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A Billion-Dollar Industry Chasing Its Own Tail

A weekend topic starting with Bisnow New York. “The pandemic and its associated travel bans crushed hotels across the country, but the sector has come back in force thanks to a slew of positive fundamentals for the asset class. Soaking up inventory is the city’s approach to the migrant crisis, which is to set up arrival centers in hotel rooms. The Adams administration is paying $220M to the Roosevelt Hotel’s owner, the state-run Pakistan International Airlines Corp., to occupy more than 1,000 rooms. The hotel is now being used as the city’s central intake center for all arriving asylum-seekers, Adams announced in May. More than 140 hotels have a deal with the city.”

“‘The economic model for these for these migrants is very, very positive,’ said Daniel Lesser, CEO of LW Hospitality Advisors. ‘I’m working with a client now, a family office knows nothing about hotels, they bought up a couple of hotels in and around New York City, specifically for housing migrants … They’ve retained me to help them figure out, when this is all over, what is it gonna look like as a hotel, when the whole migrant situation is over.'”

CBS Colorado. “The Denver Housing Authority has approved the purchase of the 194-unit Best Western Central Park hotel located at 4595 Quebec Street. The hotel will be used for permanent supportive housing. The property will be purchased for $25.95 million using approximately $11 million from the DHA Delivers for Denver bond funds. This purchase will support Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s plan to help 1,000 unhoused residents move indoors and get them off the streets, according to the DHA. ‘Unsheltered homelessness is an emergency situation in Denver, and we are laser focused on bringing 1,000 people safely inside while permanently decommissioning encampments by the end of 2023,’ Mayor Johnston said.”

Colorado Newline. “Data released this week shows homelessness in the Denver metro area rose sharply in 2022. Veronica Waters, a Safe and Clean Denver member, predicted that Johnston’s approach would cause Denver’s homeless population to increase by drawing people from other cities and states. ‘They’re coming here to use drugs, and to take advantage of our system, as well as our leniency with law enforcement,’ Waters said. ‘We are going to attract people from the whole entire Rocky Mountain region to come here and get our goodies.'”

Denver 7 in Colorado. “‘Personally I am becoming increasingly concerned that the community’s concerns aren’t being addressed,’ said Curtis Park resident Cory Jaffe. ‘I think if you walk around Curtis Park, Five Points, there is nonstop camping, nonstop drug use.'”

NBC Boston. “For years, drug use, robberies and prostitution have plagued the Back Central neighborhood of Lowell, Massachusetts. Now, residents are pleading for help from city officials. The city is trying to combat the problem with a new police precinct on the first floor of a Lowell Housing Authority property. The South Common Village on Gorham Street is one of the most impacted areas. Its coordinator, Naida Gonzalez, says an average of more than 80 needles are found on the property each week.”

“‘We find a lot of drug paraphernalia,’ Gonzalez said. ‘Needles are a big thing. A lot of pipes, different things like that. Even weapons. We’ve found plenty of that.’ She says her residents are on edge with the constant criminal activity at the South Common, and that who don’t live there are the ones disturbing the peace. ‘A person hit someone else over the head with some type of metal object, and he was, like, in critical condition and had to be evacuated,’ said Gonzalez.”

ABC 7 Chicago in Illinois. “After losing a loved one to drug use, Vincent Lee knows all too well the price of opioid addiction. ‘He used periodically, and his last one was his last one,’ Lee said. Lee’s 50-year-old first cousin is among the scores of victims of accidental opioid overdoses involving fentanyl. ‘They are putting fentanyl in the cocaine, getting people twice as addicted,’ Lee said.”

From KXAN. “Students from The University of Texas will come back to campus for the fall semester in the next few weeks, but it comes as students are raising concerns about safety in West Campus. ‘On campus specifically I have never run into any issues,’ said UT student, Paulina Pearson. ‘But definitely in West Campus is where I see people yelling at me. Some guy followed my roommate into our apartment the other day and he was screaming at her and followed her in.’ People using drugs and begging for money on the Drag is a common sight for students. KXAN viewers have also reached out about a homeless encampment near the University of Texas CO-OP. Drug paraphernalia and human feces were spotted by KXAN crews when we stopped by.”

My Northwest in Washington. “A Seattle woman was assaulted right outside her own home in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood. She says a new RV resident in the area shoved her in the face – after she simply said hello. ‘I was stunned and bewildered,’ said Anne Goodchild, who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly two decades. Goodchild said she walked out of her home with her daughter last week and simply greeted one the RV residents outside. ‘I said something like kind of causal, like how’s it going?’ Goodchild said. Then she says the woman started yelling at them and following them. ‘She was like, what are you looking at?’ Goodchild recalled. ‘She got closer and closer to me and she put her hand in my face and pushed me. I feel a little anxious just talking about it.'”

“She said she filed a police report, and saw an officer come by in the following days. But the woman is still in the neighborhood. ‘It’s this concern about just my physical safety, in my own street,’ Goodchild said. She is currently driving out of her home, instead of walking places. Other neighbors told KIRO7 they’ve also stopped walking outside their own homes. ‘I feel totally unsafe. I’ve started parking my car in the back,’ said Julia, who was too worried to appear on camera. Residents say the situation started escalating over the past few weeks. ‘I’ve filed maybe 26 reports,’ Julia said, scrolling through all the reports she submitted to Seattle’s Find It Fix It app. ‘They’ve been dumping trash, brought a BBQ grill out… drug paraphernalia, burnt foil,’ Julia said.”

South Seattle Emerald in Washington. “Services Not Sweeps is organizing a rally on Aug. 2 from 12 to 2 p.m. at City Hall to move the City Council to ban encampment sweeps during extreme weather and winter.The City budget increased funding for Seattle’s sweep task force, the Unified Care Team, by $13.5 million during the last budget session, bringing total endowment up to $37 million. And it’s not just Seattle, either. Other cities also spend millions of dollars on clearing encampments. Among the four of the nine cities they studied (Houston, Chicago, Tacoma, San Jose), sweeps cost between $3,393,000 and $8,557,000. While San Jose spent the most money on encampment sweeps, it only had the second-highest cost per capita. Tacoma spent an estimated $3,905,000.”

“‘Even if people are going inside after sweeps, nine times out of 10, we see them back again,’ said Jay Jones, an organizer working with Services Not Sweeps, speaking on behalf of himself and not the coalition. ‘We’ll help someone out after a sweep, and then we see them back on the street and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, you know, they just shoveled me halfway across the city to a new place and I did talk to the case manager for a month. And all my friends are out here, so I just came back out here because I was having a terrible time.’”

From CBC News in Canada. “Five years ago, the Old Brewery Mission had to use naloxone on clients about once year, but since opioid toxicity skyrocketed during the pandemic, workers at the Montreal homeless shelter have had to use the life-saving medicine every day. Sometimes, they don’t make it in time. Just this week, two of the shelter’s clients were found dead in suspected drug poisonings. ‘That’s hard. That’s really hard,’ said Vincent Dubois, the shelter’s training co-ordinator, who teaches colleagues how to use naloxone and what to do when they find someone overdosing. ‘We’re nowhere near the end of this crisis. I’m telling you, it’s far from over.'”

“While drug poisonings have been on a steady incline across North America for the past decade since the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl hit the streets and began tainting drug supplies — the number of yearly opioid-related interventions in Quebec was nowhere near the statistics out of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. According to data released earlier this year by Quebec’s Institute of Public Health (INSPQ), more than 500 people died of suspected poisoning with opioids or other substances from October 2021 to September 2022. In comparison, in 2017, there 181 deaths. In 2018, there were 424. The epidemic is becoming more visible in the Montreal area, as it coincides with a severe housing shortage.”

Mission Local in California. “On Thursday, July 13, Mayor London Breed wrote that, of 115 people cited or arrested for public drug use in the previous two weeks, none accepted services, and the overwhelming majority were not San Francisco residents. It’s a common refrain. Mission Local decided to find out: What does that offer of “services” look like? More than 30 people surveyed, all of whom were frequent drug users who have been cited or arrested by San Francisco police in the last two years, had little to no idea.”

“‘They cram it in really fast when they’re discharging you [from jail], right in with all the other things they say,’ said a woman named Sylvana, who was staying on Minna Street and grew up in the Fillmore. ‘You basically miss it.’ Earlier this month, a young man named Kado sat on a ledge at Seventh and Mission streets. ‘I’m high every day,’ said the 24-year-old as he searched for a lighter to smoke fentanyl off some tin foil, scratched-up glasses falling down his nose.”

“On May 24, shortly before the May 30 crackdown on public opioid users, arrest logs confirm that police nabbed Kado for allegedly selling fentanyl and crack, which he says were for personal use and not sale. In less than 24 hours, he was released ‘on OR,’ or on his own recognizance, with a written promise to appear in court the following week. When asked about the offer of support through programs connected to jail on his release, Kado only laughed, looking confused. ‘Most people just want to get out of there,’ he said.”

Hoodline in California. “San Jose’s commercial real estate landscape is facing tumultuous times amidst post-pandemic fallout as key properties default on loans and investors scramble to remain afloat. The recent default of an office building at 5729 Fontanoso Way in South San Jose, purchased for $27.4 million by Atlas Capital Investments in May 2022, serves as a stark reminder of the market’s vulnerability according to the Mercury News. Another notable default is a San Jose office building at 152 North 3rd Street, reported by Hoodline, which is connected to ex-WeWork CEO Adam Neumann through his private family office, Nazare Asset Management.”

“A $31 million loan issued by Rialto Capital Management for the property in 2021 has landed in default as well, further complicating the status of San Jose’s stagnating office market. As the pandemic continues to impact the office sector and tenants remain uncertain about their leasing plans, the availability rate for San Jose’s downtown area has climbed to 28%. Class A buildings, in particular, are feeling the pressure as their availability rate hovers at an alarming 37%.”

“For the Fontanoso Way location, the building had been intended for Khloris Biosciences, a biotech firm. Despite being prominently featured on the company’s website and raising $5 million in a venture funding round in 2018, no visible indicators suggest Khloris Biosciences ever moved into the office space according to Mercury News. Weeds have overrun the building’s landscaping, debris litter the pathways, and a padlock graces its front door.”

The Marina Times in California. “When CNN announced that former Bay Area reporter Sara Sidner would be coming to delve into San Francisco’s lethal cocktail of fentanyl and homelessness, I knew what to expect. For the May 2023 special, Sidner asked people living on the streets why they came to San Francisco to be homeless and got the same answers I’ve gotten for years: It’s easy. Easy to get drugs, do drugs, put up a tent, steal to support your habit — and San Francisco will pay you more than $600 a month for the pleasure.”

“It may not come as a surprise, but cities that offer general assistance payments have more than twice the rate of homelessness as cities that don’t. For example, San Francisco and New York City have the highest rates at 10.4 and 10.9 per 10,000 people respectively. Still, San Francisco’s homeless advocates believe money is the answer, with organizations coaching new arrivals to say they’re ‘from San Francisco’ while helping them navigate the system. The ‘nonprofits’ themselves complete what has become a billion-dollar industry chasing its own tail, with 59 providers receiving $240.6 million in fiscal year 2019–20, according to the latest audit by the city’s budget and legislative analyst.”

“When Sidner sat down with former mayor Willie Brown to ask why he believed San Francisco couldn’t make a dent in its catastrophic homeless problem, Brown was succinct: ‘It is not designed to be solved. It is designed to be perpetuated. It is to treat the problem, not solve it.’ Whether Sidner edited the piece purposefully or not, it was apropos that Brown’s comments followed an interview with Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness (COH), where she’s spent the last 25 years presenting herself as an expert on the subject.”

“What are Friedenbach’s qualifications? She doesn’t really have any. Her vague résumé includes a lot of fundraising and, prior to COH, serving as director of the Hunger and Homeless Action Coalition of San Mateo County. Her skill set, as thin as her résumé, touts ‘a long history of community organizing, working on a range of poverty-related issues including welfare rights, housing, homeless prevention, health care, disability, and human and civil rights.'”

“COH is also opaque in their 990 filing, required by the IRS to verify that nonprofits should keep their tax-exempt status. It’s no secret the IRS rarely audits these forms The COH mission statement tells you what the rest of the 990 will look like (and that they need to hire a copy editor). ‘Our vision of our city is where housing is a human right where homelessness is only ever temporary and dignified and where those are forced to remain on dignified and where those are forced to remain on…’ it rambles and repeats. (And yes, those are the exact words.)”

“For 2021, COH lists salaries, other compensation, and employee benefits as $487,511 with 10 people receiving the title ‘Individual Trustee or Director,’ but the only salary goes to Friedenbach (a paltry 50,340 for the listed 40-hour workweek). So, where did the other $437,171 go? Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve referred to Friedenbach as ‘CEO of the city’s de facto homeless marketing agency,’ spending their money on Sharpies and cardboard to make the handwritten signs they hold up at City Hall protests, but her crowning achievement actually goes back to fundraising: ‘crafting Prop C Our City Our Home, a tax on corporations that pays for homeless housing and will double San Francisco’s efforts to address homelessness.'”

“Then there’s the Field of Dreams analogy ‘If you build it, they will come’ — after San Francisco houses the estimated 4,400 people now on the streets, what happens when more show up? If it’s starting to sound like Friedenbach doesn’t really want to solve this issue, there’s more: In September 2022, COH helped seven homeless individuals file a lawsuit alleging San Francisco violated their rights by ‘punishing residents who have nowhere to go’ when removing tents and belongings from public spaces, with the goal of forcing the city to spend billions more on ‘affordable housing and other resources.'”

“U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu later agreed, granting an emergency order based on ‘evidence” presented by COH that the city regularly violated its own policies when clearing people from encampments without offering adequate access to shelter, which, in California, is illegal.’ To many of her critics, Friedenbach is nothing but a fraud, sitting on the oversight board of OCOH, created by legislation she was instrumental in passing, while accepting a $250,000 grant for her own nonprofit to prepare testimony and train presenters to influence decision makers. OCOH is pushing millions toward Friendenbach’s pipe dream of ‘permanent housing for all’ at the same time COH is suing the city for not offering enough shelter.”

“With conflicts galore, it’s time for Friedenbach to step down from OCOH. It’s also time for officials to stop listening to Friedenbach about the homeless crisis — after 25 years of big talk, her lack of success is visible each and every day on the streets of San Francisco.”

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This Post Has 78 Comments

  2. I wasn’t going to do this post until I found the Marina Times article this morning, which is worth reading in full.

    ‘the scores of victims of accidental opioid overdoses involving fentanyl. ‘They are putting fentanyl in the cocaine’

    I’ve mentioned before that when libertarians like me suggested legalizing drugs, one benefit would be a clean supply because it would be regulated. These commies gave you the hard drugs and guess who is regulating it? The freaking cartels and Chinese mafia!

    This is all part of cultural marxism. And now it’s built a multi-billion $ industry which perpetuates itself on guberment dole.

    1. “These commies gave you the hard drugs and guess who is regulating it? The freaking cartels and Chinese mafia!”

      This can not be said often enough.

      I don’t know if Xanax would be in that category or not but I would throw that in.

      1. The freaking cartels and Chinese mafia!

        Those guys want repeat business. Only the gooberment has an incentive to poison people.

        1. I doubt there is a ‘sustainable business division’ in these cartels. This stuff apparently makes people rot brain stupid. And so little of it can kill. It’s down to a buck a pill I’ve heard.

    2. +1

      I’ve lost friends to overdoses.

      Driving around Denver, you see the face of addiction EVERY DAY. It used to be in small pockets of the city, and now it’s everywhere.

      It’s not just the Chinese and the Mexican cartels. Name the names: George Soros.

      George Soros, who despite being born in Hungary, is not ethnically Christian European. Nor are many of the District Attorneys around the country that he purchases.

      #Noticing

        1. #1 donor to the Democratic Party. SBF was #2. Zuckerberg is #3.

          Is it fair to ask what these globalist oligarchs are getting in return for bankrolling the Neo-Bolsheviks?

    3. ‘They are putting fentanyl in the cocaine’

      There can be only one reason for doing that: they want people to die.

    4. The questions that come up are:
      1) Once hooked on these hard drugs can the person ever return to normal?
      2) When not high, can they perform and hold on to any job?
      3) Will the money for buying the drugs come from welfare?

      One thing that young people, especially men in the 20s and 30s forget is, all manufacturing companies that have a modicum of material handling equipment (fork lifts, cranes etc.) do periodic drug tests. And if, there is an accident during working hours, an hair follicle test will be taken to ascertain if that employee was a frequent drug user. None of the hard drug users and occasional marijuana users will be able to hold a job for long.

      1. None of the hard drug users and occasional marijuana users will be able to hold a job for long.

        I don’t think they intend to do that.

  4. “‘Personally I am becoming increasingly concerned that the community’s concerns aren’t being addressed,’ said Curtis Park resident Cory Jaffe.

    Denver voted 70% for Joe Biden in 2020. This is a simple case of libtards reaping what they voted.

    1. I’m so sick of hearing this. Denver didn’t elect the corrupt senile pedophile. It was 5 key counties across the US who simultaneously stopped counting votes (never happened before) only to have millions of ballots appear in the middle of the next few nights – in some cases hundreds of thousands more ballots than they had legal voters! President Trump won re-election in a landslide.

      1. They are related, but separate issues.

        Denver voted 79.55% for the Unelected Occupant in 2020, but Denver did not decide the election.

        The local (I live there!) consequences of “vote blue no matter who” are readily visible every day.

        One example: the evolution of the Englewood King Soopers on South Broadway. A few years ago, someone crashed a car into the south entrance of the store, they never re-opened that second entrance to the store. A couple years ago, the then open customer restrooms started requiring one to obtain the door code from security, who presumably would enter the restroom if there was a suspected overdose. A year or so ago, restrooms close permanently. A few months ago, the anti-theft one way crash bar was installed at the store entrance. There are also now usually two armed security in the store at all times.

        Denver did, in fact, vote for this.

  5. BTW I should point out that we should differentiate between plant based drugs and chemicals like meth and fentanyl:

    In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized approximately 2,100 pounds of illicit fentanyl at the U.S. southern border, according to the agency’s latest report. The amount is enough to kill every American and then some.

    One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fentanyl can potentially kill 500,000 people, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

    “I don’t think the public is really aware of what a challenge this is,” said Dr. Donna Nelson, an organic chemist and professor at the University of Oklahoma.

    “You have to assume that the border agents are not catching everything that’s coming into our country,” she told The Epoch Times. “And the amount that’s coming in keeps increasing—not steadily, but it is increasing over time.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/enough-fentanyl-crosses-the-us-border-each-month-to-kill-every-american-5423250

    1. “In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized approximately 2,100 pounds of illicit fentanyl at the U.S. southern border, according to the agency’s latest report.”

      “One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fentanyl can potentially kill 500,000 people, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).”

      \\

      Maths:
      2100 lbs / 1 kg / 2.2lbs = 954.545 kg * 1000 g / kg = 954,545 g
      ~2mg = 0.002 g / fatal fentanyl dose
      954,545 g / 0.002 g = 477,272 MILLION fatal fentanyl doses per month
      Let’s round that to 500 M fatal doses / mo. that are actually intercepted.

      \\

      That’s assuming that the CBP intercepted 100% of the fentanyl coming in through our southern porous border, which it obviously isn’t.

      I think one can assume they’re intercepting maybe 20-25% tops, so that would be somewhere in the range of 2.0 – 2.5 B fatal doses / mo. that aren’t intercepted. Per month, so 24 B – 30 B fatal doses / yr. Is that a lot? Rhetorical, not humorous.

      \\

      – The fentanyl precursor chems. are largely Made in China. Fentanyl then made by cartels in Mexico from these. The Left actually admires the CCP and wants to emulate that form of “government” here in the U.S.
      – The current highly corrupt and un-elected administration’s open southern U.S. border policies enable and encourage both illegal immigration and illicit drug flow, IMHO, since actions speak louder than words. Draw your own conclusions.
      – One can then infer by induction (specific observations to general theories) that the current U.S. Government and administration hates most Americans, and especially the Middle Class, since they’re generally economically independent, conservative politically, and Christian. Think productive workers and small business owners (small to medium enterprises (SMEs)), which are also under attack.
      – It’s obvious that the illegal immigrants are here to replace R and I voters and the Middle Class in general, by becoming good D voters, since the illegals are largely unskilled and many/most will become dependent sheeple of The Welfare State.
      – It would seem that the lack of any political will to stop or at least slow down the illicit drug trade is also targeting the Middle Class by outright genocide. Opioids, whether natural or synthetic are the drug of despair. There’s plenty of that going around in the Middle Class (and the U.S. in general) with the current administration policies designed to grind them down.
      – These are just my observations. Prove me wrong.
      – Keep stacking. Both gold and 2A supplies. It seems likely that these will be useful soon.

      2. Just to play devil’s advocate, how many days supply is 500 million doses?
        Population of USA is just about 335 million. Assuming 2% of the population use fentanyl , resulting in 6.7 million fentanyl drug users.
        If the safe consumption is 0.5 dose/ day ( remember 1 dose, 2mg is fatal)
        this drug haul implies about 150 days of supply.
        Money wise the cartels would reap 500 million/2 x 1$ (assumption) =$1 billion.
        Something does not look right.

  6. ‘San Jose’s commercial real estate landscape is facing tumultuous times amidst post-pandemic fallout as key properties default on loans and investors scramble to remain afloat’

    I’ve got an article with bay aryan tax collectors doing ‘automatic reductions’ of property taxes. Just what you need, less money to buy bum urine resistant lamp posts! Who needs life sciences when you got Kado?

    ‘‘I’m high every day,’ said the 24-year-old as he searched for a lighter to smoke fentanyl off some tin foil, scratched-up glasses falling down his nose. On May 24, shortly before the May 30 crackdown on public opioid users, arrest logs confirm that police nabbed Kado for allegedly selling fentanyl and crack, which he says were for personal use and not sale. In less than 24 hours, he was released ‘on OR,’ or on his own recognizance, with a written promise to appear in court the following week. When asked about the offer of support through programs connected to jail on his release, Kado only laughed, looking confused. ‘Most people just want to get out of there’

    Kado is a disruptor! Somebody call the VC funds, we gotta gold mine here!

    1. ‘‘I’m high every day,’ said the 24-year-old as he searched for a lighter to smoke fentanyl off some tin foil, scratched-up glasses falling down his nose.

      Get a fvckin’ job, scvmbag.

    2. I think the VC unicorn well has run dry. With new management at Silly Valley Bank, who is going to fund all their bullsh*t? It doesn’t help that their favorite real estate speculation bank also has new ownership. I don’t think most people realize how important those banks were to the bay area bubble. When the rest of the banks start to seize up soon things should start to come into focus a bit more. Things could get a lot worse there! Perhaps we should get ahead of it here on the HBB and help them come up with their next refrain; ‘learn to deal’. It’s catchy, right?

  9. ‘I’ve filed maybe 26 reports,’ Julia said, scrolling through all the reports she submitted to Seattle’s Find It Fix It app. ‘They’ve been dumping trash, brought a BBQ grill out… drug paraphernalia, burnt foil,’ Julia said.”

    Let’s focus on what’s important here, Julia – no more mean tweets.

    1. Or whatever the globalist scum media’s narrative of the day. Oh look it’s hot in Phoenix in July! Gosh that’s never happened! I lived there a couple of years and it’s no hotter than it has been for years. I am currently experiencing the coolest summer I can remember. I didn’t have to turn on my AC until June 9th. That’s pretty remarkable.

      Want to cool off Phoenix? Stop laying concrete and blacktop for miles in every direction would be a logical suggestion. And plant some trees idiots.

      1. Or how about not building mega cities where mega cities should never exist…..i.e. Phoenix, L.A., Vegas.

  10. The number of homeless people is growing 12 times faster than the city’s total population. Denver saw homelessness rise 44% in five years. Just outside the business association’s headquarters, Bruce Sommerfeld is living under a tree. As we visited, he was doing laundry in a plastic garbage bag.

    Sommerfeld has been living on downtown streets for seven years and was not impressed by the new mayor’s declaration of a state of emergency: “Personally, I’m not looking for housing, I’m doing outreach. I work for free, I’m a volunteer.”

    Sommerfeld says the offer of support is nice, however, “I really don’t need anything. This is the ultimate freedom.”

    In Capitol Hill, encampments are now set up right outside the governor’s mansion. Neighbors have been face to face with the unhoused for years. Ed Ellis is hopeful but cautious about the plan.

    “I hope it works,” Ellis said. “I’m a little suspicious. I’m not sure these people exactly want a small home. I think they like freedom.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/businesses-and-residents-react-to-denver-mayor-mike-johnstons-emergency-declaration-on-homelessness/ar-AA1e2EqB

    1. In Capitol Hill, encampments are now set up right outside the governor’s mansion.

      This is fine

    2. “I hope it works,” Ellis said. “I’m a little suspicious. I’m not sure these people exactly want a small home. I think they like freedom.”

      Didn’t Reagan say something like this?

      1. In 1984, Ronald Reagan defended his administration against charges of callousness towards the poor by saying that “people who are sleeping on the grates…the homeless…are homeless, you might say, by choice.” This statement was made in response to charges that his administration had favored the rich over the poor.

  11. It’s an issue the city has failed to significantly improve despite increases in funding. But Metro Nashville is hoping a new office dedicated to responding to homelessness will change things. Established July 1, the Office of Homeless Services reports directly to the mayor, a structural change its leader, April Calvin, believes will give the department more focus and independence.

    Howard Allen, founder of Nashville Homeless Underground, who for years was homeless in Nashville, said that in 2005, then-Mayor Bill Purcell placed him on a commission with an ambitious task: Eradicating homelessness in 10 years. “This is 2023,” and nothing has changed, he said.

    Calvin may say that part of the reason Nashville has failed to make meaningful progress, at least in the last decade, is that past leadership failed to adapt. “Prior leadership’s priorities maybe did not align with national best practices,” Calvin said. “If what we’ve done for 10 years continued to get us where we are now, you have to go to the experts.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/nashville-has-a-new-office-of-homeless-services-heres-how-its-director-plans-to-address-it/ar-AA1ew4g2

    1. “If what we’ve done for 10 years continued to get us where we are now, you have to go to the experts.”

      Who would these experts be? The Homeless Industrial Complex?

  12. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow apologized to hundreds of asylum seekers who spent weeks living on the street in the city’s downtown core after being denied access to the city’s shelter system.

    On Friday, Chow visited to the Revivaltime Tabernacle Church and Dominion Church International Toronto, two churches that have been providing shelter to the asylum seekers, many of whom are from Africa.

    “It takes a tremendous amount of courage and strength to pick up, leave all your belongings and your friends and relatives and flee to another country,” Chow said. “That’s who they are. They arrived here as refugees and I want to honour their courage and their resilience. I also want, on behalf of the City of Toronto and other levels of government, to apologize.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/toronto-mayor-apologizes-to-asylum-seekers-who-slept-on-streets-as-advocates-call-for-action/ar-AA1euK5N

    1. Maybe you should be apologizing to Heritage Canadians for what you & your fellow globalist Quislings are doing to their once-proud, prosperous country, Chow.

    2. You just got into office and yer virtue signalling up a storm Olive! You know what, Africans will fill up yer hotels for years and still come by the millions if you let them. Same with central and south America for the US. BTW the cartels and other bad guys are using ‘refugee status’ to bring in more criminals.

  13. The number of people known to be sleeping in tent encampments in Thunder Bay, Ont., has nearly tripled compared to last year, as those on the front lines continue to help support them and stay as safe as they can. There are 140 people known to be sleeping outside in one of 12 encampments this summer, compared to a peak of 55 people last year.

    This is believed to be the highest number of people experiencing this type of homelessness ever in the northwestern Ontario city, said Holly Gauvin, the executive director of Elevate NWO, the lead agency directing support efforts at encampments across Thunder Bay.

    “This is almost three times as high and we have only 60 days of anticipated ‘tolerable’ weather before we are in big trouble,” Gauvin said.

    Jonathan Green, who goes by Bear, has been an outreach and engagement worker with Elevate NWO for three months. Before that, he did peer support work with People Advocating for Change Through Empowerment and with the Rapid Access Addictions Medicine Clinic.

    Each morning, he hands out about 130 breakfast bags across the city’s encampments. Thursday, people received a fruit cup, a muffin, a granola bar and a juice box, plus socks following Wednesday night’s rainstorm.

    Workers also distribute harm reduction supplies and garbage bags.

    “Everybody’s doing a really amazing job actually keeping the area clean,” he said. “It’s just a wonderful thing to see how hard they’re working at taking care of this place.”

    While he joked that the people who live there have to start their day by “seeing his ugly mug,” he said it’s hard to describe how doing this work makes him feel. “I can’t even explain it,” he said. “It puts a smile on my face.”

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/thunderbay-homeless-encampments-1.6920259

    And some jingle in yer wallet Jon?

    1. we have only 60 days of anticipated ‘tolerable’ weather

      The winter is “subartic”. Good luck.

    2. The Homeless Industrial Complex will never solve the crisis when their funding is dependent on there being a crisis

  14. ‘students are raising concerns about safety in West Campus. ‘On campus specifically I have never run into any issues,’ said UT student, Paulina Pearson. ‘But definitely in West Campus is where I see people yelling at me. Some guy followed my roommate into our apartment the other day and he was screaming at her and followed her in.’ People using drugs and begging for money on the Drag is a common sight for students. KXAN viewers have also reached out about a homeless encampment near the University of Texas CO-OP. Drug paraphernalia and human feces were spotted by KXAN crews’

    I am familiar with West Campus. It’s just a few blocks from campus Paulina. So the university cops don’t put up with this BS but the city does.

    1. Several students at UT Austin have been stabbed to death on campus over the past few years by mentally ill people.

  16. “Drug paraphernalia and human feces were spotted by KXAN crews when we stopped by.”

    Austin is the anus of Texas

      1. Lil’ Fidel Trudeau’s WEF colony of Canada has a final solution for your unhappiness, citizen.

  19. The Adams administration is paying $220M to the Roosevelt Hotel’s owner, the state-run Pakistan International Airlines Corp., to occupy more than 1,000 rooms.

    That’s more than enough money to build 1,000 houses.

    1. Adams is a special kind of stupid. NYC admits to receiving 90,000 people so far on buses from Texas. 8.5 million is the current official population so they have received over 1% of total population so far. Before all of this cranked into high gear they admitted to 50k domestic homeless which is .5%+ of population. So they are at 1.5% officially homeless in NYC but we can reasonably speculate the real number is closer to 2%. They are easily at 150k homeless people but my guess is closer to 200k. Of course they try to spin the numbers and downplay it but they are visibly starting to get desperate.

      I’m sure it will be fine, right? Luckily Mayor Adams is committed to providing sanctuary and will continue to accept whoever shows up. The buses continue to arrive regularly while they pretend that everything is fine. Amusingly, he came out last week and stated ‘NYC is full’ in a press conference and showed they are actually handing out a map to other cities but they are still accepting every bus that pulls up. NYC is vying to become known as the homeless capital, this winter should be interesting.

  20. ‘They’ve retained me to help them figure out, when this is all over, what is it gonna look like as a hotel, when the whole migrant situation is over.’

    Once they convert hotels into homeless migrant housing, I don’t see how they will be able to painlessly reverse the policy. And who pays for the homeless migrant housing?

    This situation has government-sponsored disaster written all over it.

      2. “A once-trendy Manhattan hotel has become a wild “free-for-all” of sex, drugs and violence after the city began housing migrants there, an employee claimed Tuesday.”

        I thought it was going to read after Hunter Biden began frequenting the premises.

  21. ‘It is not designed to be solved. It is designed to be perpetuated. It is to treat the problem, not solve it.’

    If Democrat politicians ended homelessness, they would lose a reason to vote for them as the party that helps the homeless population.

  23. “A Seattle woman was assaulted right outside her own home in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood.”

    IIRC that’s not a cheap hood either.

    “‘I said something like kind of causal, like how’s it going?’ Goodchild said.”

    Live in a sh$thole and you learn something about reading whether people are sane (and to assume they’re not until proven otherwise). Might not have been a sh$thole when she moved there 20 years ago, but guess what? It is now.

  24. Re: Soaking up inventory is the city’s approach to the migrant crisis, which is to set up arrival centers in hotel rooms.

    It is unbelievable that the illegals are being put up in hotels (perhaps with free meals as well) with taxpayer money when our own poor are homeless and out in the streets . . .

    2. These hotels, e.g., the décor, fixtures and furniture are at the end of their useful life for paying customers. The incorrigible homeless will trash what’s left, and the taxpayers will refurbish the hotel for the owners.

  25. $125,900 2 bd 2ba 1,298 sqft
    Price cut: $4K (7/29)
    1954 W Riverbend Cir, Bullhead City, AZ 86442

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1954-W-Riverbend-Cir-Bullhead-City-AZ-86442/8357996_zpid/

    Date Event Price
    7/29/2023 Price change $125,900 -3.1% $97/sqft

    7/7/2023 Price change $129,900 -3.8% $100/sqft

    6/16/2023 Price change $135,000 -2.9% $104/sqft

    5/31/2023 Price change $139,000 -12.6% $107/sqft

    5/18/2023 Listed for sale $159,000 +17.9% $122/sqft

    5/4/2020 Listing removed $134,900 $104/sqft

    4/28/2020 Price change $134,900 -3.6% $104/sqft

    3/10/2020 Price change $139,900 +5.3% $108/sqft

    2/1/2020 Listed for sale $132,900 +101.4% $102/sqft

    4/14/2014 Listing removed $66,000 $51/sqft

    12/12/2013 Listed for sale $66,000 +209.1% $51/sqft

    7/4/2013 Listing removed $600

    6/4/2013 Listed for rent $600 -11.1%

    4/2/2013 Listing removed $675 $1/sqft

    1/4/2013 Price change $675 +12.5% $1/sqft

    12/28/2012 Price change $600 -11.1%

    11/28/2012 Listed for rent $675 $1/sqft

    10/4/2012 Sold $21,350 -37% $16/sqft

    7/26/2012 Price change $33,900 -7.9% $26/sqft

    6/16/2012 Price change $36,800 -33% $28/sqft

    6/14/2012 Listed for sale —

    4/10/2012 Sold $54,915 +104.1% $42/sqft

    3/24/2012 Price change $26,900 -10% $21/sqft

    2/24/2012 Listed for sale $29,900 +75.9% $23/sqft

    6/17/2003 Sold $17,000 -29.2% $13/sqft

    10/17/2002 Sold $24,000 $18/sqft

    1. 10/17/2002 Sold $24,000 $18/sqft

      I was thinking that’s what it’s worth actually. Gloss paint in the bedroom is a nice touch.

      1. Back in the 90s an exhausted laborer could buy a Phoenix shack like this for less than $30k, and spent what’s left on generic beer and a satellite tv plan.

  26. Image file for Jeff, Dogs Climbing Mountains Saturday Edition:

    https://ibb.co/52LxJVT

    Photo taken at about elevation 12,200′ on the Continental Divide in north central Colorado. I stopped to talk to this guy for a few minutes. He and his dog are hiking the entirety of the Continental Divide Trail, in seperate sections on separate trips. He told me he started this section in Wyoming a week ago. Pretty cool…

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