Free Republic

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing criticism from Hollywood residents as homeless encampments are returning despite her efforts to move people from the streets into hotels and motels. Under her predecessor, Eric Garcetti, and under California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), the focus of homeless policy in the state has been to use government money to pay for hotel or motel rooms for homeless people, offering them alternative accommodation. But that approach does not address the root causes of the problem: mental illness; drug abuse; permissive law enforcement; and the high cost of living in the state, especially when it...

Evicted four months ago from their Highland Park apartment, Louis Morales and his 18-year-old stepson, Arthur Valenzuela, live half-hidden by brush along the nearby Arroyo Seco riverbed. Morales, 49, keeps a framed bible verse and a stuffed monkey in his tent. Water hauled by bike from a park heats up on the camp stove. Next door, their friend Johnny Salazar fixes bikes and shattered computer screens on the cheap for people who live in the neighborhood. A brother and sister Morales has known for years live up the river, and three couples stay down by the bridge. "Everybody here is...

It would appear that homeless people in the nation’s capitol have come a long way thanks to the largesse of the Pelosi-Obama “stimulus” package. First Lady Michelle Obama recently took time out from her magazine photo shoots for the covers of “O” and Vogue to pose as a food server at a homeless shelter not far from the White House. She even posed for one of homeless poseurs...