POLITICS: Homelessness is swallowing LA

Homelessness, especially among the mentally ill, has become a problem that is swallowing the city.

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Jim McDonnell told The California Post that about one-third of all emergency calls to the force are for “people with mental health issues.”

Last year, interim LA Fire Department (LAFD) Ronnie Villanueva revealed that nearly one-third of all calls to firefighters had to do with homeless people — with trash fires the number-one reason.

The number of homeless people has declined slightly, according to the official count. But that decline only came after billions of dollars were spent on paying for hotel and motel rooms. 

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Homelessness persists because of drug use, mental illness, warm weather, lax enforcement of anti-camping ordinances, and the generous benefits LA and California continue to provide.

Ironically, the fact that we spend so much on homelessness means that we create incentives for homeless people to come here from other states, or to stay on the streets.

It sounds absurd, but LA now spends more on homelessness than on firefighting. With budgets tight, that means there is a tradeoff: we are spending less than we should on emergency services because we are accommodating a population that creates many of our emergencies.

This is an endless spiral that will eventually drag the city down with it.

Last year’s fires showed us the consequences of stretching our fire department too thin.

And while violent crime is — thankfully — down in LA, that’s partly because it’s down across the entire country (thanks in part to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, though city leaders will never admit it).

LA County voters also replaced a radical, George Soros-backed district attorney with Nathan Hochman, who is actually doing his job and fighting crime. 

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But police are still struggling with the workload, and that’s largely because they are diverting their time and resources to the homeless.

Usually, that means they are directing homeless people to social services — not enforcing the laws that homeless people routinely violate.

Keeping homeless people on the street does them no good — and it also turns our city into a shadow of what it used to be, and could be again.

We can’t accept that entire neighborhoods are swallowed up in squalor, or that they remain no-go zones for ordinary people.

LA needs more urgent intervention — not more money, but a totally different, “tough love” approach to the homelessness crisis.