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Is Los Angeles in Trouble?
I love Los Angeles. I was born and raised here and I love the cultural diversity the city has to offer. LA has always gotten a bad rap regarding crime, smog and traffic. These critiques are deserved but there’s a bigger problem these days. Homelessness. From Hollywood to Beverly Hills, itinerant encampments are found on major streets, under freeways, in parking lots and next to working businesses.
Everyone I know has their own troubling story about encountering the homeless. A neighbor tripped over a man sleeping outside his front door. A friend woke in the middle of the night to find a woman entering her apartment through a window. Another friend found a man sleeping inside his car. My wife nearly had her bike stolen by a homeless man outside a cafe. A mentally ill homeless man physically assaulted an employee at the local Trader Joe’s.
In 2018, I had my own encounter. A belligerent homeless man threatened me in the alley behind my apartment. It occurred on a Sunday morning after I witnessed the man shaving his head with a straight razor. His scalp was covered with bloody cuts. As I clicked my garage door open, he marched towards me. I told him to stay back but he kept coming. I returned to my apartment courtyard and locked the gate behind me. He cursed me through the iron grates growling, “I could fucking kill you if I wanted. I could put a bullet right through your…
