Many of us know that there’s a homelessness problem across the country. Yet, it seems that some places are handling it better than others. Recent information has shown that some of the cities with the biggest cases of homelessness are starting to improve. Sadly, it is the opposite for Los Angeles, California, where its homeless numbers are rising. With this new information out, residents believe that the culprits behind this are those in the government, who are allegedly not doing enough to improve the living quality of many.
A Reddit user in the Los Angeles subreddit decided to make a graph showcasing how the homeless population looks at different major cities in the country. OP mentions that they did so after reading an article in the New York Times, which talked about how the homeless community numbers have grown considerably this year in California.
In the graph, you can see how most major cities, including Chicago, Dallas, New York, and San Diego, among others, show green numbers, with a decrease in homeless numbers from 60% to 4%. Yet, that isn’t the case for Houston and Los Angeles. The former saw an increase of 1.4%, while the latter, which sounded off the alarm for many in California, rose by 3.5%.
While the percentage might not be too high, several find it concerning, as some would expect homeless numbers to go down, but not go up. And as expected, many started looking at the reason why this has happened, with the majority pointing to one culprit: the government.
California Residents Blame the Government Over Homeless Population Increase
After reading this, those in the comments started sharing that the ones who are the likely culprits are none other than those in charge.
“We have failed; we can’t blame other cities or Trump. We have to blame the leadership here. They spend the most and do the least.”
“So long as local-resident-beholden city councils are part of the approval process, nothing will ever change in California regarding housing reform.“
Others even compared how fast it is to build things in other states and how slow it is in California.
“I work in construction and development financing, mostly housing across the entire United States. For every apartment building that shoots up in New York, there are two in New Jersey and five in Texas and Florida. California, on the other hand, might have gone through one review process with local residents in that time.“
As you can see, people believe that the government is the one that should focus on doing something about the homeless population, not with proposals, but with actions.
