adult alone boy building

It’s official. The number of homeless people in the U.S. has hit a record high of 653,000 on any single night

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The 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress was published this past December 15th; key findings of the 117-page document include that:

“On a single night in 2023, roughly 653,100 people – or about 20 of every 10,000 people in the United States – were experiencing homelessness. Six in ten people were experiencing sheltered homelessness—that is, in an emergency shelter (ES), transitional housing (TH), or safe haven (SH) program—while the remaining four in ten were experiencing unsheltered homelessness in places not meant for human habitation.

Experiences of homelessness increased nationwide across all household types. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 12 percent, or roughly 70,650 more people.

The 2023 Point-in-Time (PIT) count is the highest number of people reported as experiencing homelessness on a single night since reporting began in 2007. The overall increase reflects the increases in all homeless populations. Homelessness among persons in families with children experiencing homelessness rose by 16 percent. Similarly, the rise in individuals experiencing homelessness was 11 percent.”

It’s also important to note that point-in-time (PIT) estimates are widely considered to be undercounts–possibly by up to half–including since PIT counts are usually coordinated in the Winter morning, when many folks living on the street are out seeking some sort of refuge. Additionally, a 2019 article from Bloomberg pointed out a discrepancy between the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s number of unsheltered Americans versus that of the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES); in 2015, HUD identified just under 565,000 people without shelter, but the NCES counted up to 1.3 million homeless children attending public schools that year.

While virtually every state, including Alaska and Hawaii count homeless people within their boundaries, since 2007, when point-in-time counting of unsheltered folks began, the five states with the largest growth in homelessness have been “blue” or democratic; however, it’s also key to consider that blue states have historically been far denser than “red” or Republican-led states.

On the other hand, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are also breaking records. According to Americans For Tax Fairness, a lobbying association, as of November 2023, the collective wealth of 741 billionaires in the U.S amounted to $5.1 trillion. The organization also notes that:

“[U.S. Billionaires’ wealth] is up an astounding $2.3 trillion (78%) since enactment of the Trump-GOP tax law in 2017—a fiscally irresponsible measure heavily slanted towards the rich that undoubtedly contributed to billionaires’ wealth growth over the last six years.”

To be certain, though, of 332 million people in the U.S., 741 billionaires represent just about 000002%, or two hundred-thousandths of the overall population.

J.T.

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L.A. County’s GDP is ahead of 43 U.S. States

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As of Quarter 4 of 2020, while accounting for only three percent (4,753 square miles) of California’s land mass (155,959 square miles), L.A. County’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or value of economic output was at least $659 billion, larger than that of 43 different U.S. States and Washington D.C. in the same year.

StateGDP
Vermont$34 billion
Wyoming$37 billion
Alaska$51 billion
Montana$53 billion
North Dakota$55 billion
South Dakota$57 billion
Rhode Island$63 billion
Maine$72 billion
Delaware$77 billion
West Virginia$80 billion
Hawaii$83 billion
Idaho$88 billion
New Hampshire$92 billion
New Mexico$101 billion
Mississippi$118 billion
Arkansas$135 billion
Nebraska$140 billion
Washington, D.C.$147 billion
Nevada$176 billion
Kansas$181 billion
Oklahoma$192 billion
Iowa$202 billion
Utah$207 billion
Kentucky$220 billion
Alabama$234 billion
Louisiana$238 billion
Oregon$250 billion
South Carolina$254 billion
Connecticut$283 billion
Missouri$340 billion
Wisconsin$348 billion
Minnesota$383 billion
Tennessee$384 billion
Arizona$389 billion
Indiana$389 billion
Colorado$391 billion
Maryland$417 billion
Michigan$532 billion
Virginia$565 billion
Massachusetts$599 billion
North Carolina$608 billion
Washington$620 billion
New Jersey$632 billion
Georgia$637 billion
Los Angeles County$659 billion
Ohio$698 billion
Pennsylvania$793 billion
Illinois$877 billion
Florida$1.1 trillion
New York$1.7 trillion
Texas$1.8 trillion
California$3.1 trillion

The only states with a larger GDP than L.A. County’s in 2020 were Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, New York state, Texas, and California itself. If L.A. County were its own nation-state, California’s Quarter 4 GDP would shrink from $3.1 trillion to $2.3 trillion, retaining its number one position in the U.S. economy, but lying just $500 billion dollars away in output from second-place Texas instead of its current lead against the lone-star state of $1.3 trillion. Also, as of 2020, L.A. County contained at least 10 million residents; the 43 states behind in terms of GDP, and Washington D.C., by contrast, contained under 183 million people, or 55% of the U.S. population.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, March 2022

J.T.

EPISODE 26 – STATE OF THE GENTRIFINATION

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In our twenty-sixth episode, we coin the term “gentrifination” for listeners, describing a gentrified “state of the union” due to the last four years of policy under the Trump administration, and consider how communities should prepare for the political season ahead with the presidential election just 42 days away on the cusp of the Fall season. If you live in California, the deadline to register to vote is October 19th, and you can both check your registration and arrange to vote by mail at the following link: https://registertovote.ca.gov/.

J.T.

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War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America (1980)

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In the days since an ebullient Back 2 School 2 Party, I’ve had the privilege to rest and restore myself from the frenzy of so much organizing. One of the key activities in this “decompressing” process has been getting back to los beloved libros. In an effort to spread the joy of reading, then, here is another brief book review, this time on a little-known story by a major organizer in American history: Huey P. Newton’s War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America (1980).

I can only imagine how demoralizing it was for Mr. Newton to describe the harrowing experience that led to the publication of this work, which describes how in less than ten (10) years his entire life was uprooted, distorted and destroyed by a branch of government whose authority was never approved by Congressional Hearing (see FBI), but which would nevertheless work “behind the scenes” to eradicate the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) efforts to free Black and other minorities from the second-class citizenship over a hundred (100) years after the Reconstruction period that followed the US Civil War (1861-1865). As Mr. Newton points out in the opening pages of his analysis:

“By 1966, the United States had experienced a recent series of disruptions in several of its major urban Black population centers—Harlem, Watts, Chicago and Detroit. Numerous organizations and leaders representing groups of Black people—e.g., SCLC (Martin Luther King, Jr.), the Black Muslims (Elijah Muhammed and Malcolm X), CORE (James Farmer), NAACP (Roy Wilkins)—had repeatedly articulated the causes of these riots or urban rebellions: high unemployment, bad housing, police brutality, poor health care, and inferior educational opportunities.”

That same year, the Party would be founded in Oakland, California. It wouldn’t last more than 14 years. But during its lifespan, the BPP served as a “vanguard,” to borrow one of Newton’s terms, which would not only extend the spirit of Black Liberation Theory passed down from the blood and ashes of Malcolm X and MLK Jr., but which would “evolve” that spirit to meet the needs of a new “postmodern” world dawning after the “radical sixties” era in the United States. A world which would nearly leave the Black community and other minorities completely behind, if not for the revolutionary spirit and action of thinkers like Mr. Newton, Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton, Angela Davis, and other major intellectual and social figures of the times.

To be sure, War Against the Panthers is not a “tell-all” expose of the BPP and its legacy, but it’s a close and fact-based look at the methods of infiltration used by institutions such as the FBI, CIA and even the IRS and others, which set out to destroy the party’s Breakfast and other ‘Survival’ programs in Oakland, Chicago, New York and many more major cities across the U.S. For this same reason the dissertation is a very brief read containing a handful of facts, figures, and memorandums obtained through litigation by attorneys for the Panthers in cases against the FBI and its counterparts for violating the Panthers’ rights to privacy, freedom of speech, and other political freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

In 2019, “privacy” and the right to privacy is a word and phrase I read mostly when articles are referring to the internet, and more specifically, when they’re referring to which companies are spying on Americans’s phones and web browsers (virtually all of them, though one might ask: does it still count as spying if we clicked “yes” in the disclosure agreement?).

Yet Newton’s dissertation is an example of just what kind of actions can be taken against any American when the major power players deem them a “threat to national security,” or even just expendable or collateral damage. The analysis is therefore also instructive in the matter about why ‘[the] people’s’ rights are still worth defending; the issues of privacy and the right to organize oneself privately, politically or otherwise are not just legislative or “abstract” issues, but truly personal ones affecting every American today. As Mr. Newton points out, if even just one power player can deploy their leverage against any one group or person to destroy the rights of their citizenship, then it follows that all power players are given permission to misuse their leverage against all [the] people:

“…governmental efforts at destruction of the Party, successful in varying degrees, were only thwarted or held in abeyance when they reached their logical consequence: destruction of the right of dissent for all groups, a right indispensable to the functioning of a democratic society.”

I salute Mr. Newton and his comrades for their invaluable bravery in living, breathing, and exposing this parable. At least for JIMBO TIMES, the people will know: these are legends not far at all removed from our time. The text is free online for any one to read, and has full approval from The L.A. Storyteller.

J.T.

California Primary Elections: June 2018 Recap

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According to the Washington Post, just over 6.9 million people in California cast a vote for the state’s June 2018 Primaries–the largest recorded in the state’s history for a primary election–out of a total of over 19 million registered voters, to make for a 36% ‘return’ rate.

However, when considering the total number of all potential voters in the State’s Registrar, listed by Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s records as being at 25 million eligible voters, the turnout rate becomes 27%, or just over a fourth of the possible turnout.

To make things more interesting, when considering the total population of California, the most recent census records show that the Golden State is comprised of over 39.5 million people. To be sure, the census also counts people who are imprisoned, undocumented immigrants, and other non-voting citizens such as youth under eighteen years old. Nevertheless, if the total population is considered, it makes the Primary’s ‘turnout’ rate even smaller, at 17% of all the citizenry in the state, or less than a fifth of the ‘democratic’ or participating possibilities.

In contest for June 2018’s primary elections was the state’s Governorship, a seat for one U.S. Senator’s position, various seats for the U.S. House of Representatives, local courtroom positions, measures or ordinances varying from county to county, and more, like the recall of Judge Aaron Persky in Santa Clara County, for one.

Now, a quick glance at which groups comprise the California population:

From the U.S. Census Bureau’s ‘Quick Facts’ online:

At 15.4 million, Latinos account for 39% of California’s population.

At 14.6 million, Whites hold 38.8% of California’s population.

At 5.9 million, Asian-Americans maintain 15% of California’s population.

And at 2.5 million, African-Americans constitute 6.5% of California’s population.

At 633,000, Native Americans compose 1.6% of California’s population. And at 198,000, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders form 0.5% of California’s population.

My favorite data for this election, however, is Political Data, Inc’s Absentee Vote Tracker (AVT), which tracked the early return of ballots on both the day before the Primary election as well as the day of, tracking up to 2.8 million returns of the 6.9 returns overall.

We’ll take a look at some of the numbers, particularly the following about which groups were mailed a ballot for the primaries, and which groups actually submitted those ballots.

According to the AVT, the day before and the day of the election, the percentage of ballots held by the states voter’s along ethnic lines were:

Latinos: 2.2 million (25% of the total)
Asian-Americans: 1.05 million (12% of the total)
African-Americans: 312,000 (4% of the total)
Whites: 5.2 million (59% of the total)

What the numbers suggest is reason for pause: similarly to L.A. County’s Special and Municipal Elections, voting at the State level is still a matter of disparity between the White and Non-White populations who make up California.

Remember our Census data: at 15.4 million of the overall population in California, Latinos outnumber Whites, even if by only less than a percentage point. When it comes to ballots held between Latinos and Whites before election day, however, there are more than two White voters for every Latino voter, and nearly five times as many White voters for every Asian-American voter.

On the day of the Primary election, the numbers are more startling.

Latino returns: 367,000 (13% of the total)
Asian-American returns: 295,000 (11% of the total)
African-American returns: 75,000 (3% of the total)
White returns: 2.04 million (76% of the total)

Of course, one should also note that these numbers are from just the day before as well as the day of the vote, which makes them slightly incomplete for ballots that take a few more days to get in. But in midterm elections like these, which are usually less popular and thus more predictable, early returns are indicators of a normal distribution more often than not. In other words, after counting the total overall, the 76% rate of Whites who voted in this last election is probably off by only a few percentage points in one direction or the other.

The implications are that the current disparities throughout California between white voter rates and those of people of color when considering the larger voter eligibility pool of the latter is not just unfortunate, but something of a public safety concern. If recent trends in U.S. politics show us anything, it’s that very few groups feel adequately represented by the country’s current institutional makeup. Just as relevant: although many California officials certainly like to claim they welcome immigration and the diversity of the land, when it comes to the distribution of power between its various groups, California’s white population is as much in control of the state as whites are in places like Tennessee or Arkansas, where residents voted overwhelmingly for the current administration.

It was in 2014 that the PEW Research center identified Latinos as the largest ethnic group in California, which is considered a preview for the overall direction of the U.S.’s ‘majority-minority‘ poised to arrive in the next twenty-five years or so. But if the current trends in California’s voting disparity between whites and non-whites here continues, one can only reasonably calculate for an even more radical disparity at the national level in terms of power and policy between the groups than what we’re seeing today.

J.T.