Black doctor in Miami handcuffed for testing the homeless for Covid-19

As one of the homeless people in Los Angleles county, I can say we've been left out to die as Covid-19 struck.  Most businesses and buildings we homeless people depended on for basic thing like bathrooms (fairly important!), places to hang out, power, wifi, etc, have been closed.  Yes, this is for a bigger purpose, we get that, but the closures were a huge hit to the already highly vulnerable homeless populations across the country. 

The silver lining is that places like homeless shelters, where many people are living in tight quarters, have become literal death traps.  Going into a homeless shelter right now (mid-April 2020), ANYWHERE, there's nearly 100% chance of coming in contact with someone who has the virus.  This is made worse by the fact that virtually no one seems to be testing the homeless populations for the virus.  Hell, 34,000+ people have died, roughly 675,000 Americans are are were sick with Covid-19, and the U.S. has only tested 1% of the national population.  The catastrophic failure of the Trump administration in this pandemic is an epic fail for the ages. 

Into this context, we have this report, of a doctor in Miami being handcuffed for testing homeless people for Covid-19.  Strange days indeed...

70 people with Covid-19 in New York City Shelters

Not many people checking out this blog, I haven't had time to promote it much.  But for any who are, here's a report on the Covid-19 and homelessness in NYC, by Democracy Now:
70 homeless with virus in NYC shelters

Affordibility Crisis: A major underlying reason for the huge rise in homelessness

A tarp-covered homeless person's camp in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, with luxury towers being built in the background, in downtown L.A..  I shot this photo from the Blue Line train, which runs from downtown Long Beach, through Compton, Watts, and South Central L.A., to downtown Los Angeles.  Steve Emig photo.

The Atlantic has a new article, "The Great Affordability Crisis," which chronicles the financial elephant in the room in today's "soaring" economy.  The vast majority of people can barely afford to live a "normal" life.  When catastrophic medical bills, or some other unplanned event, hits them financially, many people go quickly into a crisis mode.  If they can't quickly recover, some wind up homeless. 

While the stock market may be hitting new highs, the financial markets have detached from the everyday, "real world" economy, in our current world.  They even mention this divergence in the business media, like CNBC, from time to time.  This can best be termed a fragility in most people's "personal economy."  The vast majority of people deal with historically high levels of housing costs, enormous student loan debt, historically high medical expenses, historically high child care expenses, and then, car loan debt, credit card debt, and maybe mortgage debt.  The vast majority of us know this because of our own struggles, but as this article points out, this goes unmentioned in most written and televised talk about the "economy." 

This struggle to afford basic life expenses is one of the biggest underlying causes for today's huge growth in the amount of homeless people in major cities.  We can't "solve the homeless crisis" long term, without dealing with this underlying issue: the majority of our population can barely afford to live.

L.A. County Supervisors looking at the $400 million a year agency overseeing the homeless issue

In this February 12th, 2020  news report, the L.A. County Supervisors are looking to rethink, and possibly restructure the organization developed to deal with homelessness.  The agency, LAHSA, over sees $400 million a year, was created in 1993, and yet homelessness continues to increase. 

In today's world, homelessness is a major demographic problem, huge numbers of people in our society gets into situations where they can no longer afford to live a "normal life."  Once you're in any type of homeless situation, and there are many different levels of homelessness, it's hard to get back on track.  I know, I've struggled with it for years. 

Homeless shelters themselves are an idea from 80-90 years ago, when only a tiny percentage of people became homeless, and largely for personal issues.  In today's world, it's a completely different situation, our society is getting harder and harder to survive in for people working low or medium wage jobs.  There are a whole series of large scale, long term trends involved.  Traditional homeless shelters aren't not a serious way to really address today's huge number of people struggling financially.  The underlying issue is how to help tens of thousands of people make some kind of decent living again, so they can afford housing, or how to care for the huge number of older people with serious health issues, who can't work anymore.  Homeless shelters don't really address either of these underlying issues. 

Homelessness for school children hits a new high

The morning after our president touted "The Great American Comeback," comes this news piece.
"Homelessness among School Children Hits a Decade-Long High." 

Uh... not the kind of comeback we were looking for...

Panhandling signs as humor and folk art

My all time favorite panhandling sign is the guy with the "checks no longer accepted from these people" sign.  But the guy with no legs and the sign saying "I'll kick you in the head" is pretty close. 

What can a homeless person give to all of you in normal society?  As a homeless panhandler back in 2007, I realized there is one thing.  Sometimes, as a panhandler, you can give a complete stranger a laugh.  When I used to panhandle with different funny signs every day, years ago, I actually had regular commuters who would pull up and thank me.  "Dude, I don't have a dollar today, but you make me laugh every freakin' day on the way home, thanks."  I got that kind of comment regularly.  Have you ever tried to make complete strangers laugh with a few words on a cardboard sign?  It's not as easy as you think.  

Talk smack all you want, but what pathetic little annoyance were you complaining about before you watched this video, of people who sleep outside, and still took the time to try to make someone laugh?  Stop whining.  It could be worse. 

More than 1,000 homeless people died in L.A. last year

This video is a P.R. piece, but it gives you a look at how horrible the situation is in the infamous Skid row area of L.A..   This video was put out by ReasonTV, part of the Reason Foundation, a Libertarian Think Tank, which gets funding from David Koch, among other sources.  A quick Google search showed me that.  It appears the Sprung Structures promoted in this video also have ties to Koch Industries, though I can't be sure.  This gives you a picture of the homelessness industry, and the ulterior motives and interconnection that are a part of the homeless issue at nearly every level.

That said, this was put out last month (December 2019), so it's recent, and it tells us that over 1,000 people died on the streets of Los Angeles last year.  That's about 4 times as many as people who die annually from homicide in L.A..  After seeing this, and the article below, I put a post on Facebook about this fact.  After seeing my post mentioning that 1,000 homeless people died in L.A. last year, one guy I didn't know commented, "How many more to go?"  That attitude is another of the big issues with homelessness, the dehumanization of homeless people that has grown dramatically over the past couple decades, and has really aggravated the issue. 

Here's an article from The Guardian that also mentions the fact that 1,000 homeless people died on the streets of L.A..  The Guardian has written a lot of great material on homelessness.