Tag: homelessness

Kentucky GOP bill paves the way for ‘deadly physical force’ against the homeless

Republicans in Kentucky are cooking up new legislation that would pave the way for property owners to deploy “deadly physical force” against homeless people.

Vice reports that the bill, known as the “Safer Kentucky Act,” says that physical force against homeless people is “justifiable” if a property owner believes that criminal trespass, robbery or unlawful camping are occurring on their property.

Additionally, “deadly physical force” can be justified if the property owner believes a homeless person is trying to “dispossess” them of their property.

Lyndon Pryor, the CEO of the Louisville Urban League, tells Vice that the legislation will likely have deadly consequences for the homeless in his state.

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Highly-contagious infection spread by feces breaks out in Portland as homeless crisis sparks disease common in Third World

A highly contagious infection that is spread through tiny particles of fecal matter has broken out in Portland – with officials warning that the homeless population are most at risk of catching the illness.

Shigella is a bacteria that spreads through human feces. People transmit the infection after getting the microbes on their hands and then touching their mouths.

People can also spread the intestinal infection through sexual intercourse. 

Multnomah County in Oregon has warned that homeless people and same-sex male partners are most at risk because of their lack of access to hygienic facilities.

In the last month, 45 cases have been found in Portland, bringing the total from 2023 to 218. The influx of infections were reported among unhoused people in downtown Portland’s Old Town neighborhood.

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Homelessness In U.S. at Highest Level Since 2008 Financial Crisis, Federal Report Reveals

Spurred on by the rising cost of living and the end of pandemic aid, U.S. homelessness this year reached a level not seen since the 2008 financial crisis, according to one influential annual metric released by the The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Friday.

HUD’s annual homelessness count, which is called the “Point In Time,” or P.I.T., count, is not a count of all cases of homelessness throughout the year, but a snapshot of who was homeless on a single day in the last ten days of January. 

This year, HUD said 653,100 people were experiencing homelessness, the highest number since HUD began issuing the report in 2007 and a 12 percent increase from 2022. Nearly one-third, or 143,105 people, of those experiencing homelessness reported that they were chronically homeless, also the highest number ever counted.

In a press release, HUD said that the increase in homelessness was a result of the expiration of pandemic-era expansions in the social safety net, like eviction moratoria and rental assistance.

“The rise in homelessness at the beginning of 2023 continued a pre-pandemic trend from 2016 to 2020, when homelessness also increased,” HUD said. The agency said the American Rescue Plan had prevented a rise in homelessness between 2020 and 2022, but many of its resources have now expired. 

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Las Vegas police search for suspect after 5 homeless people are shot, killing 1

Five homeless people were shot in Las Vegas, one of them fatally, and police say they are searching for a lone suspect

Las Vegas police search for suspect after 5 homeless people are shot, killing 1The Associated PressLAS VEGAS

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Five homeless people were shot in Las Vegas on Friday, one of them fatally, and police were searching for a lone suspect, authorities said.

The shooting occurred around 5:30 p.m. near a freeway overpass in the northeastern part of the city, according to Las Vegas police.

A police commander initially said two were killed, but Las Vegas Metro Police Department spokesperson Jason Johansson later said at a briefing that one man in his 50s was pronounced dead and another was in critical condition, while three others were in stable condition.

“Right now we are trying to figure out what exactly happened during the shooting, the information we have is kind of conflicting,” Johansson said.

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LA man accused of murdering three homeless men AND fourth man during horrific ‘follow-home’ robbery in crime-ridden city

Los Angeles police have nabbed a man accused of killing three homeless men – and a fourth victim gunned down in his garage during a ‘follow-home’ robbery. 

On Saturday afternoon, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore announced that the man arrested for the murders is 33-year-old Jerrid Joseph Powell.

He is also the prime suspect in the murder of Nicholas Simbolon – a father of two – which took place last Tuesday night in San Dimas.

Moore said the department suspects Powell was responsible for four murders in four days.

The suspect, who is a Los Angeles resident, is alleged to have shot three homeless men across the city from November 26 to November 29.

His vehicle was identified by the police in Beverly Hills last Wednesday. Upon conducting a traffic stop, authorities recovered the gun used in the murders – he was subsequently arrested.

On Saturday, Moore said: ‘Over the course of the investigation of our murders, we were able to identify the vehicle we believe is connected to our three homicides as being the same vehicle that Mr. Powell used in the murder of Mr. Simbolon.’

‘[We learned] that it was being held in custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as evidence of their murder.

LA County Sheriff Robert Luna discussed the use of the controversial license plate reader system law enforcement officers sometimes use to identify suspicious vehicles.

‘We know there’s controversy out there about the usage of this system, but let me tell our community something. If we did not enter that plate into the system, this individual that we believe is responsible for at least four murders may have [still] been out there and reoffended,’ he said.

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LA cops are hunting a SERIAL KILLER after three homeless people were shot dead by ‘hooded male suspect’ – as police warn locals to avoid sleeping outside alone at night

LAPD has warned that a potential serial killer could be on the loose after three homeless people were murdered in the past week. 

Police are asking the public’s assistance in identifying the suspect responsible for three murders that occurred on November 26, 27, and 29 around downtown and in South Los Angeles, California. 

The LAPD said the investigation is at the early stage, but noted similarities in those three killings. 

‘A single individual approached each one and shot and killed each one as they slept,’ LAPD Chief Michel Moore said. 

‘The suspect, hooded, targets lone, unsheltered individuals sleeping on the streets, shooting them before fleeing in a vehicle without any observed altercation’, LAPD reported during a Friday afternoon press conference. 

‘To the person responsible: We will find you, we will catch you and you will be held accountable,’ Mayor Karen Bass said. 

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After Xi Jinping visit to San Francisco, city falling back into drug use and homelessness: business owner

With the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference over and done with in San Francisco, some business owners are complaining that the city is reverting into a den for homelessness and drug use. 

Restaurant owner Tony Pankaew said in a local media interview.that San Francisco rushed to clean up the city for Chinese President Xi Jinping and other foreign dignitaries for APEC.

“They cleaned up the people, they cleaned up the streets,” he told CBS News Bay Area. “They made the city look good and look impressive for the foreigners, for the politicians.”

“Now they have started to come back,” Pankaew said. “Slowly but surely. [In] a couple weeks [the city] will be back to where [it was] before.” 

Pankaew said he was hopeful that things will turn around in San Francisco, adding that a new skating rink near his business might attract more people, and therefore more business. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., was criticized on social media after admitting that San Francisco timed a massive cleanup effort ahead of the summit.

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San Francisco Clears Homeless And Cleans Sh*t-Covered Streets For World Leaders Next Week

Progressive city leadership in crime-ridden San Francisco has undertaken a massive effort to improve the city’s image, which has been tarnished with shit-covered streets, homelessness, and open-air drug markets. These measures have been implemented as a temporary solution ahead of the global trade summit that will flood the city with world leaders and corporate executives beginning today. 

The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is San Francisco’s largest international event since world leaders gathered in the town in 1945 to sign the charter creating the United Nations. A lot has changed in the metro area in 78 years, including radical leftists in City Hall that have pushed failed ‘defund the police’ policies that have transformed parts of the region into an out-of-control, crime-infested hellhole. 

The New York Post confirmed the wonderful folks in City Hall began pushing “drug addicts, dealers, and homeless” from the downtown area to other parts of the city, an effort that some believe is to conceal their failed policies from the international community during APEC. 

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Homeless Pirates Pillage Leisure Boats In San Francisco Bay

There’s a new, maritime dimension to the scourge of rampant crime in northern California cities, as homeless creeps are now taking to the water and preying on houseboats and yachts docked on San Francisco Bay, reports Fox News. 

“Multiple vessels have been stolen and ransacked. Victims have had to resort to personally confronting the criminals to recover their property without the benefit of police support,” said former harbor master Brock de Lappe at a recent municipal meeting. “Is this appropriate activity for a 79-year-old senior?”

The 3,000-slip Oakland-Alameda Estuary has been particularly hard-hit, as thieves use small boats to burglarize or steal private boats on the waterway. The pirates use stolen boats or old, abandoned dinghies to carry out their raids. 

A boating school for children has seen four of its eight safety boats stolen and destroyed. The boats cost the school between $25,000 and $35,000 apiece. “We cannot run our program without these boats,” wrote Kame Richards, owner of the nonprofit Alameda Community Sailing Center, in a letter to his municipal commission.

“The response we received from APD (Alameda Police Department) was that they could do nothing, and a warning not to approach the perpetrators if we located our boats,” added Richards. Sounds about par for the course in a state where the Senate has advanced a bill that would criminalize retail-store policies requiring employees to attempt to thwart thieves. 

“We had all hands on deck to retrieve this stuff, and it took 35 hours to get a police report number from the Alameda Police Department,” said Richards during a municipal meeting. The school is on the verge of calling it quits.

Another woman scared a troubling tale, telling Fox that she recently heard faint cries of “help me, please, please, anybody help me” coming from the inky darkness of the estuary. She dared to venture out with her kayak and a headlamp, and found a sailboat with a “panicked and terrified young man” aboard. He said pirates cut his sailboat line and set him adrift after a confrontation. 

“If there had been any wind at the time I wouldn’t have been able to go out there and rescue this young man who had no motor and no ability to sail that boat,” said his rescuer, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. 

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Banning Criminal Background Checks Will Lead To More Housing Discrimination, Not Less

America needs more housing. Pressure for reform is only growing as available homes get less and less affordable. Unfortunately, rather than addressing the root cause of high housing prices—an epidemic of local overregulation that prevents enough homes from being built—some legislators continue to flirt with social experiments that can harm both landlords and renters.

For example, some states and localities have implemented well-meaning “fair chance” laws banning criminal history on background checks for prospective tenants. Progressive Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D–Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.) recently introduced the idea as federal legislation. In a statement, Pressley said, “It’s time we remove the systemic obstacles that have exacerbated the prison-to-homelessness pipeline.”

We do indeed have an overcriminalization and overincarceration problem in this country, so on its face, this seems like a good idea. According to the Department of Justice, more than 650,0000 ex-offenders are released from prison every year, not counting the nearly 6.9 million people on probation, on parole, or still in jail or prison at any one time. Far too many face undeserved challenges when trying to re-acclimate into society and not reoffend.

That’s partly because relatively few landlords want to rent to people with criminal records. Landlords minimize the risk of delinquent or destructive tenants by selecting the best applicants on a given margin. From this perspective, avoiding people with criminal records seems like an easy choice, even though it means some potentially great tenants are rejected. The best reforms would correct the real problems of overcriminalization and overincarceration. That’s politically difficult and may take a long time. Equally important would be removing all artificial barriers to building more homes.

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