Today HUD released the 2024 figures for homelessness:
For the first time in a while California wasn't the big gainer in 2024. Its homeless population rose a modest 5,700 while the count in the rest of the country rose a whopping 113,000. I had to look at that number twice to make sure I'd read it right. It's double the next biggest increase (in 2023), four times the next biggest (2022) and 16x the next biggest (2010).
Between 2007 and 2020 the US homeless population (outside California) declined by 89,000. Since then it's ballooned by 168,000.
I am skeptical of the homeless numbers that are generated in southern California. There is a homeless count where people travel around their neighborhoods and try to estimate numbers of homeless. When they see a camp, they will attribute numbers of people, even when they don't see the people. My guess would be that this creates a considerable amount of error, although we cannot actually know in which direction it goes. We do know for sure that the people doing the count are doing estimates at best, and probably fairly gross estimates.
What that suggests to me is that when our homeless liaison comes to the local meeting and reports that homelessness is up 4.5 percent this year, it is more of a political statement than a scientific finding.
It seems to me that there could be a more rigorous methodology to test the system in one or two defined areas (by doing more of a saturation level search) in order to get some idea what the real numbers are.
Not trying to be difficult, but I would add a pound of salt to any such numbers.
I'm sure the so-called experts who design and conduct homeless surveys would appreciate your thoughtful and detailed proposals for more rigorous methodologies.
While there are limitations to a single-night count (which is what the Point In Time count is), it's not nearly as limited as you suggest. With the current state of the homelessness crisis (i.e., nowhere near solving it), using the PIT count is fine. We also have other ways of counting things, such as every single by-name list in the country of every person who is currently being served by a shelter or outreach provider, or known to be experiencing homelessness.
Furthermore, the PIT methodology is not what you suggest. It is an actual count of number of persons.
I suggest pontificating with more than just hearsay and anecdata in future.
Wait. I thought Newsom and Breed presided over the utter ruin of a once-great State (when it was under Republican control)?
Maybe all our homeless went to Texas?
The number of people living in homelessness in the United States has increased by 18 percent over the last year, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said in a new report. Data released on Friday showed that more than 771,000 people were experiencing homelessness across the country, according to an annual count that was carried out on a single night in January 2024.
I’ve been telling you for a while that this is a major problem up here in WA, Kevin. Now do you believe me? PS we’re working on it, but we’ve got a long way to go.
So, no comment on the housing crisis just being a California thing, eh?
Well, what's been going on....
Venture capital firms have been buying "starter homes" to rent out, as well as mobile home parks since they can jack up rates without worrying about people moving their "mobile" home.
Short term AirB&B type rentals can give higher returns than traditional long term rentals. Though this only applies to places people want to visit.
Immigration surge. In the past, immigrants would have a contact in the US to either house them or help them get set up. That doesn't seem to be the case with the influx of refugees from Venezuela.
Come on, golack. How much housing do pet-eating gang-banging illegals really need?
This is just so sad, tragic, and… hilarious. 😆
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. — A New Lenox woman was shot and killed by her brother-in-law who mistook her for an intruder on Christmas morning…
He went on to tell responding officers that he keeps the handgun in a holster on the side of his bed and that he forgot that Barnett was staying with them.
https://wgntv.com/western-suburbs/police-suburban-man-mistakes-relative-for-intruder-kills-her-christmas-morning/
I swear the homeless have increased by huge numbers in my area in Wa. It’s incredible, and while not freezing, the liquid sunshine can be almost 1 inch on a regular basis. Tarps are the going fare for grocery cart, baby pusher denizens.
It does seem odd that rates of homelessness are rising at the same time that poverty rates are going down.
Seems like it would be useful to know why these two opposite trends are happening at the same time.
If I wanted to be homeless I'd probably want to be in California. Haven't thought about it but suddenly wonder if there's a chart for that.
The vast majority of homeless Californians are native, not someone from Wisconsin who hopped a Greyhound looking for a warmer freeway underpass to camp under.
California's homeless problem is almost entirely a function of the state's insanely unaffordable housing market. The LA Times ran a couple of stories a few years ago on how cities like Jackson, MS or Charleston, WV have comparatively very few people sleeping on the streets, because they also have a large number of flop houses and derelict homes where very poor people can afford to stay. May be full of pests, asbestos, and no running water, but it's a roof over the head.
This strikes me as an out of touch response:
“I had to look at that number twice to make sure I'd read it right. It's double the next biggest increase (in 2023), four times the next biggest (2022) and 16x the next biggest (2010).”
But why the surprise? The NYT itself (finally) reported that the immigration surge under Biden was the biggest in the history of the USA.
What exactly happens when we let millions and millions of new immigrants into the country in just a few short years? We’re obviously not keeping up with immigrant services and shelters on such a vast scale.
I have seen with my own eyes whole city streets, in places as far apart as San Diego and NYC, just given over to crowds of new immigrants with nowhere to go.
So is Kevin only just catching on that this is a problem? I assure you that voters have certainly noticed. How, after all, do you think Trump managed to win reelection?
It might be politically incorrect in Lefty circles to ever admit that anything can be bad regarding immigration, but the majority of the country does in fact seem to be well aware of the problems.
+1
Some of us get it.
Why Democrats Got the Politics of Immigration So Wrong for So Long
They spent more than a decade tacking left on the issue to win Latino votes. It may have cost them the White House—twice.
Sorry… paywalled.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/democrats-latino-vote-immigration/680945/
The “activists” got it wrong. We should send them packing. What a catastrophe. Dreamers… need to sit down and shut up.
I think almost everyone except the most racist MAGAts are fairly sympathetic to Dreamers. That's not the issue. The problem is national Democrats were still largely attached to the Prop 187 playbook when anti-immigrant nativism blew up in the face of the California GOP in the 90s and basically reduced them to permanent second-class status at the state level. That was at a time, however, when a lot of Hispanic residents were still fairly new immigrants and sympathetic to the situation of their (mostly Mexican) undocumented family members and neighbors and punished Republican bigotry at the ballot box. Fast forward 30 years and the politics and demographics of Latino voters have changed a lot and even people who were once undocumented themselves have little empathy with newcomers from countries like Venezuela or Guatemala that they see more as rivals than as fellow-Latinos who appear to have "skipped the line" entirely by claiming asylum. Republicans skillfully deployed Spanish-language media to whip up resentment and anger at Democrats for increasing crime and inflation while Democrats appeared to be more concerned about whether to keep using Latinx or whatever.
A majority of Hispanics still vote Dem, but that's clearly shifting and Democrats need to rebrand themselves on immigration and fast. Not as MAGA nativist bigots, but as wanting a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system that is also not simply an open door. Someone -- I forget who -- once wrote that "liberals need to control the border, or else a fascist will do it for them." That appears to have been a pretty prescient observation.
I know the people who run the one-night count down here, and they do talk about making adjustments to the numbers for people who are suspected to exist but not seen. My view is that the result is a sort of OK estimate, because it gives numbers of people who are actually seen plus some estimate of the error. But when they add up the numbers of those directly observed plus those who are guessed, we are no longer talking about numerical accuracy the way we would for a blood count or the number of cars sold in a calendar month. And it is when the homeless liaison person tells us that the count is up 5.67 percent that I become skeptical. The problem is more of a political one, in the sense that when we are told that the homeless count is up for the second straight year, we are supposed to be sympathetic and to vote for the next bond measure (which Los Angeles County residents have done a couple of times). The other problem is that we don't have a lot of deep, long-term data over whether the measures being used to treat homelessness are working very well, or even working at all.
I am sympathetic to the activists who are trying to help people by engaging in the one-night counts, but I can't help but notice that even they talk about the ways they fudge the data.
The main change in Los Angeles lately is the new rules which allow the authorities to insist on the sidewalks being emptied of campers. It may be harsh or cruel even, but so far it is working to a considerable level. I wonder why we can't build some official camps similar to WWII era army camps, where tents and latrines and food and hand washing facilities are provided, as one of my ex-homeless friends once suggested.