L.A. Homeless Crisis:
The Politicians’ Blame Game

Jun 17, 2024

In early June, Los Angeles City Council Member Paul Krekorian called a news conference in order to show security video footage of two Burbank cops dropping a shoeless, homeless man in front of his office, and leaving the man, who was obviously in extreme distress, lying face-down on the sidewalk.

Krekorian denounced the cops for not caring for the homeless man’s well-being and even threatened the cops with prosecution. In reality, what the cops did is business as usual. Homeless people are constantly dumped—by cops, hospitals, and by severely underfunded social service agencies.

In fact, the real point of Krekorian’s press conference was to blame officials of smaller cities, like Burbank, for pushing their own unwanted homeless population onto the streets of Los Angeles.

But the real problem is that thousands more people are being forced onto the streets every year, as rents and housing prices continue to skyrocket and affordable housing units disappear. This means that the workings of the capitalist marketplace cannot even provide the bare minimum of what every human being needs to survive. And to that, the politicians have no answer … except to try to escape blame, by blaming each other.