Shocking new pictures from downtown LA capture the huge problem it faces with trash and rats amid fear of typhoid fever outbreak among LAPD
China is going in the other direction.
Paul Craig Roberts describes it as Third World America.
Paul Craig Roberts describes it as Third World America.
In an op ed for The LA Times reporter Steve Lopez called it 'the collapse of a city that's lost control', writing: 'We've got thousands of people huddled on the streets, many of them withering away with physical and mental disease.
'Sidewalks have disappeared, hidden by tents and the kinds of makeshift shanties you see in Third World places.'
He called the city 'a giant trash receptacle'.
The police union has demanded better protective equipment for officers and called for the station to be regularly sanitized.
The Police Department said exposed areas of the Central Division were being disinfected and officials were reviewing the state's 'concerning' report that found health violations at the station.
The building lacked an effective extermination program and had 'rats/rodents, fleas, roaches, flies, gnats, mosquitoes and grasshoppers,' according to the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health's May 14 report.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says typhoid fever isn't common in the U.S. but affects 22 million people annually in other countries.
It is different from typhus, which can spread from infected fleas and caused an outbreak earlier this year that sickened homeless people who live near City Hall and a deputy city attorney.
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ReplyDeleteHomelessness whether in LA, or SF. or in any other US metropolitan area has its roots in the the collapse in the support for public housing that started in 1974 under Nixon, and sped up with every subsequent administration.
ReplyDeleteSee Short History of Public Housing in the US (1930’s – Present)
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In 2018 in the United States, homelessness and poverty have been increasing over the years. Wages remain low or flat for most people, cost of living is increasing, rents are skyrocketing as well as property values due to a speculative market on real estate and land.
At the same time federal funding for public non-profit housing development is weak. This has all added up to what we see in the country today with the lack of affordable housing. When housing isn’t available or affordable, people fall through the cracks, and this leads to increased homelessness.
To successfully solve this problem today requires us to first look back at the history of public housing in the US to see how we got to this point and present some examples of housing models which might be achievable under current legal and systemic constraints.
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ReplyDeleteGood thing we don't have a gold standard or anything resembling market interest rates anymore and we live in a world of fiat money!
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