“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

Residents of one Portland neighborhood say as many as 16 people have broken into two vacant houses on their street and are coming in and out at all hours, piling up trash and leaving used needles in the grass.

Stuffing people who need drug or mental-health treatment into free or low-cost housing has proved disastrous.

To residents of San Francisco’s Sixth District, the deplorable conditions of single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels are no longer a great shock. In the Tenderloin, Civic Center, and South of Market neighborhoods, where most of the approximately 70 SROs are located, these city-run buildings have been terrible for as long as most can remember. And they’re getting worse.

TORONTO – The City of Toronto spent months laying out plans to clear about two dozen people from a homeless encampment in a popular park last summer, building dossiers on those living there and involving hundreds of municipal workers in the process, internal documents reveal.

The details are contained in thousands of pages obtained by activists through freedom-of-information laws.

The city documents, shared with The Canadian Press, reveal the scale of the clearing effort for Trinity Bellwoods Park – an operation that took place last June and eventually turned violent.

I have little praise for Tory but he did the right thing about the encampments.

The remedies we need to try.

I was in the midst of another cancer scare. Imaging tests were ordered, and then blood tests. No cancer – Yay! – but the blood tests revealed that I needed to increase the dosage of a medication for an unrelated chronic illness. Wednesday, March 23, 2022, was gray and drizzly. I don’t like to leave the apartment anywhere near sunset, but this medicine was important. I said the prayer I always say before opening my door. “God be with me as I walk. Saint Joseph protect my home. Saint Christopher protect my steps.” I set out for the CVS, three miles and two towns distant. Thanks to Google maps, I know I walk up 430 feet to arrive at the CVS in Wayne. There are pharmacies five minutes’ walk from my apartment, and, like my apartment, these nearby pharmacies are more or less at sea level. I walk so far and so high because I live in Paterson, NJ. It’s not just that a good part of the population speaks Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, or what is now called African American Vernacular English, and used to be called Ebonics. It’s not just because I am white and my first language is English, so I am a target for hostility and petty sabotage. I don’t want my prescriptions to meet the same fate as my vandalized, spat upon, and disappearing postal mail. I walk two towns away because even simple things that should work easily often don’t work in Paterson at all. More on that, later.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Makeshift shelters abut busy roadways, tent cities line sidewalks, tarps cover broken-down cars, and sleeping bags are tucked in storefront doorways. The reality of the homelessness crisis in Oregon’s largest city can’t be denied.

“I would be an idiot to sit here and tell you that things are better today than they were five years ago with regard to homelessness,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said recently. “People in this city aren’t stupid. They can open their eyes.”

Referring to feral street people as “our unhoused neighbors” or “a person experiencing homelessness” is an attack on reality. In fact, they are mentally ill—schizophrenics, drug addicts, and alcoholics, usually in combination.

Because I don’t need to teach my kids about the Faces of Meth yet, we call the ghouls standing next to every freeway exit “hobos.” As in, “Don’t look over there, kids! That hobo forgot to put on pants today.”

Instead, Newsom makes the typical progressive move: throwing more money at the problem.

“We can end homelessness in the State of California,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared Monday. It’s a goal Newsom shares with President Joe Biden, despite Democrats’ inability to curb homelessness by throwing money at it.

Their solution? Throw more money at it.

“I don’t think that homelessness can be solved; I know homelessness can be solved,” Newsom also offered as he boasted that California would spend $5.8 billion to add 42,000 new housing units.

Councillors call on Mayor to end ‘extreme show of force’ in encampment clearings

TORONTO — Five Toronto councillors urged the city’s mayor on Friday to end what they called an “extreme show of force” during the clearing of homeless encampments.

Tory seldom does much right, let’s hope he stays the course.

Last weekend, the New York Times Magazine ran an article on homelessness in Los Angeles. The article framed the problem of street vagrancy as almost entirely a result of insufficient housing. “The state needs to create 1.2 million more homes for low-income residents and those experiencing homelessness—which would cost roughly $17.9 billion annually,” the author, Jaime Lowe, reports. California needs to be smarter about building houses and apartments, but the facts Lowe uncovers don’t point to new housing as a solution to street homelessness.

Police and activists clashed on Wednesday while a homeless encampment was cleared out of a downtown park.

After spending the morning urging between 14 and 17 holdouts occupying a portion of Lamport Stadium Park, near King and Dufferin Sts., the city made good on its promise to enforce trespass notices issued last month.

These appear to be “activist” lead altercations. For once Tory has done the right thing, thank goodness for internal polling.

Video moments ago as Toronto Police move in and begin arresting those inside the homeless encampment at Lamport Stadium @CityNews pic.twitter.com/RLm3yMlK9w

— Mark McAllister (@McAllister_Mark) July 21, 2021

Every solid blue city has its horrors — from murders in Chicago, to organized thievery in San Francisco.

In San Diego, where I live, the problem is homeless attacks. Seems the homeless aren’t just unsightly, unsanitary, or famous spreaders of disease, they’re dangerous, and when you have a lot of them, you have a lot of unprovoked random assaults on law-abiding residents. The problem is out there, and too bad for those who don’t like it. San Diego’s new leftist mayor, Todd Gloria, is de facto advising the victims that he’s going to create more of it.