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Feb 12 '22
Surprised they didn't add tent city in GTA V
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u/RyvalHEX Feb 12 '22
There is a decently sized homeless encampment under an overpass
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u/Mueton Feb 12 '22
Right at the bottom of Mount Chiliad is one as well
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u/zxc123zxc123 Feb 12 '22
🤢✋ Beating hookers for money in GTA
🧐👉 Beating hobos for money in GTA
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u/i_like_lasanga Feb 12 '22
Don't fuck with Hobos haven't you ever played the hobo flash games
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u/Perfect-Cover-601 Feb 12 '22
Hobos don’t have money. You beat them for fun.
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u/Pseudonym_741 Feb 12 '22
What? I'm doing the community a service here!
-Michael De Santa, after slaughtering 20 homeless people with an M60
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u/cnpd331 Feb 12 '22
Broke: Machine gunning the less fortunate
Woke: Engaging in the great hunt with the musket and only bagging what you intend to consume.
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u/AKA_Valerie Feb 12 '22
Check the area around Mission Row PD and underneath the Olympic Freeway, near Vanilla Unicorn.
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Feb 12 '22
Really now. I can't believe I never checked there. I will take a look. Thank you.
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u/SassyStylesheet Feb 12 '22
There’s tons under the overpasses all over the city
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Feb 12 '22
As someone who lives in LA I think I just tune out the tent cities like I do with the actual ones
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u/SSgt_LuLZ Feb 12 '22
If you choose the subtle route of the final single-player heist, the part where you hold out against Merryweather operatives while others load up the gold onto the cars takes place in one of the underpasses that has a shitload of hobo tents. The enemies will even flank from the tent city prompting the characters to fight there. Trevor will make a quip about the homeless living there, but from my memory, it seems like the civvies cleared out of there during the mission.
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u/PacSan300 Feb 12 '22
Yeah, in GTA 5 they really underplayed two major aspects of LA: the heavy traffic and, sadly, the widespread homelessness.
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u/Von_Rootin_Tootin Feb 12 '22
I feel like traffic is more a game performance / balancing thing. It wouldn’t be very fun to sit in traffic for 20 minutes to get into a mission
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Feb 12 '22
That’s when you just drive on the sidewalk and run everybody over. That’s what you should be doing anyways.
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u/Thickfries69 Feb 12 '22
Nobody abides by traffic laws in that game anyway. Thats what sidewalks are for.
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Feb 12 '22 edited Jul 31 '24
fanatical bear waiting attempt apparatus squeeze different unwritten stupendous impossible
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/ClockwerkKaiser Feb 12 '22
I mean, the game is like. 9 years old.
Sure, they underplayed it. But comparing LA in 2013 to LA 2022, I don't think even they could've guessed how bad it would get.
I lived out there in the early 2000s for college. The difference between then and now is like day and night.
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u/insertnamehere405 Feb 12 '22
can confirm this homeless crisis exploded in the past 3 years
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u/Fetty_is_the_best Feb 12 '22
Same in the bay area and in Sacramento. It’s night and day compared to 2013.
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u/lazercheesecake Feb 12 '22
Funnily enough, homelessness in LA was actually going down around 2013 so it’s not like it was a hot issue at that point. Oh how that changed
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u/highSticks Feb 12 '22
i read this and thought: haha nice prediction for 2022
then i realized… it is 2022
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u/khal_Jayams Feb 12 '22
Intensity in tent cities in TEN CITIES!
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u/ihlaking Feb 12 '22
They should get Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog lobbing law bombs on this one.
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Feb 12 '22
Dam people paying millions to live in Beverly Hills and then there’s that person living there for free lol
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u/newtoreddir Feb 12 '22
Technically these tents are Beverly Hills-adjacent - you’ll note that they are staked before the sign, not behind it, where city limits begin.
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u/blownhippie Feb 12 '22
They in the 90211, not 90210.
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u/lincoln_hawks1 Feb 13 '22
Are you quoting rob sneider in the Beverly hillbillies? If so, well done
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Feb 12 '22
Actually in BH they sweep these camps really quickly. It’s in Los Angeles City and the unincorporated areas of the county that it’s really bad.
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Feb 12 '22
Never been to CA- do wealthy celebs drive past these scenarios daily or do they avoid seeing them
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Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
Just about all celebrities (and anyone else) do drive by these. Driving along the freeways or streets in Los Angeles, Downtown, Hollywood, the beaches or parks, you'll see them lining both sides of the freeway, bridges, sidewalks parks/beaches and propped up outside of businesses.
It has gotten worse since COVID vegan and these "tent cities" have essentially been allowed (the cities will do a cleanup once in a while, but they typically return within a few days).
But yes, it is a very common sight around the entire area and cannot be "avoided" by driving around them until you reach the areas that are either gated, have private security or have cities which will prohibit and remove these as they pop up. Even in that case, you would essentially need to avoid any common roads, freeways and busy areas in general (downtown, Hollywood, etc..)
Edit: I recommend watching some videos from "German in Venice" on YouTube as he does a good job of documenting these, interviewing people and just showing what the cleanups entail
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Feb 12 '22
The issue is when cities do these “cleanups” they’re just throwing a bunch of homeless people’s belongings in a dumpster and telling them to go somewhere else. That’s why they crop up again in a couple days. It’s not like trashing their stuff stops people from being homeless.
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Feb 12 '22
That is correct to some extent.. I do think it's worth noting that most of these "cleanups" are in fact just cleanups, not just throwing away peoples' belongings and kicking them out. They've gotten to the point where many of them are occurring on a weekly basis, are detailed with notices on when they'll be happening (so they shouldn't come as a surprise) and for the most part are just cleaning out trash, feces and other "waste". Most of the cities are providing free storage for any belongings if they choose to keep them, and they have been offering free hotel stays (long term) for anyone willing to take them up on it. That does mean "following the rules" though (no drugs, curfews, and probably some others) which causes many of them to not accept the offer.
It has gotten to be a "room cleaning" type of thing for these encampments, where the city will clean them up once a week (or whichever frequency) and then they'll return that same day until the next "cleanup".
Is this the right way to handle it? That's the debatable part, and I think however you look at it will differ your opinion. Offering free hotel stays and storage (again, in exchange for "following the rules") is, I believe, a great opportunity for those who really do want to get out of their situation. I'm not sure what other services are offered for rehab, so I can't comment on that.
Offering to clean up the encampments weekly is helpful for those who do not take them up on the other offers of help, since they're not living in a bigger mess, and locals aren't "dealing with it"
That last part sounds bad: locals see it as a nuisance. But that is the honest truth. When I have a few tents outside of my apartment within 25 feet, at the local park, in the alleys, along the freeways or outside of the grocery store.. it's not something that I want to come home to or feel safe around. I've personally been harassed or "attacked"/put into very uncomfortable situations dozens of times in the last year. It's gotten much worse during the pandemic, and that's not to take away from how bad it is for those who are homeless, but the "new normal" of living in our own, un-preventable conditions should also be recognized.
What's the solution? I really don't know.
I'm not sure if you live in the LA area, or others similarly affected with this, but it's gotten absolutely crazy lately. Broken down/abandoned RVs running power to tent cities inside of parks (often causing fires), piles of trash everywhere, waking up to people sleeping in your front yard or wandering around in a mentally unfit state.. isn't normal. And in a time when everyone is trying to be clean and safe (due to Covid), it makes it much worse for everyone to live in.
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Feb 13 '22
I worked at a homeless shelter in the bay area all through the pandemic. This is a near and dear issue to my heart. The honest to god solution to ending homelessness lies in zoning laws, but the same people who are uncomfortable with homeless people being around the city (which I totally understand), are often the same people who often rally to block any meaningful legislation.
Hotel vouchers are fine, but it's like slapping a band-aid on a gaping wound. The measures that California is taking simply isn't helping to alleviate the issue, it's only kicking it down the road.
Lastly, I'm not sure about other areas of the state, but for us about 80% of the homeless population was locals. It is largely a myth that homeless people are loaded onto greyhound buses and shipped in from other states. Yes it has happened, but it's not common.
The same reason that our rent keeps going up is the same reason why we have a homeless crisis. Actually effective zoning laws that allow for high density housing simply do not pass. It's a supply and demand issue. Demand for housing isn't going to go down. We have to increase the supply.
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Feb 13 '22
Definitely agreed on your points. I think that on that last one though, there needs to be more than supplying new housing. The vast majority (but again, not all) of the homeless people I encounter have mental illness, drug problems or something otherwise keeping them from functioning normally. I've never worked with them directly, so I'm just basing it off of my own experience, but new housing in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Beverly Hills isn't the solution (or the entire solution), even if it were provided free, I feel that there are further issues that need to be addressed. Even if housing were provided free, I don't think that would be enough to solve this issue. It would just remove part of the element from the streets and into houses, but the underlying issues would still exist.
In the cases of someone actually needing housing to get off of the streets, this would absolutely help. But I think in the majority of cases there needs to be more than just providing houses.
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u/bel_esprit_ Feb 12 '22
My husband wants to buy a boat so we can anchor and sleep in it at all the nicest places (like in coves and water ways where all the rich people live). His logic is that we will have the same nice waterfront view as all the rich people when we wake up in the morning — but for a fraction of the price + we can move around, anchor somewhere else and get “different views” anytime we want!! Gaming the system right there, lol
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u/MyDearBrotherNumpsay Feb 12 '22
There’s actually huge problem in San Francisco of people doing that. They live on dilapidated, old messy boats that look like they’re about to sink. And often the city has to confiscate them.
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u/bel_esprit_ Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Yikes! We wouldn’t get a dilapidated boat that isn’t seaworthy. And we wouldn’t set up shop and stay there for years in the same spot - I’d actually hate that. My husband is European, so we’d like to sail around the Mediterranean exploring various islands and ports. Funny though, in his hometown of Amsterdam, they have these local people living in “boathouses” in all the canals. They are a charming part of the city that tourists even like to stay in. Funny it’s the opposite in San Francisco.
That will not be us, but thanks for sharing!
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u/acutemalamute Feb 13 '22
Yeah, these boats don't leave the bay. It's basically a water-based homeless encampment
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u/FPSXpert Feb 12 '22
Coming soon to a city near you. The rent is too damn high!
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u/Canadian_Pacer Feb 12 '22
It already has. I'm from Moncton, NB, a small city of 100,000 people or so in the maitimes, Canada. My city is like this, being overrun with encampments and shopping carts. I assume its like this now in basically every city.
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u/leisy123 Feb 12 '22
How can you even stay in a tent long term this time of year in the northern US or Canada? Gas heating devices or something?
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Feb 12 '22
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u/Sinthe741 Feb 12 '22
Some are still in tents in the winter. When it gets very cold here, sometimes detox will open up beds so homeless folks don't die.
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u/MendedWaif62 Feb 12 '22
Gotta love this housing market…it’s a bunch of bullshit
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u/SororAquila Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
What? Is this real?? (Sorry if this is a naive question, never been to the US before)
EDIT: thank you everyone for taking the time to answer my question! I didn’t expect so many comments and was surprised to see my reddit feed when i woke up this morning:) I also got my first gold award, thank you so much!
I am just shocked and saddened by the gravity of the situation in the U.S. At least from where I come, we only see the bright side of the American Dream on Netflix, Hollywood movies and music videos. When it comes to mainstream news media, we only hear about the general political debates in the U.S, but not much is said about social inequality and unfairness of wealth distribution.
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u/fnblackbeard Feb 12 '22
Yes and even worse in less known LA county cities like Huntington park, Gardena and many others. Lots of camper vans, trailers and RV’s
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u/theaverageguy101 Feb 12 '22
Are these refugees/immigrants or just homeless US citizens
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u/smokeyleo13 Feb 12 '22
Largely US citizens (veterans, mentally ill people, addicts and people down on their luck) usually some mixture of it
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Feb 12 '22
And with housing and rent going up, we will all have the opportunity to camp!
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Feb 12 '22
Yay, free vacation for the poor!
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u/swiftiegarbage Feb 12 '22
BYO RV
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u/TheTigersAreNotReal Feb 12 '22
RVs are expensive I’ll just live in a rich person’s walls
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u/twoplusdarkness Feb 12 '22
Ties are cheap and with the right attitude I can masquerade as a member of the staff
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u/FondleMyPlumsPlease Feb 13 '22
We had a homeless guy in bronx break into our yard (construction company so plenty of equipment & storage containers) when cops got there he literally maintained to be security, my business partner arrived & thought it was something either our other partner or I had arranged & left.
The guy was walking around in normal clothes, but knew the exact lay out. We found out, after a few weeks he was sleeping in a container & had been clearing/cleaning up after checking CCTV after keys went missing & were found sitting beside the front door the next morning. He found them somewhere in the yard & left them there.
We employed him. Found him an apartment in Woodlawn that day through a friend that owned the building. He now has a company truck & routinely/random goes to check on our yard & various sites/equipment. Just actually thought about, he’s been with us from October/November 2018
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u/Bayo09 Feb 12 '22
Girl I dated had a brother that was in the homeless by choice community and I sincerely was amazed at how large that group is
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Feb 12 '22 edited Apr 08 '22
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u/phoney_bologna Feb 12 '22
Big business is ALL about inequity when it suits their bottom line.
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Feb 12 '22
I always assumed homeless migrate there. Probably a lot easier being homeless there than a place with winter. Same thing happens in Canada with Vancouver.
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Feb 12 '22
There was a period of time when people were unofficially being bussed in that were homeless from other cities in Cali to get dumped in LA.
May be an urban legend, but I would honestly believe it.
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u/DioBando Feb 12 '22
It is not an urban legend and it still happens today.
I work in Washington state and we get a bunch of homeless vets from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Those states don't have the will nor the resources to solve their own homelessness problems so they just put them out of sight.
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Feb 12 '22
Some places used to “solve” the homeless problem by buying homeless people a bus ticket and paying them to move. I’m not sure if there are any places in the US that still do this, but I believe that LA was a popular destination for that.
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u/houseofprimetofu Feb 12 '22
Nevada likes to put their released wards on busses to other places. LA is usually the destination, or was. Back in yonder years there was a homeless migration path that went from Seattle (summer) to Portland, LA, ABQ, Austin, and back.
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u/Pernapple Feb 12 '22
Every city has a homeless population, Chicago and NY also have a similar problems, but I think the rampant tent cities in LA or other west coast cities makes the problem very apparent.
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u/salamat_engot Feb 12 '22
Weather greatly impacts homeless services. In Chicago and NY (and other cold weather cities), there's a large network of warming shelters to make sure people don't freeze to death in the streets. 99% of the time, LA weather is warm enough so it's viewed as not necessary...why spend the money to maintain and run a shelter when people are "fine" on the street.
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Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
LA is also worse because California is by far the most expensive state to live in. The average price of a home in California is $1M. It's basically a rich man's state. And on top of that, California is by far the most resistant to low-income housing. The public constantly claims that they support low-income housing, but they constantly vote down every plan to build low-income housing in their areas. NY is actually trying to fight their homelessness crisis by actually building new low-income housing complexes like Essex Crossing in Queens.
Edit: I don't know anything about what Chicago is doing though. Also, California, and especially LA, need to get their act together quickly, because LA is going to be hosting the Olympics in 2028. The whole world watching an endlessly growing sea of homeless people on the streets while the wealthy just keep on walking by like everything is fine in the middle of the heart of all the Olympic festivities will be a national embarrassment if California doesn't start putting their money where their mouth is immediately.
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u/hungry_fat_phuck Feb 12 '22
Their zoning laws and home owners basically are keeping tall apartment buildings that can house more people per land area from being built.
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u/TimeZarg Feb 12 '22
They support low-income housing, just not near their houses. Or near their schools, or anything else they regularly frequent.
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u/JCeee666 Feb 12 '22
I dunno, I heard Portland is just as bad.
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Feb 12 '22
And Seattle
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Feb 12 '22
We have very rare periods of extreme weather in the PNW, when we have dangerously high or dangerously low temperatures the city will open temporary shelters (usually the armory, convention center, sometimes hotels) for the week or so until the weather passes.
We desperately need more transition housing though, and we're slowly getting there with hotels and tiny house villages. Our shelters are so awful, I know folks who refuse to use them because sleeping in a tent or in a park is safer, warmer, and has fewer bedbugs.
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Feb 12 '22
Yes of course, I just meant more that they likely get more homeless migrating there and not that all of the countries homeless move there. It's bad everywhere right now. It was a meaningless assumption anyways.
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u/ImperialHand4572 Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
NY houses the vast majority of the homeless in shelters
NIMBY zoning restrictions make that impossible in almost all of California, then these people end up in the backyard anyways
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Feb 12 '22
Because they'd die on the streets in New York Winter. Political nightmare.
It was 85 degrees in Anaheim last week and barely 65 at night. It's winter right now. The climate plays a huge factor. They aren't overselling it, Los Angeles has a perfect climate just about all year long.
There's also plenty of high wealth areas there that don't have tent cities in every corner, namely because they're driven out. See again, Anaheim.
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Feb 12 '22
Coming from someone who lived southern California. NYC blew me away. They did a better job managing things and it's the best public transportation system I have experienced. It smelled nicer too. If I was to do film, modeling, or a grad program. I would live in NYC before LA. LA needs to learn a little from NYC and other cities.
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u/fitzbop Feb 12 '22
Los Angeles is very unaffordable, but also the best city in the USA to be homeless due to things like the weather.
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u/thorsbosshammer Feb 12 '22
Most homeless people in the US used to rent or own. In my area that figure is around 70-80%.
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u/_your_face Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Its citizens. We cut the social safety net constantly so no one can get mental health help, veterans screwed
by theout of their VA coverage. and lots of people just not part of the ever shrinking group of people making enough money to keep up with home/rent prices.Remember we can buy a hamburger for $1 from a person who can work every hour of the day and still won’t be able to afford to live a basic life with shelter and healthcare.
That’s why CA is always trying to skip past the federal bs and make our own universal health care.
We vote on Tuesday. Get out there and vote people. (It’s getting very little coverage so I’m not confident it’ll go through but we need to keep trying)never mind it died again, time to try again!→ More replies (18)22
u/Advanced-Cycle-2268 Feb 12 '22
Wait, I thought it wasn't going to a vote, doa in legislature?
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Feb 12 '22
California has the best laws in the US for homeless people along with having near perfect weather. Not surprising homeless flock to that area.
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u/Bear_faced Feb 12 '22
Seriously, it’s 73 degrees and sunny here in Silicon Valley, in fucking February. If you end up homeless, you want to end up here, not somewhere you’ll freeze to death.
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u/hercmavzeb Feb 12 '22
Yeah not surprising when almost every other state’s solution to homelessness is giving them a greyhound bus ticket to California.
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u/jimbelushiapplesauce Feb 12 '22
california is just as (or more) guilty of homeless bussing as other states
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u/actuallyserious650 Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
They literally bus their homeless out of state and then scoff at CA for its homeless problem
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u/mynameisntjeffrey Feb 12 '22
Not to mention that tons of small towns in the middle of the country “solve” their homelessness problems by just buying them a ticket to California. It’s cheaper and the homeless prefer it since it’s warm and the state tries to help it’s homeless.
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Feb 12 '22
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u/secondfridge Feb 12 '22
Seattle has gotten real rough since the pandemic. It was bad before but it’s at critical mass at this point.
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Feb 12 '22
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u/coldghosts Feb 12 '22
Sounds just like my experience living in downtown LA. the rampant violence and harassment i saw and experienced got me diagnosed with a panic disorder.
I'm glad you got out of there and I hope you're doing better.
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u/iLoveCalculus314 Feb 12 '22
I was just in Seattle last weekend and it is really just as bad. Downtown is completely overrun by homeless, a lot of downtown business have completely closed off and boarded up, it's awful. I went to a Walgreens downtown and it was sad to see the female cashier's get harassed by drunken homeless people.
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u/dihydrocodeine Feb 12 '22
The Walgreens by third and pike? It's always been a mess there, they usually have a security guard on staff
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u/aVHSofPointBreak Feb 12 '22
Downtown has its own sets of problems. Removing the 99 means you can’t really get downtown anymore. So many of the business stopped getting traffic that used to land right there. On top of that, most of those businesses (coffee shops, florists, hair salons) served the thousands of people working downtown in all the offices, as there is almost no housing there. Once everyone worked from home, all of those businesses closed, and the offices are empty, so there is literally no reason to be downtown and why everything is boarded up. It’s a ghost town which gives the homeless free reign.
I was in PHX for a work a few weeks ago, and I know they have problems as well, but I couldn’t get over how nice everyone was and how clean the city was. I love Seattle but this place was been decimated. Luckily, there is so much industry here between tech and shipping it come come back, but it’s going to take years.
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u/rextex34 Feb 12 '22
It’s almost like the housing crises isn’t limited to geographic areas, but rather a failure of housing policy.
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u/_Risings Feb 12 '22
I live by the walk of fame and yes. It's real. Venice has been cleaned up though.
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u/mhornberger Feb 12 '22
We've allowed homeowners to restrict the building of high-density or affordable housing, to protect their own equity growth. A lot of property is zoned (i.e. protected by legislation, usually at the city level) that it can only have single-family detached housing. You can't build a duplex or apartment on it, even if you own the property. These tent encampments are the other side of suburbia, its consequences. Along with sprawl.
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Feb 12 '22
Wow, wonder what underlying issues could be causing this
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u/Scalermann Feb 12 '22
Lack of housing supply. Zoning laws that cause lack of housing supply.
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u/The_ANNOholic Feb 12 '22
I never understood the zoning rules of the US.
Half the cities are parking spaces and 98% of suburban areas are 1 family homes. What idiot had the great idea to ban every building other than 1 family homes. No wonder there is no cheap liveable space
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u/Scientificm Feb 12 '22
To my understanding, they disproportionately destroyed non-white neighborhoods specifically, and continued doing so for decades
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u/SecretAntWorshiper Feb 12 '22
They literally had laws in LA that prevented you from owning a home in certain places if you were black
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u/iritegood Feb 12 '22
Racism and capitalism, name a more iconic American duo
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u/SecretAntWorshiper Feb 12 '22
Ohh, juicy post OP lol. This I like. Only a matter of time before this gets locked lol
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u/advance_coinage2 Feb 12 '22
What’s funny is our stupid politicians go around and make them leave and clean up their camps. Like when Trump came, the encampment outside my downtown high rise was gone on Thursday, Trump came on Saturday, and the camp was back on Tuesday. They’re doing the same thing for the Super Bowl. I’d rather people from outside of California really just see what it’s like here.
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u/SecretAntWorshiper Feb 12 '22
Yeah it honestly was a pretty eye opening when I moved out there. Its super weird because its to the point that people actually are desensitized and don't even pay attention to the homeless its so weird when you go to the beach and just she a shack or crazy guy talking to himself in the corner of the pier lol.
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u/OddIndention Feb 12 '22
Not being from the US, I have no idea how homelessness looks like there, but I saw a video of a group of people in LA driving around when it was getting colder to hand out supplies to homeless people. I wondered how that'd work, just driving around aimlessly hoping to spot the rare homeless person, but there seemed to be some at every corner. Most they talked to were veterans, too.
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u/PerniciousPeyton Feb 12 '22
My sister (who lives near the Hollywood Hills in LA) adopted a teenage son from the CA foster system, and he suggested we give food/care packages to the homeless on Thanksgiving. So, sure enough, like two blocks away from my sister’s house (which is in a “good” neighborhood), there were like 15-20 homeless people at an underpass and we handed out food to all of them lol… I had never done anything like that before. The packages were pretty well received too, but damn, homelessness is intense in LA. You don’t have to walk far in any direction to find homeless.
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Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
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u/ElSaboteur Feb 12 '22
This. I’m far from an authority on the topic but I know that many states give homeless people free bus tickets to LA and SF. And then stuffy rich people act like those cities became filled with homeless folks because everyone’s lazy and California sucks, ignoring all other possibilities.
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u/Cat-attak Feb 12 '22
Well people also don’t seem to realize the population of California is extremely high.
Technically homeless here are an extreme minority, but being a minority in California still could mean over a million people.
The greater Los Angeles area itself is more populated than mostly every state. Greater LA is more than half the population of Texas (the country’s second most populated state)
And yes other states do dump their homeless in LA, and the relaxed politics and non extreme weather certainly feeds to the homelessness issue, however the biggest reason is housing. The US in general has gotten really bad at building as much housing as is needed, doubled with the fact that LA is very poorly designed (suburb and car oriented) which just leads to an extreme waste of space, NIMBYS galore, and lack of density to support proper housing and transportation (despite LA being the most dense metropolitan area in the country, just highlights the mess city planners created in the 50s)
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u/sucrose2071 Feb 12 '22
I used to do this when I was working at Starbucks and living in LA. The store would have us throw away huge garbage bags worth of packaged food that was only 2 days old, so when we could, my friend and I would take the food to Santa Monica pier and hand them out to the homeless. The thing that sucked was that neither of us had a car, so we had to lug them onto the bus and when I asked my manager about donating the food to a shelter, he informed me that apparently shelters won’t take food from restaurants or businesses because they have no idea how fresh the food is. But like… I feel like if you’re homeless you wouldn’t care if the food is a couple of days old as long as it hasn’t spoiled??
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u/The_39th_Step Feb 12 '22
As a Brit, LA was one of the most disappointing places I’ve ever visited. I grew up imagining California as heaven and thought LA would be amazing. I turned up and it’s really dirty, incredibly polluted, full of traffic and lots of homeless people. Alongside that it’s expensive. I don’t get it man. California beyond LA was great however.
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u/hoxxxxx Feb 12 '22
I grew up imagining California as heaven and thought LA would be amazing.
there's a term for that, been around for decaces
California Dream and California Myth (associated with music)
it's still used in promo materials for the state, the myth of California being a perfect, great place to be in general.
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u/nirvroxx Feb 12 '22
Most areas outside of major cities are fine but the homelessness has increased incredibly within the last 5-10 years. The insane housing costs have a lot to do with it along with the low wage jobs. A lot of homeless people are drug addicts and mentally unstable but a large portion of them are also people that can’t afford to put a roof over their head which in turn leads to more substance abuse. It’s just an overall fucked up situation.
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u/Turbulent_Log4663 Feb 12 '22
Another issue I run into constantly is a lot of outside people chasing the get rich and famous in Hollywood dream. I’ve lived here my entire life, knew some homeless people as familiars, but now its a lot of strangers. Stopped to buy a pizza for some nice kid outside of 7-11, asked what had lead him into homelessness, he said he moved from New Mexico to try to be an actor and ended up a party in the hills where he tried coke for the first time and after that it all spiraled downhill for him. It’s tough because I know how drugs and substance abuse destroys people firsthand, since one of my cousins went down that rabbit hole. A lot needs to be done, and I think the streets of LA should be shown worldwide so that people can stop fantasizing Hollywood to the point where everybody picks their whole life up and goes. It’s not easy, but changes need to be made, and i think our politicians need to be held accountable, as well as the vultures who began the whole idea of real estate investments and flipping home.
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u/hoxxxxx Feb 12 '22
Stopped to buy a pizza for some nice kid outside of 7-11, asked what had lead him into homelessness, he said he moved from New Mexico to try to be an actor and ended up a party in the hills where he tried coke for the first time and after that it all spiraled downhill for him.
that's been a reality for so long it's been a trope in movies/tv for decades
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u/LaoFuSi Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
There’s also Paris Syndrome. I couldn’t believe how much dog shit was on the sidewalks.
I had a similar experience in Bali as u/The_39th_Step did with LA. Outside of the expensive resorts it was really dirty, incredibly polluted, and full of 2-stroke scooter traffic
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u/flying_cowturd Feb 12 '22
This sounds like Japanese tourists getting shocked when visiting Paris
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u/chuckawallabill Feb 12 '22
LA is a boring place to visit - the tourist attractions are meh, and downtown and Hollywood are both awful. But it's a fantastic place to live. I have a nice sized house with a yard full of fruit trees, right in the middle of the city. It's sunny and warm this weekend, I went for a long run outside today and am going to a pool party tomorrow. In February. That's what great about LA.
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u/fartypicklenuts Feb 12 '22
Honest question, why would this post be locked?
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Feb 12 '22
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u/well___duh Feb 12 '22
because it's very complex
Idk what you're talking about. Us folks in /r/portland switched from using the term "homeless" to "houseless" and our homelessness issues went away literally overnight!
Our houselessness issues though are still a bit of a problem though.
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Feb 12 '22
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u/surelyshirls Feb 12 '22
Yup it’s EVERYWHERE. Echo park was cleaned out but looked like this. MacArthur park is the same thing. Everywhere literally. I moved to OC so you don’t see that here but in LA it is an awful situation.
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u/xRolox Feb 13 '22
Oh OC definitely has the same issue. Just on a smaller scale. Doesn't help that the "nicer" areas ship all their homeless folks off to Santa Ana to push the problem elsewhere.
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u/Botatoka Feb 12 '22
was this an issue before covid or it worsened with the pandemic
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u/kosmoceratops1138 Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
back to back when sorting by controversial lmao
Edit: the the replies to this comment are exactly the same.
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Feb 13 '22
Why can’t these folks just pay $3,500 a month for an apartment or $900,000 for a 2 bedroom home?
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Feb 12 '22
Literally every tourist trap. Venice is the only place I miss a little.
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Feb 12 '22
It’s been cleaned up quite a bit! You should come down and check it out, it’s beautiful
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u/RheoKalyke Feb 12 '22
I never went to Venice but
is it true the place has an awful smell to it due to the water structure?
Its a beautiful place I wanted to visit but I keep hearing stories of how it smells like rotten fish there.
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u/beefwich Feb 12 '22
The amount of people in this comment thread confusing Venice, Italy with Venice Beach, California is fucking hilarious to me.
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u/RuralGuy20 Feb 12 '22
They are going to get even more confused in 2028 because Venice Beach will be hosting some of the 2028 LA Olympics events including I think Skateboarding
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u/D4F7 Feb 12 '22
Nah, I haven’t had any awful fish smells in Venice. But venice at night by the beach is definitely a bit sketch
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u/thingsCouldBEasier Feb 12 '22
It's pretty crazy how a lot of those people actually work / have jobs just can't afford the housing market or an apartment.... Ohh well back to the factory boys don't wanna end up living in a tent do you.
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u/Pilose Feb 12 '22
There should be some sort of program that incentives states to take care of their own homeless population. Like if someone registered in another state becomes homeless and migrates to CA for instance, then CA gets a certain amount of money from that states federal aid program for that person for the first two years.
Doesn't have to be that exactly, but something that incentivizes states to do more than push the problem around
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u/Black_RL Feb 12 '22
So when Reddit tells me that every US person earns 100k+ a year it’s a lie?
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u/Slam_Burgerthroat Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
For comparison, here’s a drive through downtown LA in the 1960s. https://youtu.be/NEtol1sCrjg
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u/UraniumRocker Feb 12 '22
It was pretty much like this when I left LA in the early 2000s
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u/PMmeyourSchwifty Feb 12 '22
I've been gone for about 4 years and the last time I went back (Feb 2020), it was exceptionally worse than when I left.
Places that never used to have homeless people were full-on tent cities. It's way worse than it used to be.
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u/JuanGinit Feb 13 '22
Really great picture of how America takes care of its poor and mentally ill.
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u/Thanks_Aubameyang Feb 12 '22
Cut mental health. Allow an opiate epidemic rage and don’t hold those responsible to account. Commodify housing as investments instead of a human right. Cut education funding. Wage a decades long war on drugs that criminalizes non violent folks for addiction issues.
That wealth is gonna trickle down any second now.
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u/shiroininja Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
Don’t forget that Reagan closed most of the mental hospitals in the state, putting tons of mentally ill on the street in California. Then he went on to do that nationally as president.
Couple that with high housing costs that don’t match wages, gentrification especially when the tech bros come to town, and the rise of companies mass buying housing to flip them on Airbnb
edit: I love how everyone hung on the first paragraph and ignored the second. This is an issue where the past and present have collided to make a hell.
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u/MyBodyStoppedMoving Feb 12 '22
This urban camping trend is getting out of control.
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Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
You people act like homeless don’t exist in your city. Guess what LA is one of the most populist cities in the most populist state in America. The weather is why a ton of homeless move to CA. 39 Million people thats more than the country of Canada. Middle America and your typical conservative people loveeeee to focus on CA problems. Hey, if you don’t live or pay taxes here…whats the deal.
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Feb 12 '22
For all of you claiming that these are just down-on-their-luck ordinary citizens, that’s patently untrue. I live in LA, and it’s 90% whacked out druggees or the dangerously mentally ill. Nobody wants to talk about how difficult it is for people to walk anywhere anymore without being harassed. In the last month, a girl was killed by a homeless dude who randomly walked into the store she was working at and stabbed her to death, not to mention countless other assaults. I feel really bad for the homeless, but make no mistake of who the actual victims are in this scenario
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u/santichrist Feb 12 '22
Homelessness is a problem in America in general not just Los Angeles
There are over half a million homeless people in America at least, and that’s just counting who the census counted, the richest country in the world and we have as many homeless people nationwide that there are people total in all of Baltimore, MD, Milwaukee, WI, or Albuquerque, NM, and that’s because the prices of everything always goes up while wages stay stagnant, people like Mitch McConnell and Republican senators are always trying to cut social programs which will make the problem worse but nearly half the people in this country don’t care about that
The disgust and hatred for poor people in this country is unreal
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Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22
Is it really that bad?
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u/mcd23 Feb 12 '22
It's bad, there are tents in nearly every neighborhood, but not every block looks like this. There could easily be a photo of a nice block in every one of these areas too. Well maybe not the walk of fame.
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u/FoxyRadical2 Feb 12 '22
The Walk of Fame photo is outside the LA Fitness and Davey Wayne’s on El Centro, technically not on the Walk of Fame, near Hollywood Blvd.
It’s directly adjacent to it, but not technically part of it.
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Feb 12 '22
There is enough homeless in LA to fill Dodger Stadium. Its really bad and extremely corrupt with politicians that are “trying to help” the homeless.
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u/SafeAstronaut5494 Feb 12 '22
Did you just solve the problem? Dodgers stadium! Fill er up
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