Some of them are flat broke, some are sick, some work, some have given up hope.
They are homeless in Los Angeles, where mega-mansions and shantytowns share the same ZIP code, and where the dark underbelly of a colossal social breakdown is on full display.
In L.A. city and county, you taxed yourselves to do something about it, and last year alone $619 million was poured into housing and services.
But statistics released Tuesday show that the number of homeless only grew — a 16% increase in the city and a 12% jump in the county — to a staggering total of nearly 60,000 people without homes.
It’s fair to wonder what happened, and how it’s possible to spend all that money only to see the misery multiply and extend deeper into the Westside and the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.
Have you been ripped off?
More than 20,000 people were brought indoors, so it’s not like we got nothing for our investment. But tens of thousands more spilled onto the streets or took up residence in vehicles, shelters and parks.
There’s a myth that many of them have chosen that life. Some, no doubt, have given up.
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