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This is the second in a series. Read the first column here. Our tendency when we hear of a disaster is to ask when FEMA — the Federal Emergency Management Agency — will arrive. But because of some curious federal rules, Perryton Mayor Kerry Symons said his community will receive nothing. That’s because the threshold for FEMA help depends on meeting requirements that vary by state population. Damage that would be large enough to warrant help in Rhode Island doesn’t cut it in Texas. The logic is that a large state can bring to bear more resources than a small one. That bureaucratic rule hurts Perryton residents like Maria Marufo, who depended on income from renting out six mobile homes Read More ›

By Spencer Pauley – The Center Square (The Center Square) – One year and more than $65 million into Washington state’s Right of Way Safety Initiative, nearly 300 homeless people have been moved off state highway rights of way in King County.  The Right of Way Safety Initiative closes encampments in areas around highways by providing shelter or housing to the estimated thousands of people living there. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority first began operations under the initiative in June 2022, with the majority of state funding being sent to the organization that fall. As of July 1, 327 homeless individuals were engaged by KCRHA at some 10 encampments, with 292 of those people moved inside. Nineteen went directly to permanent Read More ›

Perryton, a Texas panhandle city of 8,000, sits 17 miles south of the Oklahoma state line. Until June 15 it had almost zero homelessness, because two of the major causes of homelessness — overwhelming addiction and high housing prices — were not present. On June 15 a tornado wiped out 418 homes, more than ten percent of Perryton’s housing stock — and it still had no visible homelessness, as measured by people sleeping on the streets or in shelters. (There isn’t one in Perryton.) How can that be? I’ve just visited Perryton, so I’ll take a time-out from my California series to report on what happened and what hasn’t happened. I’ll come back to San Francisco and Orange County in Read More ›

Only 16 people have been housed in units with only 11 landlords participating in the program since the program’s launch in 2022 which had a goal of 800 units. A Seattle area program that offers funds to landlords to incentivize them to rent vacant units to the homeless has hit a snag, as there are more units available than eligible homeless people. Because of this, landlords are being turned away from the program. The agency, however, continues to say that they need more units. The King County Regional Homeless Authority (KCRHA) in Washington State has confirmed that landlords in Seattle are being turned away from a program aimed at incentivizing them to take in homeless tenants. Advocates for those living on the streets Read More ›

This column is the second in a series. To read part one, click here. I’ll come back to the sights and sounds of the Orange County Rescue Mission, but after four days there I flew to San Francisco and walked around that city. The old song notwithstanding, few Americans these days leave their hearts there. Tourists still visit Fisherman’s Wharf and ride the cable cars, but books with titles like San Fransicko hit hard, and videos of addicts in SF’s Tenderloin neighborhood are stomach-churning. What’s happening in San Francisco is both better and worse than those dramatic presentations. The Noe Valley neighborhood, for instance, features Victorian houses, small markets, and cafes. Nearby Bernal Heights (sometimes referred to as “maternal heights”) Read More ›

Why are they letting crime run rampant in cities? Why don’t they mandate treatment to the people living and dying on the streets? Watch Michael Shellenberger speak on the ideology behind progressive cities allowing their citizens to live and die on the streets. Shellenberger created the North America Recovers Coalition that Discovery Institute is proud to be a founding member of. Watch the speech here. Read some highlights here: My own journey on this issue began after writing Apocalypse Never. I was getting ready to go on book tour, and save nuclear plants around the world, and then covid hit. It was very disorienting, as all of you can remember  I found myself feeling sad about it. I’ve been teaching myself Read More ›

How could 6,000 shelter beds be unoccupied in Los Angeles County? It’s a number, reported in LAist in July, that makes no sense given the miles of homeless encampments that occupy area streets and sidewalks. Looking for an answer, I talked to Dave — a formerly homeless man who asked me not to reveal his last name. Dave told me how he ended up unhoused in the 1990s and then worked his way into a good job and a steady roof over this head. He believes that homeless individuals who live on the street choose to do so, because when he didn’t have a roof, he chose to spend the night in missions with rules, not on streets without them. Read More ›

I’m used to hopeless stories about the growth of homelessness, particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Last December LA Mayor Karen Bass declared her city to be in a “state of emergency” that demanded “a sea change in how the city tackles homelessness.” Fine, but six months later, on June 29, a Los Angeles Times headline blared about the change Angelenos has seen: “Homelessness grows 10 percent in the city.” Two weeks ago I headed to California to see for myself. I had already walked LA’s Skid Row, where 11,000 homeless people crowd into 2/5 of a square mile and create what locals call “a man-made Hell.” Didn’t need another look at that, and the hope of seeing a Read More ›

If we define “home” as a solid dwelling fixed to a particular spot, many Native Americans were voluntarily homeless, as hunters and gatherers are. They would follow their food supply, which was on the move. How could they be convinced to change? European Americans wanted to convince Native Americans that a settled life was better. Their position was Housing, Food, and Clothing first. Their belief: If Native Americans saw they could be warm and well-fed in cold weather rather than freezing and hungry, they would voluntarily settle down. If they became accustomed to products of civilization like fine clothing and (some craftily said) alcohol, they would want to settle down. That worked for some but not for others. Native culture Read More ›