This project does not aim to accuse individuals, but to question a system that speaks of inclusivity while demanding invisible sacrifices. A reflection on what it truly costs to belong to a world that promises everything, yet grants very little. Because true luxury today is not the garment. It is being able to dream without destroying yourself.
About 60 volunteers with clipboards spread out over Hollywood on Tuesday morning to count every tent, makeshift shelter, lived-in vehicle and obviously homeless person. Their job was to observe and record, not engage. But in that moment, a conflicting instinct kicked in. Howard, a longtime volunteer outreach worker for the organization Food on Foot, dropped to her knees, took the daughter's hand and listened to their story.
San Francisco operates a Housing First model, the same philosophy Ireland has adopted but has struggled to fully implement. The principle is simple: people cannot stabilise their lives until they have a home. Everything else, from addiction treatment to mental health care and employment support, follows only after housing is secured. The San Francisco version, however, is delivered with a high level of intensity and resourcing.
“We try to do something beautiful for the people, show them they have dignity and we care about them. So we try to make a nice meal. Home-cooked burritos, nachos, lemonade, whatever they want. And it's just to help them know we're here for them.”
A longtime signature gatherer will plead guilty to paying homeless people on Skid Row to help get initiatives on the ballot, federal prosecutors said Monday, part of an effort to crack down on what they claim is widespread voter fraud across the state. Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong,64 of Marina Del Ray, agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of paying a person to register to vote, prosecutors announced Monday. She faces up to five years in prison.
Meth is meth. Like aspirin is aspirin. What matters is how much is in each dose. Today, Los Angeles does have a hyper-pure methamphetamine problem. It is a major driver of homelessness and mental illness here and in many other parts of the country. But it's not new.
No one should be left to die in the middle of Sydney, alone and unseen. That was the powerful message delivered by homelessness support worker Erin Longbottom to a crowd gathered in Hyde Park to honour Bikram Lama. The crowd gathered at dusk under the fig tree canopy of Sydney's Hyde Park, tucked behind St James station, holding electric candles in blue, red, white and purple.
For over two years I've been working on What I Carry: a collaborative photo+writing storytelling project with Portland's Street Community. I've wanted to show What I Carry in the heart of Portland's homeless neighborhood in Portland's Old Town where the majority of the work was done.
"Mayor Karen Bass is the leader Los Angeles needs right now. She has done what so many said couldn't be done - the first ever two-year decline in homelessness, reducing crime to levels this city hasn't seen since the 1960s, and refusing to back down when the federal government came after our neighbors."
Eunisses Hernandez campaigned as a foe of gentrification while pledging to combat homelessness and shift funding from law enforcement to unarmed crisis response teams and other services.
