A suspect is in custody for allegedly stabbing a homeless man at the WeGo bus station on Thursday morning in Nashville’s Edgehill community, according to WKRN.
Police were dispatched to the incident around 5:15 a.m. on Thursday about two men fighting at the intersection of 12th Avenue South and Wedgewood Avenue, the outlet reported.
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On Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed a bill into law that bans homeless encampments in the state of Florida.
As reported by Just The News, House Bill 1365, formally titled the Unauthorized Public Camping and Public Sleeping Act, demands that homeless individuals be placed in temporary shelters that will be monitored by state law enforcement agencies, while also banning the use of drugs in such shelters and providing drug and alcohol treatment to occupants who need it.
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The Office of Global Michigan is encouraging “everyday Americans” to volunteer to house illegal immigrants and “make a difference by welcoming refugees from around the world.”
“Volunteers [are] needed” to “support refugee resettlement efforts in Michigan,” says the office’s website, which was recently launched by the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Development.
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Cities across the country are counting their homeless in an effort to get a handle on how big the problem is.
In the city of Detroit, 25 teams of volunteers will count the number of homeless throughout the city on Jan. 31.
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Higher rents and a reduction in pandemic assistance caused a spike in homelessness in Ohio over the past year, according to a group advocating for more affordable housing around the state.
The Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio pointed to U.S. Department of House and Urban Development data that showed more than 11,000 Ohioans homeless on one January night in 2023. That number was a 6.9% increase from the previous year’s count.
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Arizona state Rep. Barbara Parker, R-Mesa, is opposing the city of Mesa’s plan to buy a hotel and use it for the homeless, a growing trend in the state.
Mesa is eyeing the purchase of the Grand Hotel on 6733 E. Main Street, in order to use the 70-room building for it’s “temporary housing program” known as Off the Streets, according to the city website.
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In states like California, Colorado, Washington and Arizona, cities this summer are spending millions buying hotels and converting them to shelters for the homeless.
In Los Angeles, there is a ballot initiative in 2024 to require hotels to use vacant rooms to house homeless people besides paying customers. The American Hotel & Lodging Association has objected to the proposal.
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A north Minneapolis resident whose street has become “an established destination” for drug dealing said he wants elected leaders to “understand how abandoned and helpless we feel.”
“We are an established destination now for drug purchases. Cars stop by 24/7 and within moments they have a carhop with their face in the passenger window, ready to serve,” said Jay Dorsey, who owns a home across the street from an Aldi store that closed earlier this year to much disappointment from local residents.
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Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens plans to use $4 million to develop “quick-delivery housing” for homeless people in the city.
Dickens issued an executive order directing the city’s chief financial officer to fund a new “Rapid Housing” initiative. The city plans to repurpose shipping containers that Georgia Emergency Management Agency used as temporary hospitals amid the COVID-19 pandemic and are now being decommissioned.
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The Scottsdale City Council voted Tuesday night to accept a $940,000 grant from the Arizona Department of Housing to house homeless people from Phoenix’s “The Zone” encampment and illegal immigrants in a Scottsdale hotel. Five of the council members and Mayor David Ortega voted yes, with Scottsdale City Councilman Barry Graham the sole no vote on Resolution No. 12888, the Homeless Shelter and Service Funding Agreement..
Graham tweeted his disappointment in the vote. “Last night, council voted to accept nearly $1 million from AZ Department of Housing on condition to house homeless from Phoenix and border migrants—not Scottsdale homeless,” he said. “The city will rent hotel rooms in McCormick Ranch-area. I voted ‘no’ based on responses to my questions about vetting participants and community safety. Scottsdale residents are compassionate—however there are better ways to demonstrate compassion.”
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Nashville Metro City Council candidate Jeff Eslick joined The Tennessee Star Report’s Michael Patrick Leahy in studio Wednesday morning to discuss the latest twists and turns in the campaign and his views on addressing homelessness in Music City.
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Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed Senate Bill 1413, a bill that would have made homeless encampments on private property trespassing.
The bill would have also allowed cities to remove homeless encampments’ property if after a warning they are not claimed within 24 hours. If not claimed within 14 days, the property would be destroyed. Counties and municipalities would be required to clean the area.
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Students from San Jose asked their school board Thursday to build a fence around the school and to address the homelessness problem, according to NBC Bay Area.
A group of roughly 20 students from the charter school KIPP San Jose Collegiate explained that homeless people have been entering their school and leaving needles on their cafeteria tables, NBC reported. The issue has been going on for about one year, they said.
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A lawsuit filed last August challenging “the largest homeless encampment in Arizona” is going ahead after a judge denied the City of Phoenix’s motion to dismiss. Residents who live near “the Zone,” which has grown to over 1,500 people, allege that the city has failed or refused to enforce criminal, health, or quality of life statutes to improve the Zone.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Stephen Tully said in his January 16 ruling that dismissal wasn’t warranted because the city didn’t meet the standard where “as a matter of law plaintiffs would not be entitled to relief under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof.” He found that the plaintiffs properly pleaded their case and supported a private cause of action for public nuisance.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed marketing guru, Craig Huey of The Huey Report in studio to describe his recent trip to California where he witnessed the overwhelming homeless condition and vibes of oppression.
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San Francisco, California, has spent millions of dollars housing the homeless before spending more to evict them, again, according to recent documents obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Since 2019, the city has spent over $160 million every fiscal year on “permanent supportive housing” – i.e. single-room-occupancy hotels (SROs) across the city – as part of Mayor London Breed’s administration’s response to the city’s homelessness crisis, according to the documents obtained by the Chronicle.
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Baltimore plans to spend $90.4 million of federal funds to buy hotels to replace existing homeless shelters and support other homelessness programs, The Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday.
The city has not yet announced which hotels it will buy, but it plans to replace 275 existing beds in several shelters with private rooms in city-owned hotels, the Sun reported.
“Non-congregate shelter is a best practice we’re seeing throughout the nation,” Director of the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services Irene Agustin told the Sun. “We know this is an intervention that’s going to work within the city of Baltimore.”
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The American Medical Association (AMA) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) have jointly published a language guide that tells readers to no longer use the words “handicapped,” “morbidly obese,” or “homeless.”
Rather, the document, “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” stipulates that these terms should be referred to as “people who are experiencing (condition or disability type).”
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With popular conservative Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio term limited, local activist and professor Moses Sanchez, a Republican, announced he is running for the District 6 slot based in Ahwatukee. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Phoenix in 2018, a difficult race for Republicans since Phoenix has more Democrats, but District 6 leans Republican.
“I’m proud to call Ahwatukee home,” he said in a statement on August 11. “I’ve raised my family in Phoenix, served on our local school board, run for Mayor, and worked to grow a small business. I’m running for Phoenix City Council to provide the same opportunities this city has given me and stand up for the most overlooked community in Phoenix.”
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An executive order signed by Joe Biden last week may force Americans to fully fund programs in San Francisco and other cities that provide housing for the homeless.
San Francisco reportedly spends between $15 million to $18 million per month to house more than 2,200 people in about 25 lodging establishments—some of them luxury hotels.
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Arguably, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is the most incompetent, destructive, negligent, no good, irresponsible mayor in American history. And he’s got plenty of competition right now. San Francisco’s London Breed, Ted Wheeler in Portland, and Bill de Blasio in New York City are all top contenders. Blue City mayors bent on destroying civilization are plentiful, but Garcetti is the worst member of this odious gang.
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The Minneapolis City Council on Friday voted to spend nearly $2 million of federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) money to house the homeless.
The council passed the proposal for the project dubbed Indoor Villages, which will be operated by Avivo, a company that offers treatment, recovery and employment services.
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Whether it is forest fires caused by decrepit infrastructure, the use of intelligence agencies to target domestic political opponents, growing inequality, or a rejection of our political traditions, America more and more feels like a third world country.
First, consider what it meant to be a first world country. This has always been a small club: the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, and, more recently, Singapore and South Korea made the cut.
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Under a resolution passed this week, Minneapolis leaders said they will allow the city’s homeless population to seek “refuge” in public parks.
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) approved the resolution during a Wednesday meeting. According to a press release, the resolution “allows those currently experiencing homelessness to seek refuge on Minneapolis parkland,” and requests assistance from federal and state agencies in finding a permanent housing solution.
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San Francisco is giving free drugs and alcohol to some homeless addict isolating inside city-rented hotels during the coronavirus pandemic, the city’s department of public health confirmed Wednesday.
Fox News reports, San Francisco’s controversial practice was recently brought up last Friday when a man who describes himself on Twitter as “Formerly homeless addict in #recovery advocating for the #truth about homelessness and drug addiction. Faith, Hope and Love. SF Native. Tweets are my own.” tweeted to the city.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a case that would allow cities to make it a crime to sleep on the streets.
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SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA – In the latest skirmish over California’s homeless crisis, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, asked President Donald Trump on Thursday to stop withholding federal housing vouchers that could benefit 50,000 homeless people.
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In a specific call on Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy was joined by all-star panelist, Norm Partin on the show when the men took a call from a Hendersonville resident named Chris who also owns a condo in Downtown Nashville.
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California’s homeless crisis is now visible to everyone living in the state. Along with tens of thousands of homeless who are concentrated in various parts of major cities, additional thousands are widely dispersed. If you drive into most major urban centers, you will see tent encampments along freeway junctions, under bridges, along frontages, and beside drainage culverts. In smaller towns, they congregate by the dozens in parks and parking lots, along the streets and in the alleys. And in the inland suburbs, they camp out in ravines and along flood-control channels. In California’s largest cities, by the tens of thousands, they erect makeshift housing along sidewalks, using tarpaulins draped over shopping carts, tents, boxes. It is completely out of control. Billions have been spent to ameliorate the situation, and these billions have only served to make the situation worse than ever.
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Imagine a homeless man. Does he have a long, frazzled beard and unkempt hair? What do his clothes look like? Probably ratty and full of holes—moth nests in the pockets. Maybe he has a shopping cart full of cans and a mangy dog named “Rusty.”
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by Edward Ring In his final speech from the White House in January 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the nation that the military had joined with the arms industry and had acquired unwarranted influence over American politics. His term for this alliance was the “military industrial complex.” Since that time, Eisenhower’s term has been co-opted by other critics of special interests pooling their resources to exercise a dangerous influence on America’s democracy; one example would be the so-called “homeless industrial complex.” This label has been around awhile, and has bipartisan origins. In 2012 a guest editorial appeared in the liberal Washington Posten titled “Dismantling the social services industrial complex.” In it, the author explains “an odd mirror image of this huge complex has emerged in the very ‘industry’ that seeks to feed, clothe and otherwise meet the needs of the poor and vulnerable in our society. It’s a social services-industrial complex, if you will, one that could prove even more difficult to subdue than its military counterpart.” In 2013, writing for Poverty Insights, author John Roberts asked “Is There a Homeless Industrial Complex That Perpetuates Homelessness?” And in January 2017, a former homeless activist published in the ultra-liberal Huffington Post an article entitled “The Homeless Industrial Complex Problem.” The…
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by Jason Hopkins The Department of Housing and Urban Development concluded a new proposal to evict illegal aliens from government-subsidized homes would send over 55,000 children out into the streets. The proposal, which was first reported by The Daily Caller in April, is meant to tighten regulations surrounding federal subsidies for low-income housing. Under current law, illegal immigrants are barred from receiving federal housing subsidies, but families of mixed-immigration status can score these benefits if at least one of the members was born in the U.S. or is the spouse of a citizen. The new White House proposal, pushed by senior adviser Stephen Miller, would require that all family members be of “eligible immigration status.” “We’ve got our own people to house and we need to take care of our citizens,” an administration official told The Caller in April. “Because of past loopholes in HUD guidance, illegal aliens were able to live in free public housing desperately needed by so many of our own citizens. As illegal aliens attempt to swarm our borders, we’re sending the message that you can’t live off of American welfare on the taxpayers’ dime.” An analysis by the Department of Housing and Urban Development…
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Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed the nation’s first statewide mandatory rent control measure on Thursday, giving a victory to housing advocates who say spiraling rent costs in the economically booming state have fueled widespread homelessness and housing insecurity. Brown, a Democrat, said the legislation will provide “some immediate relief to Oregonians struggling to keep up with rising rents and a tight rental market.” Landlords are now limited to increases once per year that cannot exceed 7 percent plus the change in the consumer price index, which is used to calculate inflation. The law prohibits them from serving no-cause evictions after a tenant’s first year of occupancy, a provision designed to protect those who are living paycheck to paycheck and who affordable housing advocates say are often most vulnerable to sudden rent hikes and abrupt lease terminations. New York has a statewide rent control law, but cities can choose whether to participate. California restricts the ability of cities to impose rent control. Last November, voters defeated a ballot initiative that would have overturned that law. Emergency measure The Oregon law takes effect immediately. Democrats who control the Legislature say the state’s housing crisis justified passing the bill as an emergency measure.…
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by Edward Ring Venice Beach, California, used to be one of California’s great places. A Bohemian gem, nestled against the sand between big Los Angeles and the vast Pacific Ocean. Rents used to be a little lower in Venice compared to other coastal neighborhoods. The locals mingled with surfers, artists, street performers, and tourists. People from suburbs further inland migrated to Venice’s beaches on sunny weekends year-round. Venice was affordable, inviting, inclusive. That was then. Today, Venice Beach is off limits to families who used to spend their Saturdays on the sand. It’s too dangerous. On the sand, beached seaweed now mingles with syringes, feces, broken glass, and other trash, and the ocean has become the biggest outdoor toilet in the city. More than 1,000 vagrants now consider Venice Beach their permanent home. At the same time as real estate values exploded all along the California coast, the homeless population soared. In Venice, where the median price of a home is $2.1 million, makeshift shelters line the streets and alleys, as the affluent and the indigent fitfully coexist. What has happened in Venice is representative of what’s happened to California. If progressives take back the White House in 2020, it will…
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by Gregory Morin I recently had the opportunity to visit San Francisco for the first time. Coastal towns tend to be a bit more interesting in terms of cuisine (seafood being one of the more varied palate options) as well as architecture (steep hill structures are ever a testament to human ingenuity) and San Francisco scores high in both categories. However one area where it currently scores quite low is in the aroma zone. At first I thought perhaps they had a very inefficient sewer system near the shoreline retail sector, but as we explored deeper toward the city center it became clear something was amiss. I learned shortly thereafter that San Francisco has a poop crisis. To be blunt — people are literally crapping on the sidewalks. Not the tourists, mind you, but the local homeless population. The situation has come to a head (or to the head to employ a nautical metaphor) primarily as a result of progressive conservatism primed with the power of centralized (governmental) authority. The outside leftist narrative of course is that this poop crisis is inevitable results of unmitigated capitalism, which drives the eternal boogeyman of income inequality. This inequality fuels gentrification of…
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by Evie Fordham Several thousand migrants from Central American countries are headed to the U.S. in a caravan. Those who reach the border are expected to petition for asylum, but there are multiple options for where individuals will stay as they wait for their cases to make it through the immigration court backlog. Migrants can claim asylum once they reach the U.S., and many make it over the first hurdle of proving they have credible fear of returning to their home country. A person is granted asylum if they can prove they fled their home country because of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. But that first hurdle is not a guarantee of asylum. Immigration court backlog can also slow down the asylum process. The non-detained docket has a backlog of over 700,000 migrant family cases. Where individuals are detained (or not) depends on many factors, such as if the migrant is an unaccompanied minor or traveling in a family unit. ICE oversees detention in both publicly and privately run facilities, which are located in all 50 states but most concentrated in California and Texas. Here are some…
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Neighbors have filed a lawsuit to stop plans for a village for the homeless on the property of Glencliff United Methodist Church in South Nashville, reports NewsChannel 5. The “micro home village” would include 22 tiny homes about 220 square feet each. The Metro Board of Zoning Appeals approved a building permit in May, saying places of worship are protected by federal and state laws from zoning rules. But neighbors insist that because the project will be run by Open Table Nashville, a separate nonprofit group, zoning rules should apply. “Neighbors didn’t really have any notice this was happening,” Jessica Van Dyke, who lives near the church, told NewsChannel 5. “It was forced on us and we were told after the fact.” The lawsuit was filed against the Metro Board of Zoning Appeals, Glencliff United Methodist Church, the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church and Bishop Bill McAlilly. Attorney Andrew Preston issued a statement on behalf of the church, conference and bishop stating that the “lack of housing is a very serious issue in Nashville and the church has decided to answer the biblical call to love our neighbor by providing safe and supportive shelter to some of our city’s most…
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