Los Angeles County has faced close to a double-digit jump in its homeless population over the past year, with data from a federally-mandated tally conducted in January finding that over 75,510 people, or about one in 130 residents in the county of 9.8 million, are sleeping on the streets every night.
About 46,260 of homeless residents live in Los Angeles, the US’s second largest city. There, the homeless are estimated to make up over one percent of the total population. About a third of LA County’s homeless population suffers from substance abuse.
Los Angeles declared a state of emergency over its homelessness situation late last year, and has shelled out $1.3 billion from the city’s budget to address the problem.
Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles have faced a dramatic spike in homeless rates over the past eight years, with homelessness rising by 70 percent in the county, and 80 percent in the city since 2015, respectively.
Large-scale homelessness in America began in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration closed mental institutions and cut federal social spending programs. Ordinary poverty has also contributed to the problem, with an estimated 20 percent of the homeless holding full or part-time jobs, but unable to afford housing.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated the US’s total homeless population at about 582,500 people in 2022. However, other agencies and some charities suggest these figures may be far higher, including as many as 2.3 million children aged 0-18 alone.
Political Disconnect
A growing number of ordinary Americans and a handful of politicians have pointed to the disconnect between the tens of billions of dollars in aid which Washington has been sent to Ukraine compared to the lack of funding for social programs inside the US itself.
“We’re sending $113 billion to Ukraine. The entire budget of the CDC is $12 billion. The budget of EPA is $12 billion. 57 percent of Americans could not put their hands on $1,000 if they have an emergency in their family. 25 percent of Americans are hungry,” Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr said in a town hall this week.
Recalling that the federal food stamp and Medicare budgets saw dramatic cuts this past March, Kennedy noted that “that same month, we printed $300 billion to bail out the Silicon Valley Bank, and we topped off Ukraine at $113 billion.”
“We have plenty of money for the big shots who need their bank bailouts, and for any war that comes along, but if you took that $113 billion that we’ve given to Ukraine and spent it here we wouldn’t have to cut one dollar from food stamps for that 30 million Americans. We’re acting like an alcoholic who’s behind on his mortgage, and he’s taking the milk money and buying rounds for strangers at the bar,” the candidate said.