California DEMOCRAT homeless found living in furnished caves 20 feet below street level

[Way to go NEWSOM!]

In <uov1gq$2hejq$1...@dont-email.me> Stupid Rudy Canoza wrote:
>
> I flunked out of UCLA economics class.

Homeless people in California were found living in caves along the
Tuolumne River before they were cleared out by the Modesto Police
Department and volunteers over the weekend.

Volunteers with Operation 9-2-99 and the Tuolumne River Trust worked
with police to clear them out, removing some 7,600 pounds of garbage
from the area, authorities said.

"This particular area has been plagued by vagrancy and illegal
camps, which have raised concerns due to the fact that these camps
were actually caves dug into the riverbanks," the Modesto Police
Department said in a statement.

The cleared debris filled two truckloads and a trailer, police
added.

Ahead of the cleanup, individuals residing in the caves and nearby
homeless camps were told about the operation and informed of
services to assist them, the department said.

The caves were about 20 feet below street level, and some were fully
furnished, indicating that vagrants had been living there for some
time. Items found inside included bedding, belongings, food, items
on a makeshift mantel, drugs and weapons, local news station KOVR
reported.

"We had a hard time figuring out how they got so much stuff down in
there, considering how hard it was to get it up the hill and out,"
Operation 2-9-99 coordinator Chris Guptill told KOVR.

Guptill was one of many volunteers who participated in the cleanup.
He said his group found eight caves in total, and this was not the
first time they were occupied.

"We really don't have a known solution on how to deal with it,"
Guptill told KOVR.

Tracy Rojas, a Modesto resident who lives near the caves, said it is
dangerous for people to take up residence underground.

"If one of these were to collapse, it would be devastating," she
told KOVR. "This whole thing would come down and go into the water."

Homelessness is a growing crisis in California.

The city of Los Angeles, about 300 miles south of Modesto, recently
began recruiting up to 6,000 volunteers to count homeless people.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority-led street tally helps
the county government’s efforts to tackle a homeless crisis, which
has crippled the city with tens of thousands of people living on the
streets, living in cars, tents and makeshift street shelters. These
temporary homes have proliferated on sidewalks, in parks and other
community areas.

The so-called "point-in-time" count aims to estimate how many people
are homeless and what financial or medical services they may require
for potential mental health conditions or from drug addiction.

This count comes as California residents have grown increasingly
frustrated over lawmakers’ failure to deter the surging homeless
population. Since 2015, homelessness has increased by 70% in Los
Angeles County and 80% in the city.

In 2023, officials reported more than 75,500 people were homeless on
any given night in LA County, a 9% rise from a year earlier, and
about 46,200 within the city of Los Angeles.

"Homelessness is an emergency, and it will take all of us working
together to confront this emergency," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass
said in a statement, calling the count "an important tool to
confront the homelessness crisis."

https://news.yahoo.com/california-homeless-found-living-furnished-
165119411.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall