homelessness

While millions of Americans celebrate Christmas this year with loved ones, carving turkey and sharing gifts, others are not so fortunate. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, over half a million of us will spend Christmas on the streets. The government agency estimates that on any given day, around 553,000 Americans are homeless.

Local county government doesn't get a say in whether or not the U.S. gets Medicare-for-All. But I ask local candidates about it-- and other federal issues-- anyway, primarily to get an idea of how progressive they are likely to be when it comes to solving local problems. Darrell Park is running to be elected an L.A. county supervisor, in the last district held by a Republican.

Beto has lost a lot of momentum since he decided to run for president instead of taking on John Cornyn for the Texas Senate seat. Even some guy named Andrew Yang is polling better than he is. When Beto joined the presidential race, his fresh face gave him a startling 8.5 in the polls. Since then, though, Domocrats have reconsidered and his average polling number is now 2.8, seventh.

Julie Akins, the founder of Forever Homes, Vehicles for Changes, said that 20,000 Oregon children are homeless. She is renovating retired buses into fully functioning houses on wheels for families in need.

After President Trump threatened to bus hordes of inbound migrants into sanctuary cities and the sanctuary state of California, Cher, the actress and singer who once advocated welcoming migrants into their homes, has changed her mind.

San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the country, but dependency on the government has expanded the homelessness problem and an industry around vagrancy has been created.

In the last five years, a culture shift began with legislature decriminalizing felonies and dumping convicts onto the streets. Shoplifting is rarely prosecuted and crime has exploded, the city is overrun with rats, garbage, human feces and needles.

Car 'smash and grabs' are common in California because thieves know they will not be prosecuted. In San Francisco, police-commission rules forbid police to chase thieves if they try to escape in a car. This, they say, is to cut down on high-speed chases and, therefore, is justified because it reduces accidents.

A federal appeals court ruled the Eighth Amendment against cruel and inhuman punishment prohibits the city of Boise from prosecuting homeless individuals who sleep outside on public property when they have no home or bed in a shelter.
Six current and former residents of Boise, Idaho, sued the city over two ordinances that were used to criminalize them between 2007 and 2009.

A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $400,000 in a homeless veteran's name, but he says he has not received the funds. The fundraising couple reportedly spent half the fortune and the remainder is still in the boyfriend's savings account instead of a trust for the veteran who is now living under a bridge. [...]