California?
If you’re homeless, why wouldn’t you come to California?
It makes sense to me.
However, as I recall from previous discussion, most California homeless come from California.
However, as I recall from previous discussion, most California homeless come from California.
From self reported surveys based on basically nothing. I don’t believe it. It also doesn’t say in what way they were living here and for how long. When you talk to homeless people in San Francisco, a lot of them traveled here from out of town.
I'm suspicious too. I mean, if I became homeless, I'd head for California or the Oregon coast.
But about San Francisco, "out of town" could mean elsewhere in California.
But about San Francisco, "out of town" could mean elsewhere in California.
If you’re homeless then moving isn’t easy, unless you really like to walk or can scrounge money for a bus or two. Then you’re in a new place you’ve never been, which means any of the tricks and connections you had have to be rebuilt from scratch. The stakes are pretty high when you’re living from day to day, and a change of weather is probably only worth it if you’re in a very cold place to begin with.
Good points. Hopping trains and hitchhiking don't work so well these days. But buses don't cost too much. Also, I suspect that many homeless have smartphones. And that there are social-media networks for sharing "tricks and connections".
I'm not sure that's fair on the voters of LA. We passed a $1.2B sales tax to specifically try to go after the problem here (and not just push them somewhere else).
As for the police, I honestly don't think I've ever seen one police officer harass a homeless person (or anyone really harass them, for that matter). Santa Monica police were always remarkably respectful when dealing with the homeless population there, and I don't believe I've ever witnessed an interaction between LAPD and any of the homeless near my current home.
As for the police, I honestly don't think I've ever seen one police officer harass a homeless person (or anyone really harass them, for that matter). Santa Monica police were always remarkably respectful when dealing with the homeless population there, and I don't believe I've ever witnessed an interaction between LAPD and any of the homeless near my current home.
OK, perhaps LA is doing something about it. But LA courts were harassing homeless with ridiculous fines. I suspect that $35 would be a major budget item for a homeless person. Let alone additional tickets for failure to appear and pay. The article notes that arrests of homeless accounted for over 10% of total arrests in 2011, and almost 17% in 2016.
Officers can be respectful while ticketing and arresting the homeless. And perhaps Santa Monica isn't targeting homeless as much as LA generally.
Officers can be respectful while ticketing and arresting the homeless. And perhaps Santa Monica isn't targeting homeless as much as LA generally.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts above, part of my experience is that the homeless are frequently harassing people and businesses on a daily basis to the level that I can believe the arrest rate should / could be higher. Whether it’s the woman who walked up to me, spit in my face, and then started screaming at me, or the countless guys who have followed my wife aggressively while walking home, it’s a major safety issue. I can imagine that in many situations, the police make whatever arrest they can in the moment, but lack the supporting evidence for more major charges, leading to situations where the “fines” look like the “cause” for arrest, but it’s not really.
I say all this, but again reiterate that I hurt every day I have to walk four blocks to get groceries, and pass a dozen people in a remarkable state of sadness and disrepair. I want each and every one of them to get the help they deserve as human beings (regardless of why they got there, what their race or country of origin, just don’t care... they are human beings who deserve our support). But, i know it’s a collective action issue, and potentially a national issue, and so we have to find a way to make elect officials at a local and national level who are capable of addressing this challenge.
I say all this, but again reiterate that I hurt every day I have to walk four blocks to get groceries, and pass a dozen people in a remarkable state of sadness and disrepair. I want each and every one of them to get the help they deserve as human beings (regardless of why they got there, what their race or country of origin, just don’t care... they are human beings who deserve our support). But, i know it’s a collective action issue, and potentially a national issue, and so we have to find a way to make elect officials at a local and national level who are capable of addressing this challenge.
I remember reading something a while back on how a large portion of the homeless in LA were being bussed here from other cities and states. Las Vegas has been doing it for a while. Other nearby cities used to send their homeless to Santa Monica as they let them camp out in the city parks. It'd be interesting to see how many of the homeless are natives or not.
This is very much the case in Seattle.
A group of my neighbors spoke with several residents in an unauthorized encampment that setup near I-5. We learned that a few of them were from Houston, TX. They had been given one-way tickets, paid for by the State of Texas, to one of any number of cities. They signed forms that said they promised not to return to Texas, otherwise they would be arrested.
A recent local study here in Seattle found that a significant percentage (maybe 30%) of our homeless are from outside the state of Washington.
A group of my neighbors spoke with several residents in an unauthorized encampment that setup near I-5. We learned that a few of them were from Houston, TX. They had been given one-way tickets, paid for by the State of Texas, to one of any number of cities. They signed forms that said they promised not to return to Texas, otherwise they would be arrested.
A recent local study here in Seattle found that a significant percentage (maybe 30%) of our homeless are from outside the state of Washington.
Are you sure you are not just remembering this South Park Episode?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Homeless
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Homeless
It may sound like a comedy plot, but it's not.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-bus-201803...
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-expanding-program-bused-10k-hom...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-bus-201803...
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-expanding-program-bused-10k-hom...
Every city does it so until someone comes up with relevant numbers I have to assume it's a wash. The only time it comes up is when people want to justify treating people inhumanely because "they're not from here".
Do you have some evidence that every city does it? That sounds like an unreasonable assumption to me. If it's the case I would think there would be quite a bit of evidence of various cities doing it, given how many there are.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
Google "homeless bus tickets" and a city name.
Though the article makes it sound like expensive cities come out ahead with the vast majority of people being sent to lower cost destinations.
Google "homeless bus tickets" and a city name.
Though the article makes it sound like expensive cities come out ahead with the vast majority of people being sent to lower cost destinations.
[deleted]
Reminds me of the strong opposition in Irvine against emergency homeless shelters:
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/27/o-c-supervisors-rescin...
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/27/o-c-supervisors-rescin...
Fortunately it is easy to see where LA collects its funds and how it spends them at http://cao.lacity.org/budget/ Nine billion dollars per year with about 133m for homelessness? Though I was surprised at the nearly 2.5 billion for pensions and retirement programs. Depending on where you are in the document 42 cents of each dollar is accounted for in Police and Fire. You could presumably associate money with Home/Community environment services as part of the homelessness issue as it does do the cleanup
Why exactly did you move? I live in Venice and while I won't dispute that homelessness is our #1 problem, I'd say it comes with the territory and it certainly isn't enough to make me consider leaving this amazing place.
I worked in entertainment, so I had much incentive to stay.
The main factor was stress, which was causing me health issues. I transitioned to tech, and now my wife and I both work remotely, so we searched a bunch of cities with airports nearby on the West Coast, and chose an arean north of San Diego.
Our blood tests both show a marked improvement in health, and my issues (gout mainly) have gone away completely.
The main factor was stress, which was causing me health issues. I transitioned to tech, and now my wife and I both work remotely, so we searched a bunch of cities with airports nearby on the West Coast, and chose an arean north of San Diego.
Our blood tests both show a marked improvement in health, and my issues (gout mainly) have gone away completely.
Good for you, but I'm not sure what this has to do with the homeless issue. Your comment seemed to insinuate that you left because of it.
+1 for the area north of SD improving health!
I would interpret the headline as indicating a huge increase in absolute numbers, and I don't find it misleading. I've seen much more misleading interpretations and explanations of statistics (not necessarily intentional).
Relative to the rise in the homeless population, there is no increase in arrests of homeless people. There's a decrease.
Reading this, I wondered whether this database maintained by the LA Times would be illegal anywhere that fell under the new EU GDPR regulations. It doesn't look anonymised.
Deep domain knowledge required to extract value from data.... Not such a surprise!
Not a surprise, but the story is a good small example of the problem, written out with enough detail for non-experts to follow. Answering a very simple question necessitated the use of a mix of skills like interviewing the homeless, persuading a government agency to release data and hacking the structure of Excel documents.
Agree. I guess that I should amend to :
"getting the data, ingesting the data, using deep domain knowledge". My point is/was that the super duper ML and visualisation is secondary (initially). What I've seen is that the above list is table stakes, after which (quite a long time after) someone realises that they can do something interesting with analysis. The next step is that we realise that. everything. we. thought. about. this. is. wrong.. Then much interesting thing!
"getting the data, ingesting the data, using deep domain knowledge". My point is/was that the super duper ML and visualisation is secondary (initially). What I've seen is that the above list is table stakes, after which (quite a long time after) someone realises that they can do something interesting with analysis. The next step is that we realise that. everything. we. thought. about. this. is. wrong.. Then much interesting thing!
Local police departments are using that Broken Window theory to harass the Homeless so they leave, or end up in jail.
In my county, we don't have much crime, but Homlessness was inching up there.
Hell, I live in Marin County. The enclave to the successful Founders. They make their wad, and many end up here. They like to "act" liberal.
Well, the cops basically harass the homeless. I have an aqqaintance who lives basically in a Scotch Broom thicket.
He told me the how the Coos are ticketing for everything. If you claim you didn't do one of these alleged crimes, they just come down on you harder. He said, I live in fear. I used to worry about dying on the streets with pneumonia; now I worry I will end up in San Quentin. 'Hell--maybe, I'd be better off?'
Marin County dosen's have a big crime problem, but Homlessness was inching up.
I recently saw a middle aged women commit the crime of sitting on a sidewalk. She just sat down. I thought she must be tired.
Well five cops came raining down on her.
A big female cop, picked her up, threw her against a wall, and frisked her aggressively. The cop appeared to enjoy treating this women terribly? Yes--the cop seemingly enjoyed her job too much?
Cops, "I don't recognize her? She must be homeless?"
They then emptied her purse on the sidewalk. A tampon, and a stick of Chapstick rolled into the wet gutter. Her well worn journal/phone book was face down getting wet. It was a depressing scene.
It seemed like they were all asking her questions at the same time. They warned her to, "just get on that bus!"
They took digital pictures of her.
The whole ugly incident was out of a Spielberg picture.
I couldn't believe the way she was being treated. Most of us would be taliking to a lawyer after an incident like that?
This is America's new way of dealing with Homlessness.
My county has basically one homeless shelter. It's usually filled up, and has a arms list of rules.
Again, my county has very little crime. We just have people who were inched out of the game. Some had mental breakdowns. Some were screwed over by family members--"loved ones". Sone just lost their job.
Many were former Programmers, or at least the one's I'm familiar with. Yes--it seems like a lot of Programmers end up homless?
It makes sence in a way. You turn forty/fifty, and you're expendable. No unions. Usually--far from family. No options? And no real skills. You spent your best days thinking everything will be o.k., until that day. You show up to interviews, but no call backs. Your skills get rusty. The bank account dwindles.
I'm really appalled at how cites are taking care of the Homeless problem. All I can do is write about what I see.
And yes--I'm very close to being harassed by some cop too. Great feeling?
Let me repeat, my county has very little crime. So little, newspapers use police logs as humor. For instance,"Woman reported ugly man picking lemons off the ground. We couldn't find perpetrator after a lengthy search of the neighborhood."
I guess Rudy's way of cleaning up New York is the new norm? Harass, and use the system to get them to move?
The problem is my county has virtually no crime? We just can't afford another rate increase, and many if us have no social network to fall back upon.
In my county, we don't have much crime, but Homlessness was inching up there.
Hell, I live in Marin County. The enclave to the successful Founders. They make their wad, and many end up here. They like to "act" liberal.
Well, the cops basically harass the homeless. I have an aqqaintance who lives basically in a Scotch Broom thicket.
He told me the how the Coos are ticketing for everything. If you claim you didn't do one of these alleged crimes, they just come down on you harder. He said, I live in fear. I used to worry about dying on the streets with pneumonia; now I worry I will end up in San Quentin. 'Hell--maybe, I'd be better off?'
Marin County dosen's have a big crime problem, but Homlessness was inching up.
I recently saw a middle aged women commit the crime of sitting on a sidewalk. She just sat down. I thought she must be tired.
Well five cops came raining down on her.
A big female cop, picked her up, threw her against a wall, and frisked her aggressively. The cop appeared to enjoy treating this women terribly? Yes--the cop seemingly enjoyed her job too much?
Cops, "I don't recognize her? She must be homeless?"
They then emptied her purse on the sidewalk. A tampon, and a stick of Chapstick rolled into the wet gutter. Her well worn journal/phone book was face down getting wet. It was a depressing scene.
It seemed like they were all asking her questions at the same time. They warned her to, "just get on that bus!"
They took digital pictures of her.
The whole ugly incident was out of a Spielberg picture.
I couldn't believe the way she was being treated. Most of us would be taliking to a lawyer after an incident like that?
This is America's new way of dealing with Homlessness.
My county has basically one homeless shelter. It's usually filled up, and has a arms list of rules.
Again, my county has very little crime. We just have people who were inched out of the game. Some had mental breakdowns. Some were screwed over by family members--"loved ones". Sone just lost their job.
Many were former Programmers, or at least the one's I'm familiar with. Yes--it seems like a lot of Programmers end up homless?
It makes sence in a way. You turn forty/fifty, and you're expendable. No unions. Usually--far from family. No options? And no real skills. You spent your best days thinking everything will be o.k., until that day. You show up to interviews, but no call backs. Your skills get rusty. The bank account dwindles.
I'm really appalled at how cites are taking care of the Homeless problem. All I can do is write about what I see.
And yes--I'm very close to being harassed by some cop too. Great feeling?
Let me repeat, my county has very little crime. So little, newspapers use police logs as humor. For instance,"Woman reported ugly man picking lemons off the ground. We couldn't find perpetrator after a lengthy search of the neighborhood."
I guess Rudy's way of cleaning up New York is the new norm? Harass, and use the system to get them to move?
The problem is my county has virtually no crime? We just can't afford another rate increase, and many if us have no social network to fall back upon.
> Again, my county has very little crime. We just have people who were inched out of the game. Some had mental breakdowns. Some were screwed over by family members--"loved ones". So[m]e just lost their job.
I'm sure that many homeless "were inched out of the game". Homelessness was a huge problem in the 1930s. And many homeless do have mental problems. Also substance abuse, which is partly self-medication for mental problems. All exacerbated by being "inched out of the game".
Back in the 80s, homelessness exploded after funding for psychiatric institutions got cut during the Reagan administration. Many people hit the street, with virtually no support. But which is worse, really? Being stuck in a ward, over-medicated into passivity? Or dumped on the street?
It's a hard problem.
I'm sure that many homeless "were inched out of the game". Homelessness was a huge problem in the 1930s. And many homeless do have mental problems. Also substance abuse, which is partly self-medication for mental problems. All exacerbated by being "inched out of the game".
Back in the 80s, homelessness exploded after funding for psychiatric institutions got cut during the Reagan administration. Many people hit the street, with virtually no support. But which is worse, really? Being stuck in a ward, over-medicated into passivity? Or dumped on the street?
It's a hard problem.
Although you are right that the Republican - Democratic struggle about which level of government should be responsible for the patients did play a part, it was not just not about defunding. There was a growing public opposition against institutionalization. The 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is just one example of criticism against the contemporary pshycatric care model.
Also, in the 60-70s there was (and there still is?) an over-belief in how medication could solve the problem.
Also, in the 60-70s there was (and there still is?) an over-belief in how medication could solve the problem.
Yes, I remember the debate over institutionalization. And I recall visiting a humongous facility on Long Island. It was almost a small city.
Also, I'm seriously into "live free or die fighting", so institutionalization is distasteful. I was technically homeless for several years, back in the day. I lived with friends, in group squats, in remote forest cabins, in tents and tipis, in vans, etc. But I was young and crazy, and it was fun and romantic. And it was entirely voluntary. Now, however, it wouldn't be so much fun.
Also, I'm seriously into "live free or die fighting", so institutionalization is distasteful. I was technically homeless for several years, back in the day. I lived with friends, in group squats, in remote forest cabins, in tents and tipis, in vans, etc. But I was young and crazy, and it was fun and romantic. And it was entirely voluntary. Now, however, it wouldn't be so much fun.
Oh, I can answer that one!
Being in the streets is worse. A lot worse.
Being in the streets is worse. A lot worse.
I couldn't believe the way she was being treated. Most of us would be taliking to a lawyer after an incident like that?
This is America's new way of dealing with Homlessness
The internet tells me [1] that California does allow recording the police in public. I don't suppose you know of any civil rights groups doing "sting" type actions against this sort of thing?
[1] http://resources.uscannenbergmedia.com/2016/08/videotaping-a...
This is America's new way of dealing with Homlessness
The internet tells me [1] that California does allow recording the police in public. I don't suppose you know of any civil rights groups doing "sting" type actions against this sort of thing?
[1] http://resources.uscannenbergmedia.com/2016/08/videotaping-a...
Nothing says pathos like incorrect use of question marks?
"An XLSX file is just a zip of xml files" is definitely a useful tidbit I will keep in my toolbox. I have clients at my day-job who send us Excel files all the time, even after explicitly cautioning them that the software only works with CSV.
You'd be surprised how many proprietary-seeming formats are similar. I frequently work with one that's just a gzipped tarball of JSON files, but people freak out when I'm able to see what's inside it without the proprietary tooling it's used by.
I know that at least .docx is a zip of xml also. As far as I know all of the .*x microsoft office formats are
Came to say something similar. There was a discussion a couple of weeks back on Metafilter about using this technique to modify comments within Word files. Handy knowledge to have: https://ask.metafilter.com/320606/Removing-timestamps-from-c...
At my previous job we were working on a project that had a "propertiary" format that was just an XML file with a different file extension. At some point they asked to GZIP that XML before saving, though.
So one day, I'm sitting at customer's office, working on something different, when they come and tell me they have this problem when the application is fed this particular file. I say to one of their devs, show me the file in text editor. They open it, and seeing garbage, say "it's no use". I immediately recognized the ZIP header, so I tell them, unzip it and open the output. Lo and behold, an XML content that let me debug their problem without running the application. Their technical people were impressed by my "wizardy".
(Probably one of the reasons why they later asked my colleague to "encrypt" the file by running some binary transformation on the zipped XML before saving it.)
So one day, I'm sitting at customer's office, working on something different, when they come and tell me they have this problem when the application is fed this particular file. I say to one of their devs, show me the file in text editor. They open it, and seeing garbage, say "it's no use". I immediately recognized the ZIP header, so I tell them, unzip it and open the output. Lo and behold, an XML content that let me debug their problem without running the application. Their technical people were impressed by my "wizardy".
(Probably one of the reasons why they later asked my colleague to "encrypt" the file by running some binary transformation on the zipped XML before saving it.)
Ableton Live .als files are also gzipped .xml files.
Apple Numbers/Pages/Keynote documents are also zip files. They're not XML inside, but there is always a PDF preview in there.
More technically, those documents (and other Apple-spawned formats such as TextEdit's .rtfd) are "document bundles"—a directory hierarchy with a file extension or xattr that makes Launch Services treat it as a file. (The most well-known document bundles being macOS applications.)
The storage frameworks used for accessing the contents of document bundles treat zip archives as transparent, so a document bundle is still a document bundle if you zip its contents and then give it the name of the original directory.
And the reverse is also true: take, for example, an .epub (which is a zipped hierarchy of HTML files) and unzip its contents into a new directory. Name that directory "foo.epub". iBooks will happily open this "file." And it stores the .epubs you've imported into your iCloud Library this way on disk!
The storage frameworks used for accessing the contents of document bundles treat zip archives as transparent, so a document bundle is still a document bundle if you zip its contents and then give it the name of the original directory.
And the reverse is also true: take, for example, an .epub (which is a zipped hierarchy of HTML files) and unzip its contents into a new directory. Name that directory "foo.epub". iBooks will happily open this "file." And it stores the .epubs you've imported into your iCloud Library this way on disk!
It's bloody complicated, weird XML though. So don't expect it to be easy.
It's been like that since they switched over to xslx in 2007 or whatever.
It's been like that since they switched over to xslx in 2007 or whatever.
It is an ECMA spec though: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/gg607163%28v...
The format used by Microsoft Office differs from the ECMA spec (how much I'm not sure). By default it saves it in a different format. You have to choose a Strict filetype for that format to be used. Meaning, most files out there don't follow the spec. Further, some bits of the spec are quite strange ("follow the behaviour of Word/WordPerfect"). See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML.
I believe one can also embed images and possibly other content that end up in the embedded files. However, if you ever need to perform basic manipulation then all you need to care about is ZIP + XML.
AFAIR the embedded files simply end up in the ZIP structure and are referenced by XML documents.
This was a result of microsoft's settlement with the DOJ over the anti-trust case. Since then all microsoft docs end in .*x and are simply zipped xml files with an open format.
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...from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Homeless population in the city of LA is up 48% just since 2013. The reporters data shows a 31% increase in the amount of arrests of homeless people. So, per-capita arrests have gone down. That's basic statistics.
That would indicate that the headline of the article supported by the data...
Huge increase in arrests of homeless in L.A. — but mostly for minor offenses
..is misleading.
I lived in Santa Monica during the same time period. The homeless population has skyrocketed along with homeless crime. We moved further south because of the problem. The LA Times is a joke.
The LAPD are not the best police department in the country, but I do believe they're doing their best with a complex problem the rest of our society has chosen to ignore since the 1980s.
The homeless problem is not due to the police, but they are the ones we unfairly expect to deal with it.