California Pols Move to Protect Aliens, Welcome Refugees, Ignore L.A.’s Homeless

Problem: Los Angeles’ acute homelessness.

Solution: More immigration, more refugees!

Homeless Los Angeles man: He’s gotten plenty of company since 2013.

Obviously, the answer to Los Angeles’ very real affordable housing shortage is not adding more people, mostly poor, to the population. But California leaders at both the state and federal level are determined to bring in more refugees, keep the borders open, and unwilling even to sanction criminal aliens’ removal.

California’s Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris are united in their determination to undermine President Trump’s temporary refugee resettlement pause. And California Assembly Democrats propose rolling out the red carpet for arriving refugees, and offering them taxpayer-funded in-state tuition fees, as well as other federally mandated affirmative benefits. In the meantime, state legislators have proposed that California become a sanctuary state which would mean that deporting criminal aliens will become a more difficult challenge.

As Dr. Housing Bubble reported in 2015, Los Angeles has 20,000 homeless residents, the nation’s highest total. Most have been squeezed out of an ever-increasing surge in home prices and rental rates. The homeless are attempting to cope with their fate by doubling and tripling up, “living like sardines,” as the Dr. says, moving back home and leaving California. Since 2013, the number of people living on the streets has increased 10 percent even though Los Angeles allocated $100 million to alleviate the housing crisis. Even upscale neighborhoods like Santa Monica and Studio City are plagued by homelessness and struggle for solutions.

Adding more people through higher birth rates, immigration or refugee resettlement will worsen, not solve, any social problems, especially a deepening affordable housing shortage, a major contributor to homelessness. With California’s never-ending lobbying for expanded immigration and more refugees, the unanswered question remains: Why do elected officials care so little about the state’s more than six million poor, but seemingly can’t provide enough entitlements to foreign nationals?