Free Republic

Homeless individuals were allegedly bribed with cash, cigarettes, and marijuana in exchange for signing voter registration forms and ballot petitions — often using fake addresses Independent investigative journalist James O’Keefe and his team at O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) have released explosive undercover footage documenting what appears to be widespread voter registration and petition fraud on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, where homeless individuals were allegedly bribed with cash, cigarettes, and marijuana in exchange for signing voter registration forms and ballot petitions — often using fake addresses. The investigation, titled “CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS FRAUD CASH FOR BALLOTS PART I,” captured at least 28...

New York City has more than tripled spending on unsheltered homelessness since 2019, shelling out nearly $368 million even as the number of people living on the streets continued to rise, according to a state comptroller’s report. The city’s own numbers show the unsheltered population grew from 3,588 in fiscal year 2019 to 4,504 in fiscal year 2025, a 26% increase from pre-pandemic levels. Over that same period, spending on services for the unsheltered jumped 262%, from $102 million to nearly $368 million. That works out to roughly $81,700 per unsheltered person in FY 2025 — slightly more than the...

The O’Keefe Media Group on Tuesday released part one of its investigation into a California elections fraud cash for ballots scheme. James O’Keefe and his team of journalists went undercover on Skid Row in Los Angeles posing as homeless people.

https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/2033985281653936563 Wall Street Apes@WallStreetApes·18hWIOAH 🚨 James O’Keefe went undercover in Los Angeles posing as homeless‘On hidden cameras, petitioners admitted they are paid $7–$10 per signature — earning $1,000 or more per day’🚨 The homeless are being farmed for votes and paid cash and drugsMarch 17, 2026

Yesterday I had some figures from the NYC vs LA deathmatch over who can spend more on the homeless population. Los Angeles was looking pretty good with $650,000 per housing unit for the homeless, but don’t count NYC out yet. These numbers come from the NY comptroller’s annual report via Mike Bird of the Economist. New York City’s unsheltered population increased from 3,588 in FY 2019 to 4,504 in FY 2025 — a 26 percent increase from pre-pandemic levels In that time, spending on services for this population has more than tripled, growing from $102 million in FY 2019...

A hotel near Venice Beach that the city bought to transform into homeless housing remains empty after years of drawn-out delays and a ballooning budget. The former Ramada Inn on Washington Avenue has sat mostly vacant since 2020 as officials have scrambled to secure permits, subsidies and construction financing. Now the price tag for the stalled project is approaching $20 million, after the city plunked down a relatively paltry $8 million for the property in 2020.

Investigators say that on the morning of Aug. 5, 2025, Vincent Wolf, a construction worker who lived in a Sylmar apartment complex with his mother and aunt, parked his black Toyota Corolla alongside an RV outside of his building. He exited his vehicle, walked up to 29-year-old Travis Harker, who had been homeless for years, and fatally shot him once in the chest, the search warrant affidavit alleges. Surveillance footage of Wolf’s vehicle led investigators to identify him as a suspect in the deadly shooting. Instagram records revealed a series of irate posts about homelessness in the city. ‘They piss...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland homeowners can now earn extra cash by renting a room out through the city’s new home share pilot program.The Portland Housing Bureau announced last week that it is offering one-time grants to homeowners who rent out their spare rooms using a qualified home share provider.In a press release, Mayor Keith Wilson said the city is exploring ways to utilize existing housing as part of its ongoing effort to address the housing crisis.“For many Portlanders, home sharing is a win-win solution, helping homeowners to supplement their incomes while providing low-income tenants with affordable housing options,” he...

On Los Angeles streets, tents aren’t just signs of homelessness — they’re where gangs openly deal drugs and collecting rent. Whether its RV rows choking Compton Boulevard, Skid Row’s packed tent maze or the once-quiet pockets of the Westside, encampments have morphed into open-air drug markets. This isn’t chaos — it’s control. Gangs blend into the population, hiding in plain sight, running street commerce behind tarps and inside RVs while City Hall looks the other way. Nowhere is it clearer than Compton Boulevard, where more than 100 RVs sit bumper-to-bumper, windows blacked out. Outreach workers and residents say many are...

Say it ain’t Zo. Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing a potential revolt from his Democratic Socialists of America comrades, The Post has learned. More than 200 NYC-DSA members have signed a resolution calling out the mayor for his reversal on homeless encampment sweeps during the recent cold snap. The budding grassroots movement within the larger organization — said to have 12,000 members — is urging Hizzoner to take “alternative, non-carceral actions” instead of reviving the policy to get homeless people off the streets. “We’re heartbroken by the loss of several New Yorkers who have frozen to death in the ongoing...

This is a truly Bizarro World story out of deep blue Prince George’s County, Md. Back in December, some 100 families living in the Marylander Condominiums complex were told they would have to leave their homes because the building was deemed “unfit for human habitation.” Last week, a Maryland judge signed a final eviction notice, which could leave many of these families homeless. Why? Turns out that the complex has been besieged for years by a nearby homeless encampment that is “a haven for gangs, drugs, and prostitutes” and has “vaporized property values and caused millions in damage, scaring away...

Hidden Cameras Caught Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Dumping Tons of Food

Chaos and fury erupted Monday in New York City’s affluent Upper East Side as residents packed a public meeting in protest of a planned homeless shelter they said "reeks of a for-profit intent." The women's shelter, which was converted from a men’s center after massive public pushback, is slated to open around April and will accommodate up to 250 women. At a Community Board 8 Manhattan meeting hosted by Housing Solutions of New York (HSNY), opponents sounded alarms over the shelter’s proximity to schools and daycare centers. Residents also accused city officials of deliberately rushing the process to limit community...

Borrowing from novelist James Hilton, who coined the word “Shangri-La” to describe a Tibetan utopia in a 1933 novel, Franklin Roosevelt gave that name to the peaceful retreat we know as Camp David. For California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Democrats, Shangri-La hasn’t become synonymous with a place that connotes peace on earth. It stands for a hellish homeless housing nightmare, eye-popping alleged fraud, and the ease and scale with which alleged con-artists rip off taxpayers. In October, federal agents arrested Cody Holmes, the 31-year-old former CFO of Shangri-La Industries, a downtown Los Angeles-based developer who was supposed to...

Residents of the Marylander Condominiums, in Prince George’s County, Md., have been without heat since November after vagrants from a nearby homeless encampment allegedly vandalized the boiler room. Now, many of those residents will be homeless themselves after a judge greenlighted the county’s efforts to start a forced evacuation of the condominium complex. Maryland district judge Bryon Bereano gave the county permission on Thursday to enforce an eviction order against half the property, which affects roughly 100 units. The county had deemed those units “unfit for human habitation” due to the heating failures allegedly caused by the encampment, to which...

The No. 1 job of a mayor, above everything else, is to keep his or her city functioning. Yet with people dying on the cold streets of New York and trash building up in parts of the city, New York is by no means functioning. Not even close. The snow and frigid temps have tested Gotham’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani and, alas, he has not risen to the occasion. Rather, he’s left the city a mess. Everest-size mountains of garbage have popped up. Unremoved snow, ice and road salt have damaged Con Edison electrical equipment, contributing to power outages. Most...

The Big Apple is about to take on a new name -- Tent City, or Filth City. Or perhaps Lepto City, after leptospirosis, a bacterial infection increasingly found in homeless encampments. New York's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is barring the New York Police Department from closing down encampments. Since Mamdani previewed his policy in December, new encampments are emerging in many neighborhoods. The consequences are dire both for vagrants and for the city's viability. Between Friday, when the city was hit with a bone-chilling winter storm, and Sunday night, eight people were found dead outdoors, suggesting they were homeless. Mamdani...

Within weeks of Zohran Mamdani being sworn into office in New York City, homeless encampments have popped back up in Manhattan after he vowed on the campaign trail to stop clearing them away. The democratic socialist, who took office on the first of the year, said in December he would stop the destruction of homeless encampments in the city - a hallmark of the previous administration led by Eric Adams. 'They are simply pushing New Yorkers who are living in the cold to another place where they will live in the cold,' Mamdani said at the time. In the 23...

Federal prosecutors announced Friday that the head of a South Los Angeles charity was arrested on wire-fraud charges, accused of stealing more than $23 million meant to help people experiencing homelessness — and spending some of it on luxury travel, including stays at a Maui resort featured in HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Authorities say Alexander Soofer, 42, ran Abundant Blessings, a Hyde Park-based nonprofit that received more than $23 million in homelessness funding between 2018 and 2025. Prosecutors allege he pocketed at least $10 million for a $7 million Westwood home, private jet trips, designer shopping and a vacation property...

Residents in a trendy apartment building in Denver, Colorado say their peaceful lives turned into a nightmare when homeless families were given free apartments next door. Owen Johnson, a 25-year-old from Missouri, says he moved into the White Swan apartment building near the city's Congress Park in May with his wife. But Johnson says their honeymoon period after tying the knot was quickly ruined when a homeless man was given a state housing voucher to move into the apartment next to theirs, and he says it dawned on them the tenant 'was crazy.'