California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Why is There So Much Unused Land in LA that Could Be Used for Homeless Camps Instead of Downtown Streets?

by John Lawrence, September 2, 2019

LA just built 72 apartments for the homeless at a cost of $690,692 per unit. This is a foolish waste of money with little to show for it. "This kind of cost is utterly unacceptable," Controller Ron Galperin said. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) is an abject failure and so is LA's approach to ameliorating the homeless situation and cleaning up the city. In its 2019 count, LAHSA reported that there were close to 60,000 homeless people living in the county, with more than 36,000 of them in the city. All but about 25% live on the streets.

In LA the tents are spread out on sidewalks across the city, the homeless emboldened by a court ruling that allows them to live outside if no shelter space is available. Many live in filthy, third world conditions without basic necessities such as toilets and sinks. It makes them and other denizens of LA who must use city streets and sidewalks susceptible to disease not to mention the sights and smells of people urinating and defecating in public. Another point - isn't it still illegal to use drugs? Reports of needles and syringes in homeless trash heaps around the city abound. Why don't the police arrest the people that are using these and send them to jail? There, at least, they would have a roof over their heads and three squares a day.

Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles has a real estate portfolio consisting of 9000 parcels. Why not turn some of these into city sanctioned camp sites where anyone could pitch a tent. They should be provided with sanitary facilities such as port-a-potties and portable showers at a minimum. What's happening with the homeless in LA is not fair to them, and it's not fair to the tourists and residents that have to put up with it. You outlaw people sleeping in vehicles. Yet it's OK to live in tents on public sidewalks.

Here, in my humble opinion, is what you need to do:

1) Set up one or more public campgrounds where the homeless as well as others can pitch their tents. Use some of those 9000 vacant parcels.

2) Provide minimal amenities such as sanitation facilities including port-a-potties, portable showers, lockers and security.

3) Provide transit passes so that they can get from wherever the campgrounds are located to downtown homeless services.

4) Allow pets.

5) Provide for parking for those living in vehicles.

5) This is a very low cost solution compared to actual housing.

6) Pass an ordinance making it illegal to sleep on public streets and sidewalks.

So you have a very low cost solution that would clean up public streets and sidewalks and at the same time make the homeless at least marginally better off than they are now. Right now you have the worst of both worlds and are aiding and abetting the creation of a human sub-class. Forget about "shelters." You only need shelters in case of very inclement weather which we have little of in LA. Also don't worry about LA becoming a "homeless magnet." The improvement in the city's ambiance if the areas around downtown Skid Row streets were cleaned up would be a guiding light for other cities to do the same, and it would promote the city as a tourist destination.

The LA Times reported:

With the infusion of sales tax dollars from Measure H, the city-county outreach system has grown from fewer than 300 workers to nearly 800. They include teams employed by the homeless authority and its contractors, and teams fielded by the Los Angeles County departments of Health Services and Mental Health.

The city contributed $3.5 million from its general fund in the 2017-18 fiscal year to LAHSA and $6.8 million last year, the audit said. County contributions increased from $13 million to $31 million.

Finally, in light of the city’s chronic shortage of shelters, the report urged both the city and county to do more to provide short-term resources, such as restrooms, showers, storage facilities and waste services to ameliorate living conditions on the street.

“There are things we can do immediately,” Galperin said. “You look at when civil emergencies happen around the world. This is what we have on our streets right how. Unfortunately, the city is not treating it quite as the emergency it is.”

It’s unclear whether any changes to the way LAHSA operates will be made as a result of the audit. Changes to its contract with the city are likely, but there were no concrete proposals for how the authority’s burden of staffing encampment cleanups could be reduced.

Mayor Eric Garcetti, through a spokesman, issued a statement saying that he would review the audit.

How dumb can city officials be when they have 9000 unused parcels of real estate, a solution that would cost little, such as I'm suggesting here, that would make the homeless better off while cleaning up the city. Instead the city has spent its money on building up a homeless bureaucracy of paid professionals (LAHSA) that is doing little or nothing to solve the crisis except that they are collecting paychecks.

We Have Studied Every Mass Shooting Since 1966. Here’s What We’ve Learned About the Shooters

Published on Monday, August 05, 2019

by Los Angeles Times

Instead of simply rehearsing for the inevitable, we need to use that data to drive effective prevention strategies.

by Jillian Peterson, James Densley

 

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Family members of 13-year-old Gilroy shooting victim Keyla Salazar console each other before a San Jose vigil. (Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

In the last week, more than 30 people have died in three separate mass shootings in Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton, Ohio. We believe that analyzing and understanding data about who commits such massacres can help prevent more lives being lost.

For two years, we’ve been studying the life histories of mass shooters in the United States for a project funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. We’ve built a database dating back to 1966 of every mass shooter who shot and killed four or more people in a public place, and every shooting incident at schools, workplaces, and places of worship since 1999. We’ve interviewed incarcerated perpetrators and their families, shooting survivors and first responders. We’ve read media and social media, manifestos, suicide notes, trial transcripts and medical records.

Our goal has been to find new, data-driven pathways for preventing such shootings. Although we haven’t found that mass shooters are all alike, our data do reveal four commonalities among the perpetrators of nearly all the mass shootings we studied.

First, the vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying. The trauma was often a precursor to mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, thought disorders or suicidality.

Second, practically every mass shooter we studied had reached an identifiable crisis point in the weeks or months leading up to the shooting. They often had become angry and despondent because of a specific grievance. For workplace shooters, a change in job status was frequently the trigger. For shooters in other contexts, relationship rejection or loss often played a role. Such crises were, in many cases, communicated to others through a marked change in behavior, an expression of suicidal thoughts or plans, or specific threats of violence.

Third, most of the shooters had studied the actions of other shooters and sought validation for their motives. People in crisis have always existed. But in the age of 24-hour rolling news and social media, there are scripts to follow that promise notoriety in death. Societal fear and fascination with mass shootings partly drives the motivation to commit them. Hence, as we have seen in the last week, mass shootings tend to come in clusters. They are socially contagious. Perpetrators study other perpetrators and model their acts after previous shootings. Many are radicalized online in their search for validation from others that their will to murder is justified.

 

Fourth, the shooters all had the means to carry out their plans. Once someone decides life is no longer worth living and that murdering others would be a proper revenge, only means and opportunity stand in the way of another mass shooting. Is an appropriate shooting site accessible? Can the would-be shooter obtain firearms? In 80% of school shootings, perpetrators got their weapons from family members, according to our data. Workplace shooters tended to use handguns they legally owned. Other public shooters were more likely to acquire them illegally.

So what do these commonalities tell us about how to prevent future shootings?

One step needs to be depriving potential shooters of the means to carry out their plans. Potential shooting sites can be made less accessible with visible security measures such as metal detectors and police officers. And weapons need to be better controlled, through age restrictions, permit-to-purchase licensing, universal background checks, safe storage campaigns and red-flag laws — measures that help control firearm access for vulnerable individuals or people in crisis.

Another step is to try to make it more difficult for potential perpetrators to find validation for their planned actions. Media campaigns like #nonotoriety are helping starve perpetrators of the oxygen of publicity, and technology companies are increasingly being held accountable for facilitating mass violence. But we all can slow the spread of mass shootings by changing how we consume, produce, and distribute violent content on media and social media. Don’t like or share violent content. Don’t read or share killers’ manifestos and other hate screeds posted on the internet. We also need to study our current approaches. For example, do lockdown and active shooter drills help children prepare for the worst or hand potential shooters the script for mass violence by normalizing or rehearsing it?

We also need to, as a society, be more proactive. Most mass public shooters are suicidal, and their crises are often well known to others before the shooting occurs. The vast majority of mass shooters leak their plans ahead of time. People who see or sense something is wrong, however, may not always say something to someone owing to the absence of clear reporting protocols or fear of overreaction and unduly labeling a person as a potential threat. Proactive violence prevention starts with schools, colleges, churches and employers initiating conversations about mental health and establishing systems for identifying individuals in crisis, reporting concerns and reaching out — not with punitive measures but with resources and long-term intervention. Everyone should be trained to recognize the signs of a crisis.

Proactivity needs to extend also to the traumas in early life that are common to so many mass shooters. Those early exposures to violence need addressing when they happen with ready access to social services and high-quality, affordable mental health treatment in the community. School counselors and social workers, employee wellness programs, projects that teach resilience and social emotional learning, and policies and practices that decrease the stigma around mental illness will not just help prevent mass shootings, but will also help promote the social and emotional success of all Americans.

Our data show that mass shooters have much in common. Instead of simply rehearsing for the inevitable, we need to use that data to drive effective prevention strategies.

© 2019 Los Angeles Times

Off the Top of My Head

Medicare for All: It's Time Has Come

by John Lawrence, February 14, 2019

California Governor Gavin Newsom is moving California towards a Medicare for All, single payer health care system at least for residents of the state. Many other politicians such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elzabeth Warren and others are calling for the same thing at the Federal level. Of course, the reactionary Trump administration is dead set against it. They want "freedom" for pharmaceutical corporations to keep gouging their customers. They don't want "socialism" when every other industrialized and most non-industrialized countries already have a single payer system. They say it would cost too much. Well how do other countries do it for half the price of the American system and twice as good outcomes? Thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care, with the United States being the lone exception.

The LA Times reported:

Gavin Newsom backed an assortment of ambitious and expensive programs as he campaigned for governor, none more so than the idea of converting the state to a single-payer healthcare system. On his first day in office Monday, Newsom reaffirmed that goal, but set the state on a more measured — and far more achievable — path toward insuring all Californians.

The most dramatic step Newsom took was also the one least likely to bear fruit: He signed a letter asking the federal government’s permission to mingle federal dollars (such as funding for Medicare, Medicaid and veterans health benefits) and state funds into a single-payer system, replacing the various public and private insurance programs with one run by Sacramento. The chances of the Trump administration signing on to such a plan seem more remote than the most distant star in the Milky Way.

Many other state Governors are working their way toward a single payer system. As usual local and state politicians are leading the way while the sclerotic, antiquated Federal government can do nothing but fund a trillion dollar defense establishment and be at the mercy of corporate lobbyists. People are finding out that the vaunted Trump tax cuts caused their taxes to go up in many cases because it took away the deduction for state and local taxes. They're also finding out that it was mainly a giveaway to the rich while running the country into even more debt.

Politico reports:

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants California to be the first state to offer Medicaid to undocumented adults. Gov. Jared Polis wants Colorado to pioneer a multi-state single-payer system. And in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz wants residents to be able to buy into Medicaid.

These radical moves by newly elected liberal governors reveal a new movement among Democrats on health care in advance of the 2020 presidential campaign to see just how far the party will go in pushing universal health care. ...

New Mexico legislators plan to introduce a Medicaid buy-in bill soon after their new session begins next week. Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Illinois and Minnesota are all expected to debate versions of a the idea, which would use state money to subsidize a Medicaid-like plan for those who cannot afford health insurance. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a prospective 2020 presidential candidate, announced plans for a public option that could lower premiums on the state's Obamacare exchange.

Newsom, who’s also thought to have eventual national aspirations, said he also wants an individual mandate with revenues used to expand Obamacare subsidies, a step that a few other Democratic-led states have taken. And in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he’d devote at least $100 million to increase access to public hospitals and primary care clinics.

Things are happening, folks. Mainstream politicians are getting aboard the Medicare for All express. Woo Hoo! Let's prepare the trash can to accept the antiquated, addlepated, superannuated, moribund, obsolete, debilitated Republican party along with its red state base of adoring Trumpster fans and get on with the Green New Deal, a plan for a revitalized America in the 21st century. Meanwhile, I count myself lucky to be a Californian.

This corner of California is suffering economic misery despite boom all around it

From the LA Times

Parked outside a Calexico job center, Jonathan Lopez leaned against his worn SUV and took a drag from a cigarette. He was waiting, yet again, for word on his unemployment application.

“A well-paying, full-time job is impossible to find,” the 39-year-old lamented as his son played nearby. “I have a family with four children and we struggle. It is a daily battle to make ends meet.”

As California has rebounded from the Great Recession, the Imperial Valley has largely defied attempts to expand its economy beyond seasonal farming and government work, and the county continues to suffer the highest unemployment rates in the state.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest five-year estimate, Imperial County's unemployment rate stands at 16% — four times greater than the state’s overall jobless rate of 4.2%.

“It’s much better than it was in 2009, when El Centro was mentioned as the highest unemployment in the nation at almost 30%,” county Supervisor Ryan Kelley said. “This is supposed to be the recovery, and every time there is a recovery, we seem to be the least-benefiting area.”

In recent years, locals have pinned hopes of economic salvation on a variety of new industries, such as geothermal energy, lithium extraction and the growing of industrial hemp.

El Centro City Councilman Jason Jackson said the valley — which has “all the things” that should be attractive to industry, like abundant water from the Colorado River and low power rates — is on the cusp of breaking out.

“We’re a little bit isolated,” he said. “We’ve always been thought of as an agricultural community, so industry has never really taken a good, solid look at us.”

Wedged in the southeast corner of the state, between the Mexico border and the Colorado River, the valley has depended heavily on agriculture ever since the Imperial Land Co. helped to bring large-scale irrigation in the early 1900s and transformed a barren desert into abundant farmland.

Although some argue the seasonal nature of farming has inflated county unemployment figures, there is no denying Imperial County is well-acquainted with economic adversity. The median household income is $44,770, well below the state median of $71,805, and nearly a quarter of its residents live below the poverty line. Statewide, that figure is 13.3%.

The vast expanse of flat, sunny land is seen by some renewable energy developers as ideal for solar farms. And the county is home to nearly a dozen geothermal power plants, which use a naturally heated underground reservoir to churn out pollution-free electricity around the clock.

“About five years ago, we saw a sustainable-energy boom, and we thought it would develop the workforce,” said Priscilla Lopez, interim director of the Imperial County Workforce Development Board. “But once built, they didn’t create jobs. You only need five or six people to run those plants.”

Jackson remains optimistic despite such concerns, noting that home builders are coming back to the valley “to look around” for the first time since the housing boom turned into a bust.

“It’s like a dance floor. Nobody wants to be the first couple to go out and dance, but once someone does, everyone goes out,” Jackson said. “I feel like we’re just waiting for that first couple to dance. We haven’t been able to land that one big fish yet.”

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From the LA Times

Industry is the leading contributor to global warming. Yet at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco this week, industry leaders are pledging to take charge and reign in planet-warming emissions. Are these promises merely branding, or do they constitute a meaningful shift? Los Angeles Times — Pushing the boundaries of what a single state can do. The Atlantic — Gov. Jerry Brown was hailed as a climate-change hero in San Francisco. Still, protesters demanded that Brown take a stronger stand against the expansion of oil production in California. Many were part of a group that has challenged Brown throughout the year for what they see as having too close a relationship with the oil industry. Los Angeles Times — Climate scientists warn that global emissions need to peak by 2020 if the planet is to dodge catastrophic warming. At the summit Thursday, 27 cities announced they have already met that goal, and their emissions are on the decline even as their economies are growing. Los Angeles Times — A conservative view: California is going to pay a price for this. Wall Street Journal

 

Progress in LA on Homelessness

From the Los Angeles Times:

With a cluster of trailers on a downtown parking lot, the city of Los Angeles is launching the first in a string of multimillion-dollar shelters designed to relieve hundreds of homeless people while sweeping away squalid street camps that threaten Mayor Eric Garcetti’s political legacy. The $2.4-million shelter is set to open Monday for 45 homeless people in the El Pueblo historic district, as part of the city’s A Bridge Home crisis housing project. Officials hope to open 15 of the facilities by mid-2019, with a boost from one-time state homeless aid that could bring the program’s budget to $75 million. Los Angeles Times

Homeless in California from the LA Times

Essential California Send to friend | Open in browser   Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Tuesday, Sept. 4, and here’s what’s happening across California:   TOP STORIES When Los Angeles City Council members vowed to back a minimum number of new homeless housing units in each of their districts, it was clear hitting those numbers was going to be easier in some parts of L.A. than in others. Months later, some council districts have neared or breezed past the number, while a handful remain far from that target. Councilmen Gil Cedillo, Jose Huizar and Curren Price, who represent districts covering downtown, parts of the Eastside and South L.A., have already exceeded the goal. Los Angeles Times — A dramatic photo essay on L.A. landmarks and the homeless. Where do you take visitors in Los Angeles? Wherever you go, you’re almost sure to encounter homeless people. They are fixtures at almost every landmark, part of the landscape that defines the urban expanse. Los Angeles Times   Joseph Fabozzi, 50, lives under lifeguard towers in Long Beach. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)   — Dealing with the issue of homeless encampments and the brush fire danger. Los Angeles Times — The struggle of having a job and being homeless. One of the hardest parts: Can you tell your boss? LAist — San Francisco is trying a new way to track its homeless population. San Francisco Chronicle

 

What Global Warming Portends for California

Heat waves will grow more severe and persistent, shortening the lives of thousands of Californians. Wildfires will burn more of the state’s forests. The ocean will rise higher and faster, exposing California to billions in damage along the coast. These are some of the threats California will face from climate change in coming decades, according to a new statewide assessment. The projections come as Californians contend with destructive wildfires, brutal heat spells and record ocean temperatures that scientists say have the fingerprints of global warming. Los Angeles Times

— California’s coastal water temperatures are breaking records as well. And that might be the cause of a massive fish die-off in Malibu. Warming water temperatures can alter the marine food chain in various ways — bringing about toxic algae that make crabs, for example, dangerous to eat. Researchers are also seeing more warm-water animals, like jellyfish and stingrays, off the coast. Los Angeles Times

California's Destructive Summer Brings Blunt Talk About Climate Change

From the LA Times:

by RONG-GONG LIN II and JAVIER PANZAR, AUG 05, 2018

Facing temperatures in the 90s, Guillermo Salazar of Reseda takes a break from mountain biking at San Vicente Mountain Park in Los Angeles last month. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

At Scripps Pier in San Diego, the surface water reached the highest temperature in 102 years of records, 78.8 degrees.

Palm Springs had its warmest July on record, with an average of 97.4 degrees. Death Valley experienced its hottest month on record, with the average temperature hitting 108.1. Park rangers said the heat was too much for some typically hardy birds that died in the broiling conditions.

Across California, the nighttime brought little relief, recording the highest minimum temperature statewide of any month since 1895, rising to 64.9.

California has been getting hotter for some time, but July was in a league of its own. The intense heat fueled fires across the state, from San Diego County to Redding, that have burned more than 1,000 homes and killed eight. It brought heat waves that overwhelmed electrical systems, leaving swaths of Los Angeles without power for days.

Moreover, the extreme conditions — capping years of trends heading in this direction — have caused scientists and policymakers to speak more openly and emphatically about what is causing this dramatic shift.

A decade ago, some scientists would warn against making broad conclusions linking an extraordinary heat wave to global warming. But the pace of heat records being broken in California in recent years is leading more scientists here to assertively link climate change to unrelenting heat that is only expected to worsen as humans continue putting greenhouse gases in the air.

“In the past, it would just be kind of once in a while — the odd year where you be really warm,” state climatologist Michael Anderson said.

But the last five years have been among the hottest in 124 years of record keeping, Anderson said.

“That’s definitely an indication that the world is warming, and things are starting to change,” said Anderson, who manages the California Department of Water Resources’ state climate program. “We’re starting to see things where it’s different. It’s setting the narrative of climate change.”

California Fires Directly Linked to Climate Change

From the LA Times:

Where There’s Heat, There’s Fire
In the past, scientists have been reluctant to cite climate change as a major factor in California’s worsening wildfires. Not anymore. Experts in the field say the connection between rising temperatures in California and tinder-dry vegetation is becoming impossible to ignore. “The temperatures have just been almost inexorably warmer all the time,” says UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, and fires “burn more intensely if the fuels are extremely dry.” The death and destruction this month has only added to California’s worst wildfire year on record, which has left dozens dead since October and more than 10,000 structures lost. Here is the latest.

 

Off the Top of My Head

Lyft and Uber Taking Business Away from Parking Lots and Valet Services

by John Lawrence

First taxis saw their business decrease do to ride sharing services. Now parking lots are empty. Why pay for parking when you can Uber or Lyft to the restaurant or event. Parking in cities has become a nightmare and you pay through the nose. For the same money or less you can have someone drive you there. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Ace Parking, the San Diego-based parking giant, has seen a 50% drop in nightclub valet traffic and a 25% drop in restaurant valet traffic. These parking lot owners have made a fortune in the past. Now they're only too willing to sell out their asphalt lots to condo developers that will at least replace all the black top with something more commercially viable. That's why you see high rises sprouting from every parking lot in San Diego with more on the way.

The LA Times reports:

Proper Parking, based in Woodland Hills, has seen a 70% drop in nightclub valet traffic since it started six years ago, said Brandon Helfer, the company’s president. In addition, it has seen a 30% drop in restaurant traffic and a 25% drop at weddings.

“At some nightclubs, we used to park 60 or 70 cars per night,” Helfer said. “It got to the point where we were parking 10 to 20.”

Nightclubs and restaurants, once pillars of the industry, are no longer reliable sources of revenue, Helfer said. In the industry’s heyday, valet companies used to turn such a profit off the gigs, they would pay the venue owners for the right to operate there.

Now the roles have reversed. Those same venues often have to pay the parking companies if they want a valet presence out front.

Helfer’s company is far from the only one affected. Parking expert Casey Wagner, who hosts a National Parking Assn. webinar on the rise of the sharing economy, said the numbers point to ride-hailing services taking a big bite out of the parking, car rental and taxi industries.

Proper Parking — founded in 2012, the year Uber rolled out its services in Los Angeles — was born into a world already familiar with ride-hailing services. It’s openly confronting the change in the industry, finding new ways to profit off its parking services and changing the ones that fail.

So technology is changing the world very rapidly. The interesting thing is that no one has to have a college education to be an Uber or Lyft driver. Now in San Diego there is a third ride sharing service: Bounce. It remains to be seen whether they can compete with the other two. One thing is sure. Nobody need be picked up for drunk driving these days. Even if they drive their own car to the wedding or bar, they can always leave it parked there and Uber or Lyft home, coming back the next day to pick it up. Id they had ride shared in the first place, it wouild have saved them a trip!