Posted on 03/08/2019 10:45:59 PM PST by NoLibZone
Jennifer Millar keeps trash bags and hand sanitizer near her tent, and she regularly pours water mixed with hydrogen peroxide on the sidewalk nearby. Keeping herself and the patch of concrete she calls home clean is a top priority.
But this homeless encampment off a Hollywood freeway ramp is often littered with needles and trash and soaked in urine. Rats occasionally scamper through, and Millar fears the consequences.
Infectious diseases—some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages—are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard.
Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus—a disease spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals—in downtown streets. Officials briefly closed part of City Hall after reporting that rodents had invaded the building.
People in Washington State have been infected with the diarrheal disease shigella, spread through feces, as well as Bartonella quintana, or trench fever, which spreads through body lice.
Hepatitis A, also spread primarily through feces, infected more than 1,000 people in Southern California in the past two years. The disease also has erupted in New Mexico, Ohio, and Kentucky, primarily among people who are homeless or use drugs.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Holy crap. I can’t believe that guy didn’t get accosted. Pretty much those homeless people just left him alone.
That’s a man, baby. Wackadoodle. Of course HE can’t find a job and live a normal life. HE’s not normal.
All these diseases, be they homegrown or illegally brought in will be coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Our antibiotics aren’t working anymore so when it does explode, there won’t be any stopping it.
There are risks in using the police to retrieve by force a mentally ill person who has gone wandering. They or the police may get hurt, or they may simply avoid the police as a menace to their freedom. What ends up happening is that the better police agencies try to talk them into a shelter for the sake of comfort, medical care, and decent meals, with the promise that they can leave at any time.
I have relatives in California who have been dealing with this kind of problem for many years. In spite of a suitable apartment maintained and stocked with food by the family, a schizophrenic cousin of mine goes wandering for days or weeks at a time. The better police jurisdictions report when they have had contact with her or taken her into a shelter or custody. Otherwise, her brothers and sisters have to try to track her down by checking her favorite homeless encampments and hangouts.
Sometimes, when she declines to go back to her apartment, the most that they can do is to get her a meal and give her a prepaid phone and a few dollars while extracting a promise that she will take care of herself. Mercifully, although crazy, she is mild-mannered, shuns illegal drugs, and has no inclination toward crime or violence. As is too often the case, she takes her prescription medicine only intermittently because it tends to make her feel tired and dopey.
The worst thing you can do for the poor is to make them comfortable in their poverty.
B. Franklin
Sign for a body oil business coming soon. Coming soon?
Seriously?
The streets aren’t nearly as bad as what I expected, even the dude taking a whiz or whatever he was doing.
Next time the police move a tent city, perhaps they can move in on Pelosi’s block.
She was probably divorced because her husband would not put up with her analism. Now she is homeless and still anal
re:
Exploring Los Angeles.
Just look.
This was 4 1/2 yrs ago, under Obama ... has it gotten better, or worse?
Fence them in
Ferals living in tents are not homeless. Ferals living in tents on city sidewalks are squatters
I work in Downtown Los Angeles. I can assure you that it’s far worse than you can possibly imagine. Sickens and angers me on a daily basis.
“No ones looking at this and what, if an advasary sent something that was weaponized up from the border and what that could do.”
It is not “if” but when and how much.
HERE WE GO! You can't criticize CA because that's where FR is located. Oh look! We CA FReepers donate the most money to FR! Oooh oooh! We got better weather than your state. We got the movies and stars!
I've been guilty of that crime once or twice. I usually banish myself from the site for a few days of repentance and reflection.
Drugs are at the root of the homeless problem. Illegal drugs are expensive and debilitating and people get addicted. We made them illegal to get a handle on the problem but all that did was make drugs very expensive and the users into criminals. Making drugs illegal has not stopped people from using them.
Drug users have to feed their habits so they sell everything they have use all their money and then lie cheat steal and prostitute themselves. They become worse criminals that try to hide what they are doing. They lose their jobs friends family and homes but they still have the addictions.
The drugs are meth and heroin and they aren’t regulated for purity by the FDA. Physical and mental deterioration follow after a few years and some very pretty women shrivel up into toothless old hags. You can see them on the street if you look. Most people don’t even know what the problem is when they see the sucked in drug users standing at the freeway exit.
Mental Illness is a euphemism for the destruction caused by drugs and the only way to stop drugs is to make them legal. Most conservatives don’t want that because they think more people will use drugs and most liberals don’t want drugs legalized because it would reduce the size and power of the government. And in between there are hundreds of thousands of people that make money from the drug business.
Hey, nobody's got a gun ta they head to remain homeless, or remain in California. I'm not saying that the rest of the country shouldn't be encouraging the homeless to move there, perhaps by giving them one-way bus tickets there, just that they can't expect to remain free of disease, ticks, and such. California is likely to be see the first large outbreak of the Black [raciss!] Plague in modern times.
We live in the Dark Ages!
The big rage these days is having all these little houses aka fancy tool sheds built for the homeless to live in..
The freeway ramps&ditches in a few spots have been commandeered the last few years, it almost looks like a modern day Soweto in, of all places, Sillycon Valley.
I wish President Trump’s wall would include the eastern border of California, north to Oregon. If Oregon and Washington State keep it up, they can be included in the cut out, as well.
You said....”the only way to stop drugs is to make them legal.”.....
Wash and repeat.....each time the issue of legalization arises, the same arguments for and against are dusted off and trotted out, neither side’s arguments are reassuring.
What IS interesting is the ‘illegal’ sale of marijuana still thrives.. no limit ‘to the potency’ they’re creating.
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