That massive Santa Ana River Trail encampment helped focus our attention.
That, and the Santa Ana Civic Center camp. The camps along the 91. The camps in all of the parks of North Orange County. The camps in downtown LA.
It’s unbelievable how this problem was allowed to grow to such immense size.
We always have had the mentally ill, and a lot of drug abusers at least since the late ‘60s.
What we didn’t use to have is vast herds of them living on the streets.
Of course there were always homeless crazies, but so few. I’d never seen people literally camping on sidewalks like they are now. In my 20s I’d see one homeless scruffy guy looking through a dumpster, but I never saw anyone freely living and camping on the street.
Now you see whole tent cities right in the city. In the bushes beside the freeways. And everyone I know has been encountered by a violent crazy person at some point recently. They clearly have greater rights than well behaved taxpayers.