On Bill Maher last week, author and journalist Anand Giridharadas made an important point about homelessness.
“Cities are very unfairly labeled as these problem centers by Donald Trump and others. And one thing is worth remembering. If you look at the population of, well, all people in cities, particularly people who come to cities from elsewhere… Look at youth homeless – a pretty large chunk of those people who end up in cities were failed in some other parts of this country… There are a lot of families in this country who fail the first duty of family, which is to love your kids more than any other thing. And there’s a lot of families in this country that look at some verse in some book and their child’s face, and choose the verse in the book over their child’s face.”
The clip has gone viral, with a lot of people praising his point. “This is how it’s done.” “You NEVER hear this in the media,” and, “The secret to a perfect poached egg from a Michelin Chef.” But I think that one’s just my algorithm.
And it’s true. There’s a long history of cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles being a refuge for young people escaping hostile families and seeking a life where they could be gay or trans or whatever else — in places with fewer bounds and greater possibility.
There’s a reason there are so many songs about California. It’s been a beacon of freedom, opportunity, and hot shirtless guys on roller skates for a long time.
But this is a trap.
Fox News blames every conceivable ill on the depraved coastal elites, on immigrants, on socialists and trans people, to allay guilt and provide an easy, satisfying answer, a confirmation of their viewers’ moral superiority.
And we can’t slip into that same mentality, as good as it might feel. I’m sure slipping into the La Brea tar pits feels awesome, for a moment.
Last year, USC found, as part of the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, that nearly 80% of unhoused people had lived in Los Angeles County for more than five years before losing housing.
The California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness out of UC San Francisco found that nine in ten unhoused people were residents of California when they became homeless.
Some were here long enough to buy a weighted vest.
According to L.A.’s own homelessness agency:
“The unhoused are not, for the most part, made up of outsiders. They are people who live in our communities but may have been priced out by an ever-increasing housing market.”
We see OURSELVES as morally superior, tolerant and welcoming and compassionate; but that is a lie.
Oh, Alabama kicks their kids out because of the Bible? L.A. kicks people out because we won’t allow construction of buildings over seven stories.
Californians get priced out of housing every day, and where do they end up going? Conservative Texas, which by the way, has also built more solar and wind power.
I heard they even have a vegan running for Senate.
And for those who do stay in L.A., how many live far from their jobs, sitting in traffic on crumbling roads, or waiting for slow and unreliable buses that require budgeting hours just to get to work, while our mayor and city council block housing construction, and our leaders hold a press conference to celebrate a new ten-mile transit line that won’t be running ’til 2047 — if we’re lucky.
On the bright side, if we all get in our cars now, we can arrive at a new K Line station right when it opens.
By the way, L.A.’s homelessness agency I mentioned earlier? It has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars through mismanagement and corruption as the number of homeless people in the county is once again rising.
It’s actually hard to know just how much money was squandered, because the previous CFO of this agency — and this is real — only had a degree in cultural anthropology.
And while I’m at it: a decade ago in Los Angeles? No mosquitoes. Now? Many mosquitoes. And it’s a special kind of mosquito that bites during the day? We got the daywalkers? Fuck!
Again, not a criticism of Anand, who has written and spoken eloquently on the causes of homelessness, and the ways we fail the most vulnerable in our society.
His point isn’t wrong; but it’s part of a more uncomfortable story, about the chasm between our values and our actions.
What’s broken in Los Angeles cannot be laid at the feet of Trump or Fox News or some anti-gay hillbilly pastor.
The homelessness crisis in California is no one’s shame but ours.
The allure of Donald Trump has always been that he tells his supporters: you don’t have to change or grow or compromise or suffer even one uncomfortable thought.
That, plus his big, beautiful ass.
And it is no coincidence that Trump’s influence rose alongside algorithmic feeds, which encourage the same easy, self-satisfied, Manichean view of politics and the world.
And we have to defeat that Trumpian mindset — not only in these midterms, but in ourselves.
Otherwise we’ll never achieve our ultimate goal: destroying Christmas once and for all.
This essay was adapted from today’s Lovett or Leave It monologue. Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
