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California is quickly turning into a hell hole, if it hasn't actually earned that status yet. The areas that are particularly hit the hardest by state and local policies have been the cities of the Golden State. Look no further than this latest story out of Sacramento. A salon owner of 21 years recently had to move locations, not because of lack of sales or increased property taxes, but because the homeless population is simply out of control."I am angry about it as well. I wouldn’t be relocating if it wasn’t for this issue," Elizabeth Novak told Fox & Friends...

A councilman in Seattle is reportedly opposed to hosing sidewalks that reek of excrement near a local courthouse because he fears that it might be racially insensitive. No, this is not a joke. The area surrounding King County Superior Court includes a homeless shelter and other social-services organizations and has become an “unsanitary and potentially frightening” scene — one “that reeks of urine and excrement” — according to an article in the Seattle Times. Desperate for help with the disgusting environment, two of the court’s judges have asked the city to please power-wash the poop-covered sidewalks. That seems like a...

Since Austin's liberal policy on homeless camping went into effect on July 1, the big question is how much of an impact would it really have? Was the issue overblown? Would Austin residents see homeless camps pop up all over town or not? And would Austin, woke and weird capital that it is, object to it all?The results are in and growing. And if Los Angeles is any guide, they are urgent. Mayor Steve Adler recently traveled to L.A. to "learn" how to handle homelessness from the Democrat-run city. Austin and L.A. both have permissive camping policies.Well, L.A. now has...

VIDEO Check for yourself. Just enter "Skid Row Los Angeles" into Google Search for Maps and you will see it is an entity on the map with boundaries. In this video I take a close look at that map and concentrate on the wholesale district which lies within the bounds of Skid Row. I take street level tour of a section of that wholesale district where I used to do a lot of business, often going there at least once or twice a week. The homeless situation which was encouraged by the current city administration must be putting a lot...

Remember when we talked about the 30% increase in homelessness in San Francisco? At the time I suggested that some combination of public and private investment might be needed to combat the problem. As it turns out, just such a proposal is moving forward, with construction getting underway on a 200-bed temporary shelter located near the Giants baseball stadium.Great news, right? You might think so, but a large group of local residents doesn’t agree. Called “Safe Embarcadero for All,” the group raised more than $100K, not to help the homeless, but to bring a lawsuit aimed at stopping construction...

Austin has long been the weird, liberal capital of Texas. The rest of Texas just sort of shrugs and puts up with it. Austin is quirky. Austin is odd. Austin lives in its own little world. Austin is also home to some of the best live music joints anywhere and you have to work pretty hard to find a bad restaurant in the city, so it’s not without its charms. The joke about Austin is that it’s nice because it's so close to Texas (its the capital, a deep blue dot surrounded by a vast red sea). Austin is like...

Homelessness has made encampments a familiar sight across Southern California, and with people living on the streets come problems like sidewalks being used as bathrooms, rat infestations and diseases. In an interview with Fox News from Osaka, Japan, the president agreed the “filth” in American cities was “very sad.” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti responded to Trump’s remarks Tuesday during an appearance on KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO, where he said he was actually encouraged by the president’s attention to the issue. “Any day the president is talking about homelessness is a good day,” Garcetti said. “The only thing I would correct...

As Los Angeles County grapples with a growing homeless population, San Diego has managed to get more people off the streets and into shelters, according to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer.. The homeless count is] down 6 percent county-wide,” he told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney Opens a New Window. on Friday. “It really is about challenging the bureaucracies that have been entrenched in the status quo and doing things differently.” By comparison, Los Angeles County homelessness spiked 12 percent over the past year. “One of the things that we are doing in San Diego, that I think is really having...

Los Angeles and Seattle are in chaos. As is San Francisco. It is the result of the left in charge. They feel the East Coast, no matter what will vote Democrat. So why fix things? In Los Angeles, rodents have decided to go upscale and move into City Hall. That’s rather fitting. However, one would think that LAPD’s headquarters being cited by the state for its health violations would be an embarrassment. Wouldn’t it?

Place yourself in San Francisco or Seattle or L.A. It’s rainy, windy. You just got off the bus. You only have $20 cash and you’re hungry and tired. Where do you go? What do you do? Complicate this problem with any of the following: * You have small children. * You are suffering from a chronic disease – HIV/AIDS. * You suffer from bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia and can’t afford, or won’t take, your medication. * You are addicted to heroin. * You have limited job skills or limited education. You are a symptom of the disintegration of our liberal...

Hugo Chavez was one of the most evil socialist dictators ever. He took the richest country in Latin America, Venezuela, and turned it into a disaster of misery and poverty in only five years. How bad? The people had no food or toilet paper. And critics of Chavez were tortured and murdered. Isn't socialism wonderful? But it gets worse. Just like Fidel Castro, Chavez got filthy rich based on the misery of his own people. His family made billions. Then this evil dictator died of cancer. He turned the country over to his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro. Maduro ran the...

IN A SENSE, Damian Monda grew up in The Jungle. But in the 1960s, it wasn’t yet an infamous homeless camp, Interstate 5 hadn’t been completed, and it wasn’t even known as The Jungle. It was just a neighborhood of abandoned old homes. But there were homeless people there, even then. Damian and his brothers and their friends would hike down the hill from Pacific Tower, where his family lived in the doctors’ quarters, to explore the empty homes. Entering them was like a dare. “It was dangerous and it was cool, and we were always afraid that we would...

As has already been established, the homelessness problem in Los Angeles has long since reached epidemic levels. Officials estimate that there are currently more than 36,000 displaced individuals living on the streets of the City of Angels. So in addition to people dumping trash all over the streets, there are homeless people literally relieving themselves on the pavement, with growing deposits of excrement constantly needing to be cleaned up and fears of disease rising. So what’s to be done? The obvious answer is toilets, right? More toilets open to the homeless population should tidy up the situation nicely. But...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A bizarre scene was caught on camera in the East Village. A man allegedly tried to attack an MTA bus and its driver.

Boise will ask the Supreme Court of the United States to hear its appeal in the case of Martin v. Boise, the “camping lawsuit” that stemmed from a city ordinance that banned sleeping in public places. The city filed a petition to the court to ask for it to extend the deadline for the city’s writ of certiorari, which is an order of a higher court to a lower court to send documents of a case so that the higher court may review a decision. That request starts the review of the case and the process for determining if the...

Seattle’s City Council is made up of 8 Democrats and one Socialist. That breakdown gives you an idea of how progressive the city’s residents are. But with seven out of nine City Council seats up for grabs this fall, one issue is making liberal voters consider new options: homelessness. Today the Seattle Times profiled three Seattle voters, two of whom are progressives who are now thinking about what a vote for a left-leaning candidate could mean for their neighborhoods: Until a few years ago, Christi Muoneke didn’t pay much attention to Seattle politics. “I couldn’t even tell you who...

There is something wonderfully childlike in the inability of California liberals to figure out what to do about the frightening rise in homelessness. If the circumstances were different, you might refer to their naivete, ignorance, and stupidity as endearing, adorable, even cute.But their utter disconnect from reality has real-world consequences for tens of thousands of people who are victims of their idiotic policies.National correspondent for the Los Angeles Times Matt Pearce tweeted out the grim statistics: Spikes in this year’s homeless counts across California: -Los Angeles 🆙 16%-San Francisco 🆙 17%-Orange County (since 2017) 🆙 43%-Ventura, San Bernardino and Kern...

Los Angeles has experienced a 16% increase in the homeless population over the last year, the latest sign of severe income inequality and a worsening housing crisis plaguing California. There are now more than 36,000 homeless people in the city of LA, and nearly 59,000 across LA county, a 16% and 12% uptick respectively, according to an annual LA county report released on Tuesday. The county “point-in-time count”, conducted by thousands of volunteers in January each year, is an estimate of the number of people living on the street, in tents, in cars and in shelters. The sharp increases paint...

Cops are people who sometimes have to take on thankless dirty jobs, because someone has to take out the trash, but now that they're coming down with typhus-like illnesses, based on the multiplication of the homeless population and the accompanying rats, one wonders how fair this is — or, more to the point, if maybe leftists making policy wanted it this way. According to ABC News: At least one officer with the Los Angeles Police Department has contracted the bacteria that causes typhoid fever, Salmonella typhi, and another one is showing typhus-like symptoms, the police department announced on Thursday. The officer who had...

A recent business trip to the liberal-run capital city of Texas left me impressed with the food, music, and overall quirky “weirdness” that is Austin, but it also left me generally disenchanted at the difficulty its working citizens must have in enjoying ANY of it. Why? Just take a walk, anywhere, and you can’t miss them - sleeping in the streets, sitting on sidewalks and benches or wandering aimlessly about. Stop for a second and, like clockwork, one will probably approach you, begging for some “spare change” or “a couple bucks” to “get home” or “buy something to eat.” If...