When you're driving through downtown L.A. you really don't expect to look out the window to see a guy with his hands in his pants.
Or DO you?
Judging by the amount of listeners who have sent us photos of the vagrant invasion in their neighborhoods, this behavior is not that uncommon.
Looks like quite the effort is being made there.
While lawmakers continue to argue where to put more shelters across the Southern California to help house the homeless, former Democratic CA State Assemblyman Mike Gatto, says that won't fix the problem.
In an opinion piece he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, Gatto says:
"If economics aren't the issue, what is? Two things. About 40 percent of homeless are addicts and another 25 percent have severe mental illness. In other words, over two-thirds of the homeless suffer afflictions that diminish rational behavior. This is why some shelters sit vacant. "
He goes on to say:
"The second factor is understood through a statistical abnormality. Los Angeles County, despite having 3 percent of the nation's population, has 10 percent of the nation's homeless. Nice weather and expensive housing (found in many cities) don't explain why one in ten American homeless live there. Something is causing the region to have a disproportionate share. "
Gatto says until we stop wasting taxpayer money pushing for more spending for more shelters, we need to focus on programs that already exist to help to fix the problem