Free Republic

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.'

An outbreak of deadly bacteria at a Bay Area homeless encampment has sparked urgent calls for action in Los Angeles, with officials warning the disease may already be circulating in the city. The bacterial disease leptospirosis was found in rats at encampments in the hippie college town of Berkeley, leading health officials there to issue an urgent warning to the homeless to clear out. Officials told them to relocate at least a third of a mile from the “red zone” encompassing several square blocks as soon as possible. The warning comes as authorities attempted remove the encampment last year but...

Actor David Spade raising awareness that a bill was introduced in California to audit where the $20+ billion dollars in missing homeless money went, it passed but then Gavin Newsom VETOED the bill to block the investigation Yes, this really happened. He blocked bills for an audit MULTIPLE TIMES Bipartisan bill AB 2903 (unanimous passed 72-0 in the Assembly, 40-0 in the Senate) would’ve forced annual public reports on where the money went Newsom vetoed it. Gavin Newsom also vetoed similar bills AB 2570 and AB 2093 “The same broader problem with people paying taxes in California — The homeless,...

Seattle drug addicts have praised the city's new mayor for allegedly telling cops not to arrest people doing illegal substances on the crime-ridden city's streets. One 36-year-old local, who gave his name as Brandon, told the Daily Mail on Wednesday that Mayor Katie Wilson is 'cool' after her office and Seattle's progressive city attorney Erika Evans reportedly plotted to avoid prosecuting most public drugs use cases. Brandon, who lives on the streets because he prefers them to his taxpayer-funded apartment, said of Wilson's new plans: 'They tried to do that already during Covid. We went buck wild! I'm not gonna...

A man who allegedly ambushed two police officers after luring them to a transit center with a bogus 911 call has been charged, according to documents obtained by Fox News Digital that reveal new details about the attack. The officer-involved shooting took place in downtown Bellevue, Washington, at around 12:25 p.m. Friday at the Bellevue Transit Center. Bellevue is a city located just east of Seattle. The suspect, Mohamed Morray Bangura, 38, calmly spoke with the officers for several seconds, pretending to point out an argument he reported on 911, according to charging documents. That's when he allegedly suddenly unzipped...

A tourist viciously stabbed by a crazed homeless woman inside a bathroom at Macy’s Herald Square had been changing her 10-month-old daughter at the time, sources told The Post. The 38-year-old mom, who was visiting from California, was in the seventh-floor bathroom with her baby when she was repeatedly knifed Thursday afternoon, the sources said. The victim suffered knife wounds to her back, shoulder and arm in the unhinged attack that unfolded during the holiday shopping rush at the packed flagship store in Midtown. The alleged attacker, Kerri Aherne, 43, was arrested on charges of attempted murder, assault and weapon...

It is always amazing that, in a place where liberal Democrats have reigned supreme for decades, and say they want a change, their answer always seems to be, "If we just elect some new Democrats..." Since he came on the scene during the summer, the entire nation has been able to see what's coming once Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani gets sworn into office. He is an unapologetic socialist and will implement ridiculous and useless socialist ideas in the Big Apple. When it comes to the city's homeless population, even Democrat Mayor Eric Adams knew there had to be some restrictions. But...

Voters in Texas' capital overwhelmingly rejected a plan to raise taxes to pay millions for homeless services last week, but that isn't stopping local leaders from looking for the money in other places. The City of Austin is now proposing cutting millions in funding from the fire and ambulance services to give it the city's unsuccessful program for people on the streets. 'It's a slap in the face because they really aren't listening, and they really are steamrolling, whatever they want to do, and continuously trying to undermine the public will,' local public safety advocate Cleo Petricek told Daily Mail...

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs … announced $84 million in grants to 176 organizations across the country to help veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Of the total amount, $42 million in grants will cover legal services and another $42 million in grants will go toward case management services to improve housing retention by veterans who are at risk of becoming homeless or who were previously homeless and are transitioning to permanent housing. Legal services grants will be distributed through VA’s Legal Services for Homeless Veterans and Veterans At-Risk for Homelessness Grants program and provide...

A Portland Democrat who once called for homeless individuals to be given housing suffered an ironic and cruel twist of fate last week. As The Oregonian reported, 51-year-old homeless man Vashon Locust was arrested on Tuesday after starting a fire that torched Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos’ townhome and car. He faces charges of reckless burning, second-degree mischief, and trespassing. These are all misdemeanors. According to a police affidavit obtained by the paper, Locust snuck into a shed near Avalos’ home on October 26 and attempted to use an electric outlet. When that failed, he set a fire to stay...

A new study from a pair of think tanks has found that massive amounts of money, taxpayer dollars that are meant to combat the ongoing homelessness crisis, are in fact being used to further the left’s political goals. This might explain why the homeless problem seems to get worse each year despite the fact that we throw billions of dollars at efforts to solve it. FOX News reports: A new study just exposed the corruption behind America’s homelessness crisisFor years, Americans have been told that “compassion” for the homeless meant writing ever-larger checks – more money, more programs and far...