Tag: poverty

City of Los Angeles Accused of Hiding the Homeless Ahead of the Oscars: ‘They Kicked Everybody Out of Union Station So It Looks Better for the Image’

The Oscars are a day away and are already coming under fire. The city of Los Angeles is being accused of hiding the homeless as Hollywood prepares to toast itself ahead of Sunday’s 93rd Academy Awards ceremony. One man told local news he was told to either move or have his things demolished.

The celebrity-studded ceremony is being held at Union Station in Los Angeles, an area bedeviled by homelessness. But on Sunday, the homeless will not be seen anywhere near Union Station, according to a report by Fox 11 Los Angeles.

“They came to us about a week ago saying that we had to move by Friday, 6 p.m. because they were trying to clean up for the Oscars and they told us if we didn’t move, they were gonna just demolish our stuff,” DJ, a man living in a tent in LA, told Fox 11. “They forced us to go to the Grand Hotel on 3rd and Figueroa and they kicked everybody out of Union Station so it looks better for the image.”

Keep reading

Vast Stretches Of America Have Now Descended Into A State Of Deep Economic Hopelessness

The federal government gives us doctored numbers that show that the national unemployment rate is low, but in small towns all across the country it seems like almost everyone is either unemployed or working extremely low paying jobs.  Earlier this month, one such town was profiled by USA Today.  Even before the COVID pandemic came along, the little town of Ogdensburg, New York was deeply struggling, but now economic conditions have become extremely dire…

Ogdensburg is tiny and desperately poor, so it experiences these national trends in concentrated form. The median house in this city of 10,000 people sells for $68,000, according to the U.S. Census. The average family earns $42,000 a year, and 2,300 residents live below the federal poverty line, giving Ogdensburg a poverty rate 75% higher than the rest of New York State.

Then the economy closed. The governments of Canada and the United States tried to limit the spread of COVID-19 by shutting the international border, including the curvy suspension bridge between Ogdensburg and Prescott, Ontario. In the small industrial park east of town, the few remaining warehouses and Canadian-owned factories shut down. The hospital in Ogdensburg furloughed 174 people. Most restaurants and grocery stores stayed open, primarily by firing every person they could.

Like millions of other Americans, most people living in Ogdensburg are just trying to find some way to survive month after month.

Keep reading

US Military Ordered “Clandestine Burning” of Toxic Chemicals in Poor Neighborhoods

New research conducted by environmental justice scholars at Vermont’s Bennington College reveals that between 2016 and 2020, the U.S. military oversaw the “clandestine burning” of more than 20 million pounds of Aqueous Fire Fighting Foam in low-income communities around the country—even though there is no evidence that incineration destroys the toxic “forever chemicals” that make up the foam and are linked to a range of cancers, developmental disorders, immune dysfunction, and infertility.

“In defiance of common sense and environmental expertise, the Department of Defense (DOD) has enlisted poor communities across the U.S. as unwilling test subjects in its toxic experiment with burning AFFF,” David Bond, associate director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College, said (pdf) in a statement earlier this week.

Noting that scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and even Pentagon officials have warned that “burning AFFF is an unproven method and dangerous mix that threatens the health of millions of Americans,” Bond characterized the decision of the military to dump huge stockpiles of AFFF and AFFF wastewater into “a handful of habitually negligent incinerators” as a “harebrained” operation as well as a manifestation of environmental injustice.

Keep reading

EUGENICS: Over 1,000 Female Prisoners in California Forcibly Sterilized Because “It’s Cheaper than Welfare”

A horrifying scheme described as modern-day eugenics has come to light, thanks to the bravery of a victim-turned-whistleblower.

Kelli Dillon was given a 15-year prison sentence after killing her abusive husband in self-defense; while in prison, Dillon says she was lied to about a medical condition and was then forcibly sterilized without her knowledge or consent.

Scott Hechinger, a Brooklyn public defender, tweeted about Dillon’s experience.

In 2001, while imprisoned at Central California Women’s Prison, the world’s largest women’s prison, Dillon was told she needed surgery to remove an ovarian cyst.

Five years later, Dillon began to experience symptoms of menopause at age 24, and it was only then that she discovered she had been given a hysterectomy without her knowledge or consent. She quickly sued the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) but lost.

Instead of giving up, Dillon worked with a team of filmmakers who followed her for seven years to tell both Dillon’s story and the stories of other women who suffered the same injustice.

Keep reading

A Dozen Cops Dispatched to Protect a Dumpster Full of Food from Hungry People

The state of Oregon has one of the largest homeless populations in the country. Its largest city, Portland is home to the 4th largest houseless population in the entire United States. Having such a large homeless population means that there are a lot of hungry folks in the city. So, when the local Fred Meyer throws the entire store’s perishables in the trash because they lost power, it garners the attention of the hungry, as well as those who wish to feed the hungry.

As the following case illustrates, it also garnered the attention of a dozen cops who collected their taxpayer funded salaries to guard the dumpster and make sure the food never made its way to this homeless population.

According to reports, the Fred Meyer story on Hollywood in Portland lost power on Tuesday and threw away  thousands of food items they say were no longer safe for consumption due to the temperatures the items had reached.

The decision was made “out of an abundance of caution,” according to a Fred Meyer spokesperson. To be clear, the food was not expired and was actually preserved outside due to the cold temperatures and many people were more than willing to take it regardless of the warning from Fred Meyer.

When someone spotted the food, they posted it on social media and individuals, hungry and helpful alike, descended on the Fred Meyer dumpster.

Keep reading