Free Republic

For a while during the runup to the elections last month, it looked as if former Republican real estate developer Rick Caruso might pull off a miracle and defeat Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass to become the next Mayor of Los Angeles. In the end, Bass squeaked out a six-point victory and will be inaugurated as the first female Mayor in the city’s history. Out on the campaign trail, Bass made a point of repeatedly promising to tackle the city’s endemic homelessness crisis. Not coincidentally, a large group of homeless people have been living in an encampment that activists set up...

Miami residents are up in arms over a pilot program to build an encampment for homeless people on a secluded beach that’s just a stone’s throw away from an exclusive island that was once home to Oprah Winfrey, Derek Jeter, and Mel Brooks. Miami-Dade County’s seventh district sparked anger after it quietly approved a plan to build between 50 and 100 miniature houses in the North Point Park section of Virginia Key Beach. Residents are upset over the plan for a variety of reasons, according to reports. Environmentalists believe the encampment will destroy the island’s fragile ecosystem, while recreational enthusiasts...

In this video smoke is rising behind the capitol while emergency alerts sound ... developing...

A sheet of plastic laid over a clothesline. A mini-fortress of milk crates stacked under a tree. A thin mattress on a flimsy crate lying in a dark tunnel. On the edge of Baltimore's woodlands, dozens of the city's transients live in makeshift homes which they consider safer than homeless shelters. Photographer Ben Marcin has captured some of the shanties in his thought-provoking photo essay, 'The Camps', documenting the struggle, loneliness and ingenuity of Maryland's people of the woods.

Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities? It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City. As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness. In addition to the thousands of "tunnel people" living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than...

Kansas City police, a local charity and other city departments on Friday cleared out and filled in a complex of elaborate tunnels and holes at a homeless camp near the East Bottoms. A tunnel entrance at the homeless camp in northeast Kansas City. “One of the tunnels probably went 20 to 25 feet underground towards the back and veered off in another direction about six feet or so, and there was some bedding and some candles,” said Officer Jason Cooley, community interaction officer for the East Patrol. “It was kind of in a little hill and probably four feet beneath...