The situation in LA

[Cheesefiend36]

www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/us/los-angeles-mayor-race.html

I've been reading with interest that LA has had a terrible time of it since Covid and new anti prison sentence laws which has seen crime go up. I follow somebody who was in LA for a holiday last week and vowed never to go back after seeing the amount of poverty, homeless camps in tourist places, crime rates and a general feeling of not being safe. Lifeless bodies on the side of the road is apparently the norm with no body batting an eyelid

LAPD have recommended that tourists stay away because they can't keep them safe

Is anyone there right now or has been recently that can share their experience?
So much wealth there, how can this be happening?

The big difference in America is their strict zoning laws and it is particularly bad in areas with high property prices like NY, California and Hawaii. The existing homeowners are dead against any new housing project and also this is made worse by the fact that the most common type of housing is the single family home surrounded by a picket fence (American dream).But if house prices are high, living in a single family home is just a pipe dream for the poor or even the middle class young person.

in London at least, 50% of the homes are flats (whether purpose built or conversion). This might not be pleasant for local residents but it is not difficult to convert a house into 2 flats. This does increase the supply of housing for the poor. Also HMOs. Also in america, apartments are usually rental and not for sale. There are condos but far less than the flats available for sale in London.

I only managed to own my home in London because I bought a 1930s flat (they started building flats in London even then!) and buying a detached house with a picket fence would have been beyond me. Most FTB outside london get on the ladder by buying a terrace which i guess is the american townhouse but even those are less common in the USA. Without apartments available for sale in London, I would probably be renting a studio/1 bed in zone 2 and i guess that would have pushed out the poor/people on housing benefit.

someone earlier in the thread said that black people are the most identifiably poor part of the country. Which may be right. But what I can't understand is that here in Bristol we have many people on the street and they are all white, without exception. Why is that?

There was a tent city on March Arch roundabout in Lindon about 4 years ago. They were mostly Romanian families iirc and have now gone. At the same time there was a lot of talk about the most expensive flats in Europe being built literally overlooking March Arch. There’s a juxtaposition!
Now March Arch roundabout has the Marble Arch mound on it so almost as bad.
Homelessness in London is much improved compare to 90’s I think. I actually worked on the Rough Sleeper Initiative 95 - 99 when we were offering “hard to let” studios to homeless applicants referred by Westminster council. It was a great initiative and should be brought back although maybe there are fewer hard to let properties now as the areas are more desirable.

@Cheesefiend36

Thanks for explaining. The lunatics then are running the asylum and they can hardly be surprised when the streets become dangerous.

Why on earth aren't the citizens out protesting against this bullshit. They must agree with it, I suppose.

So, no sympathy.

Hopefully, the sight of the city being brought to its knees will act as cold water shock for any other gormless shits wanting their cities or countries to follow this example of stupidity on legs.

Those of you referring to a documentary called Dopesick - I can only find one called Dope - is that the one?

@TameDucksAtChatsworth

Op.

What are the, "new anti prison laws"?

I mean-I know what all those words mean individually but surely the sum total can't mean that laws are passed which negate prison sentences.

If it does, what is the thinking behind it and who are the daft bastards who are passing them?

There’s a book recently published by Michael Shellenberger called San Fransicko. The author has interviewed a number of people including those from homeless charities, San Francisco politicians, using addicts and recovering addicts. The author says if people are mentally ill, homeless or addicts then they can’t be held responsible for their crimes. Therefore tent cities, poo in the street, shop lifting etc are no longer against the law.

[quote unname]@DingleyDel

Yep.

I had a front row seat to the opioid crisis. My addict was a big drug user long before OxyContin came along. Mostly Uppers and downers. Doctor shopping, trading chores for pills with old ladies, whatever. Very functional guy, coached his kid’s sports, ran a small business, etc.

He knew he to get things, including Oxy so started trading with Oxy users to get whatever he wanted. Got a hookup out of Detroit that was getting the Oxy out of Canada where there were no restrictions and driving it right down interstate 75 to every little small town on the way, destroying them one by one. Some states in US had already started limiting Oxy a bit by this point. Kentucky and Connecticut started tracking prescriptions and sanctioning doctors who prescribed higher doses. Both states sued Purdue and won. Purdue admitted they lied about the addictive properties.

My addict tried Oxy one day instead of his current drug of choice because someone told him it was a high like no other. The story only got uglier from there. Purdue did what they did, but even once it became harder to get Oxy the folks addicted kept on going.[/quote]
Really sorry to hear about this unname

Must be incredibly distressing for the family to watch. How long ago was this do you mind me asking? Was it a close family member?

Fentanyl is just so ridiculously strong - I think it's terrible how they sneak it through as something weaker like percocet or heroin and that's what kills addicts that may even have been trying to get off it. That's what killed Michael Jackson wasn't it? - which many people forget. And Prince? All that money and talent and it gets them just the same.

Actualy MJ was a cocktail of different drugs I think - not fentanyl

@Notoironing it isn’t a documentary but a drama series, stars Michael Keaton, Rosario Dawson etc. I watched it on the Disney streaming channel, but think it must be available elsewhere.

There is a book called Dopesick too which I’d recommend along with Empire of Pain.

Definitely Dopesick, and is a dramatisation rather than a documentary, with Michael Keaton - well worth searching out

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/12/awards-insider-opioid-crisis-tv

@Wintersonata

But do you agree with that? If you do, I'd be keen to know why because I just can't get my head around it.

Why should cities be brought to their knees because they put a group of people above the law? Well, actually change the law to accommodate them.

Will those who are victims of these people and then see them go unpunished be accepting of that?

I certainly wouldn't.

@Bionicname

This is unfettered Capitalism eating itself. There isn’t much of a safety net, no nhs, health care is tied to your job; it can be astronomical and ruin lives really quickly. Not sure if the US has anything like furlough either? It’s a society that values individual success, and the appalling flip side to that is - if things go wrong you’re on your own. It creates an undercurrent of misery and wasted lives and crime and drug abuse even at the best of times. Add to that a pandemic where things go wrong for great numbers of people and you have a society with no resilience that just breaks apart.

Agree, it seems to me that our current political lanscape seems to aspire to head in this direction here in the UK which I think is madness.

@Jellyfishandshells - I don't think SandysMam is coming back to answer that question. At least 10 of us, if not more, have asked it on the thread. We are all Londoners who have some idea of what is going on in the capital - unlike the helpful poster in New Zealand who googled "tent cities in London" and came up with a story from London, Ontario to shore up the claims. Made me laugh!

TameDucks it doesn’t seem to bode well for the future of the cities unless politicians come up with some new ideas.

@Sonex

Yes, very close. Died last year in Feb. Had some years of sobriety and loads of rehab.

@Campfirewood. How would more socialist policies help stop the drug and mental health crisis? I can attest that we have access to free rehab and free counseling here in the US.

Thanks I will try to find it

[quote A580Hojas]@Jellyfishandshells - I don't think SandysMam is coming back to answer that question. At least 10 of us, if not more, have asked it on the thread. We are all Londoners who have some idea of what is going on in the capital - unlike the helpful poster in New Zealand who googled "tent cities in London" and came up with a story from London, Ontario to shore up the claims. Made me laugh![/quote]
Think you are right ! Reminded me of when Fox News reported that Birmingham ( UK, not Alabama !) was a police no go area, causing Brummies to go ‘ ???’

Yes @A580Hojas I think it was a bit of a red herring as blatantly not true. I’ve already posted once but will say again, a few tents even cardboard city is nothing on the scale of what’s seen in LA and SF. Tent cities is a misnomer outside of these huge areas, what’s seen in London are barely even tent hamlets, a few tent village in some other European cities but tent cities is LA and SF. Think skid row population is estimated at 8,000 rough sleepers a few years ago.

Truly shocking, although Brazil was the place where poverty truly shocked me to my core. Even more so how jaded and desensitised local residents were to the suffering.

I watched a tragic Netflix documentary series recently called Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, about a quite famous missing person case, which touched on so many important issues around conspiracy theories, internet vigilantism and the homeless epidemic in LA, among other things. Lots of mention of skid row, the failure of the police to even enter, the size of the problem etc and this was filmed pre-COVID. May be of interest to some although homelessness is not the core topic to be clear.

@RubyFakeLips

Yes *@A580Hojas* I think it was a bit of a red herring as blatantly not true. I’ve already posted once but will say again, a few tents even cardboard city is nothing on the scale of what’s seen in LA and SF. Tent cities is a misnomer outside of these huge areas, what’s seen in London are barely even tent hamlets, a few tent village in some other European cities but tent cities is LA and SF. Think skid row population is estimated at 8,000 rough sleepers a few years ago.

Truly shocking, although Brazil was the place where poverty truly shocked me to my core. Even more so how jaded and desensitised local residents were to the suffering.

I watched a tragic Netflix documentary series recently called Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, about a quite famous missing person case, which touched on so many important issues around conspiracy theories, internet vigilantism and the homeless epidemic in LA, among other things. Lots of mention of skid row, the failure of the police to even enter, the size of the problem etc and this was filmed pre-COVID. May be of interest to some although homelessness is not the core topic to be clear.

Yes I posted a link above that ironically only a few days ago, it was announced that the hotel is re-opening as affordable social housing. It was a creepy documentary that stuck with me for a long time

Granny and mum worked in mental health places back in the day until care in the community came in. Before then patients received their Meds in a timely manner. A friend works in a half way house all found for the residents she can't enforce drugs, when they get their winter heating payment god knows why the house is heated they go on a drink or drugs bender. At night she would be caring for eight men. When she reached 65 she quit because she wasn't resilient enough mentally or physically to deal with some of them

But why do politicians need new ideas.

Break the law, be punished. It's worked for a long, long time more or less.

I have very little faith in those who allow criminals to be above the law and-on the back of this-wouldn't really trust them to go up with a new idea on how to decorate a Christmas Tree.

Anyway, let's hope the bozos over here don't follow suit.

@TameDucksAtChatsworth

But why do politicians need new ideas.

Break the law, be punished. It's worked for a long, long time more or less.

I have very little faith in those who allow criminals to be above the law and-on the back of this-wouldn't really trust them to go up with a new idea on how to decorate a Christmas Tree.

Anyway, let's hope the bozos over here don't follow suit.

What they should have done is focus a solution on how to speed up the judicial process, so that poorer criminals committing relatively minor crimes aren't stuck in a jail system for months and months on end. Yes it doesn't address the inequality but it ensures sentencing is quicker and reduces pressure on the system.

@julieca

Its the acceptance that homelessness is inevitable that is the issue. That and the belief that some people don't matter and their suffering can be ignored.

This.

Fascinating thread, though I had to stop part way and search to the end to see if @SandysMam had identified these filthy tent cities littering London - I'm also a Londoner who goes all over the city all the time for work, but I've missed them.

Where are they?

@KleineDracheKokosnuss

„ The overall impression I got was that Americans do not realise quite how bad it is themselves, largely because they have nothing to compare it to.“

Many of the so-called right wing press have been talking bout it for a long long time. They know. The people on the ground (residents) know. But there’s a clear split in how reporting occurs, based on political leaning. It’s been glossed over repeatedly- it’s just so bad now that the leaders can’t hide it anymore.

The Wire was a hugely popular television show in the 2000s that depicted the reality of the modern US urban city, rife with drugs, crime, violent crime (usually drug related) and poverty (with drugs either using or dealing as an escape).

None of this is new.

The US inner city has had terrible social problems since the crack epidemic.