231 Comments
author

Forgot to mention that I was taking pictures of encampments full of plywood structures and discarded butane canisters in January of 2018 because of the Skirball Fire in December in 2017, which started in a homeless encampment in the hills of Bel-Air:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/06/los-angeles-california-fire-interstate-405

I was taking pictures of encampments this week because of the I-10 fire.

Third time will make it a regular habit, I guess.

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

I have to object to using Somalia as a likeness; while poor and violent, the kind of people who build these camps aren't tolerated to do so there. They are dealt with permanently and harshly as an example to others.

This kind of madness is uniquely western.

Expand full comment

Tire necklace would work here too

Expand full comment

So naturally you support housing or sheltering these people in some manner rather than letting them squat on the pavement Bombay style, right?

Expand full comment

I support making it extremely hard to live like this.

Even the mental know when something isn't working.

Expand full comment

Yet billions for Ukraine

Expand full comment

Obviously.

Expand full comment

Well, how much coercion would *you* support in getting "these people" into housing, keeping them there, and keeping them from destructive behavior towards others while so housed?

Sounds a lot like incarceration, you know.

Expand full comment

Old school.

Keep them moving.

Laws

Go to Irvine CA. Drive around you don't see homeless encampments.

And yes much more enforced confinement.

Expand full comment

Sorry, David C., my comment was a reply to K.Odonnellan, not you. (You sound like you have a great perspective on this.)

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

It's shocking what's happened to the Arroyo Seco south of Pasadena/South Pas. It's lined with shanty towns now and nobody seems to care.

Expand full comment
Nov 25, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

These buildings look like they are in or near waterways. I know it doesn’t rain very frequently in SoCal but what happens when it does? Are these camps caught in the rushing water?

Expand full comment
author

Constantly, and the fire department rescues them over and over again:

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/multiple-people-dog-rescued-from-rain-swollen-los-angeles-river/

Expand full comment

Great reporting here, Chris! These are similar to the camps we see in Portland as well. Sprawling multi-'family' structures -- many using direct open flame for light/heat/cooking. What could go wrong?

Oh, a massive fire that takes out an entire freeway?

Well, who could have seen that coming?

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

While I don't live in Portland, I work there fairly often. It's a certifiable s**thole.

Expand full comment

Such a shame, too, because it was amazing when I was growing up. I wrote a whole article about it a while back:

https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/portland-takes-a-step-back-with-ngo

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

I used to visit downtown for concerts and such, even worked there for a year in 2010-11. It used to be nice, and parts still are. Car drivers will stop for every pedestrian, bike or dog every time. 😁

Expand full comment

Perhaps the Dems objected to Trump’s use of that word b/c they were working hard to earn it themselves.

Expand full comment

Funny how all those s**thole countries he was talking about are run by leftists....🤔

Expand full comment

Socialism will work next time, when we “do it right”…

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 16, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

Yes much like Portland. We've had freeway fires here too. I thought a homeless fire and/or a tunneling under the viaduct made an off ramp unstable a couple years ago. And there was a separate massive fire on I-405 too.

Since then I've quit paying attention. The news lies and what does it matter? The Neo Democrats have completely taken over Portland.

I moved to Portland when it was the most beautiful city in the world. Portland wasn't as Liberal as people would think - my neighborhood used to be working class, I had Republican neighbors and Democrats back then were not Socialists.

But sadly that was a long time ago, and the hard working, blue collar and business owning Republicans and Anti-Socialist Democrats have passed away. Their children are trust-funders - their houses have been gifted to them. Who can afford housing prices today? Well, if daddy and grandpapap have gifted you your house, what do you care?

And of course, California Democrats moved here in droves, thanks in part to that stupid Portlandiot tv show. Even Matt Stone (of South Park) has a place in Portland, I'm assuming by Eastmoreland since he paid million dollars for five trees there.

Now we have about twenty years of solid Democrat (all Democrats are Socialists now, whether they know it or not) rule and laws. So it shouldn't be surprising to me that Portland has gone from the most beautiful Beauty Queen to 82nd Avenue Crack Whore what seems to be overnight.

But it still does.

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

My adoptive parent’s group had a conference in downtown Portland in the early 2000s. Portland was lovely. I remember riding the light rail with a bunch of families and touring the zoo.

Expand full comment

The downfall was horrifyingly quick.

Expand full comment

I agree the downfall was horrifyingly quick. Visibly it started in 2020. But looking back, I think the seeds of the downfall had been sown for decades.

I used to be a Liberal Democrat myself, until 2016. But now looking back at the things I believed and supported in the 1990s - 2014 are what led to the downfall. I am to blame as much as Wheeler and City Council and Antifa and the media.

I used to think - why not let those poor homeless people sleep somewhere safe on the streets and not be hassled? And I believed the lies of random not-hurting-anybody drug users being thrown in jail for life. These narratives were being introduced in the 1990s by The Nation and Democrat talkers. They were very good and tenacious with their arguments for ideologies that are now law.

Mea Culpa.

Expand full comment

Oregon made the stupid decision to leap all the way from "we shouldn't bust people just for getting high" to "we won't bust anybody for anything, including getting high in public."

I went over the problem in this article: https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/rethinking-how-we-rethink-the-war

Expand full comment

That's true!

Of all the ballot measure titles I've seen recently, I don't think I've seen one for undoing Measure 110. But maybe when the results of the sleep/lie allowances and Measure 110 spread across Oregon, something will change. I recently read a small rural city's council minutes from last year saying they will look to Portland's code of enforcing those rules in writing their own.

PS thanks for the link! I am glad to have "found" you on here. It's nice to know there are intelligent and rational people who live here. It's like a life line.

Expand full comment

It makes you a self reflective, honest person to be able to admit to yourself and others that you followed a path led out for you by forces designed to intentionally manipulate people into bringing about an outcome they have long been seeking. I imagine the goal is “build back better”, to first destroy and then offer up these beautiful new pearly 15 minute smart city where they can predict crime before it happens and conveniently offer up all manner of entertainment within the boundaries. When the city is finally burned to the ground (like Lahaina) few will be upset. All the citizens of the new cities will have to do is accept the mark of the beast digital ID/passport/vaccine passport.

I live in a suburb of Portland. We are starting to get smaller versions of tent cities. I am seeing all over town these small unit apartments (boxes) to house the 15 min. city residents as tightly as possible.

After driving through Portland on the few occasions I have to, to go to the airport, I always think I want to move. It is such a sight to behold with the hillsides full of trash and tarps that extend long stretches with all the stolen goods scattered about. It was much different when we moved here in the early 2000s. My daughter wanted to stay at the Benson for her birthday last year. There was a homeless man sleeping across the street and homeless pushing their shopping carts along the sidewalk talking to themselves. It was dreary. Some businesses are boarded up. The ones that remain, require daily clean up of feces by the morning employees. Some have crazies bang on their windows or stand and stare at them from the sidewalk. There is graffiti everywhere. The people who live in Portland are starting to demand better but there is no will to do anything amongst the city “leaders”. Democrats get elected for every position every time from school board on. This is no accident. It is all by design.

Expand full comment

I was downtown for jury duty, first time in years. Walked around during lunch because it was better than wearing masks inside. But not much better. By the art museum, a woman screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs "help help" running around half naked. One would have though she was raped not too long ago and tried to help or call police. Now it was obvious it was meth or something. She was a tent occupant, running around the tent and into and out of the tent. A male tent occupant was just standing there with his arms out like he was trying to catch her while she was running around screaming. But he was too far away and there was no real effort put into catching her besides standing there with his arms stretched wide.

On the same block I was on a man was taking his dog out. I tried to catch his eye to figure out his take on the scene. But he wouldn't look at me. Like he was ashamed and disgusted and sick of it.

It is all by design.

Expand full comment

As plans often do.*

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

These camps are, though, safer for an earthquake than being in an apartment building.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Well the state already regulates what people can and can't do regardless of what I want -- but if they're going to regulate what people can and can't do, they could at the very least uphold those regulations, right?

Expand full comment

No. Then they wouldn’t feel they’re in charge. Fascists don’t follow any of the orders they force upon the masses.

Expand full comment

Wow, I don't know how to categorize this. Someone from a place wrote about things happening in that place, with great detail, that gives me information about larger events...now I have concrete images and, and, and context(!) I feel like we used to call this genre of writing something, it was something important. Somehow this is not just more stale air for the bubble I live in. Oh, never mind.

Expand full comment
author

I don't have a journalism degree, so it can't be that. We can call it "explainerizing?"

Expand full comment

words are so funny. I was struck by the fresh feeling of reading Real News. I only recently learned that the first Journos were from the period leading up to the French Rev. Sort of the cafe haunting laptop class of their time. Some of them became leaders of the revolution and enjoyed sentencing their ideological foes to the guillotine. So they literally made news to fit their haughty opinions, from the origin of the idea of the word in modernity. I used to think that there were good journalists at some point. But I have never met one. And every single one who I investigate doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I like the word ‘reporter’ because the title matches the work. It’s a good English word in the tradition of Orwell. As an aside, in SIGINT I did some reporting and knew many reporters, many of whom were not ‘analysts’ and did not want to be. I had pretensions of being an ‘analyst’ of some kind, but maybe because I got multi-tasked so much into so many disciplines that my brains were compartments full of mush. So at least I could have a pretentious title.

Expand full comment

Are saying that "Benedict Tiberius Cato" is NOT pretentious?....ok, boomer. lol

Expand full comment

People used to be allowed to be informed. Just regular people.

Expand full comment

We should set up a whole nation full of these "documenters" to let people know what's going on in real life!

Expand full comment
founding
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

Calling them the "unhoused" changes everything. The left and its vernacular; really helping our infrastructure.

Expand full comment

Don't be so harsh, Linda. They are people experiencing unhousedness.

Expand full comment
author

"Our unhoused neighbors."

Expand full comment

Who hasn't had that one neighbor who maybe occasionally breaks into your car or yells at your daughter while he's pissing in your yard.

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

"Persons living unsheltered" is Seattle's current preferred term. An RV is shelter though, as is a tent.

Expand full comment

LOL I was being sarcastic, but look what I literally just read in my local paper:

https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/nov/14/homeless-camp-near-vancouver-city-hall-to-be-removed-to-make-way-for-development/

For approximately six months, part of that land has been home to up to 30 people experiencing houselessness.

Expand full comment

houselessness!!! a brand new term... cool, got to use that one in the future

Expand full comment

People who were homeless used to be called vagrants and it was legal to make public property your home short term or long term and usually got the vagrant a night in jail.

Expand full comment

Edit: illegal

Expand full comment

Seattle looks the same. A new fire every week it seems. Shit piles and shanties clinging to every underpass hill. But then I need to pay for a geotechnical study and jump through two years of environmental and permitting hoops to build a deck within 60 feet of the coastal bluff I live on. So over these clowns.

Expand full comment

Portland as well, which isn't surprising. It seems like every other 'homeless' dude I talk to makes the annual migration down south when the weather gets cold, then back north when it warms up.

Expand full comment

TWO years?!? Who’d you bribe to get on the fast track?!?

Expand full comment

This is incredible journalism. Thank you for documenting and stay safe. I can only imagine the rancid smell of these places.

American cities combine the confinement of plantations, speech code of gulags, and violence of favelas. Court Eunuch Gavin should invite his Emperor Xi to Los Angeles as well so all of these encampments can be cleared out. Will the 2028 LA Olympics turn into the Hunger Games?

Expand full comment

I can't speak to these particular camps, but our camps in downtown Portland smell like piss....all the time.

Expand full comment

Though these campers must be happy, owning nothing but their ingenuity.

Expand full comment

Like Dostoevsky said,

When God is absent, everything is permitted .

.

Expand full comment

He also said that the only significant change that happens in " civilization" occurs through murder..... It seems that this time round that the psychopaths are leading in the points score 99:1... Or in mason terms 33: .3..... Or in religious terms 66: .6

Expand full comment

Yep! And who or what is God: love.

Expand full comment

I worked for the Minneapolis Park Board. As a parkkeeper it was my job to clean up such sites. The squalor is inhuman. Tents so full of garbage, garbage is the bed. Extreme mental illness and drug addiction, or radical compassion as progressives would have it. Progressives clearly hate humanity. I quit not long after local antifa sent out a newsletter that said clearly, they would use extreme violence, molotov cocktails and clubs, against anyone clearing an encampment.

Expand full comment
author

Antifa understands TRUE compassion, see?

Expand full comment

Like the Red Guard of Mao, so compassionate...

Expand full comment

In newspeak true compassion is called " killa- emp- double plus- take 5"

In droogspeak it's " Molotov storytime"

Expand full comment

I would have thought the Minnesota winter would clear the camps out.

Expand full comment

There is a lot of money flowing to the "unhoused". New tents and sleeping bags whenever they need them, regular meals, propane heating. The only thing the winter assures is, because of the hyper-liberal way of Minneapolis and St Paul, there would be ten times the homeless problem.

Expand full comment

Must have run out of red bull....

Expand full comment

If you take out the urban setting in these pictures I live in basically a homeless encampment in Thailand. It does bring up relevant questions though about why people would pay one million dollars to own something nearby paying however many thousands of dollars each and every month when these structures as you rightly noted have electricity and water. I'm still fascinated with what kinds of jobs "normal" people work to pay those astonishing mortgage rates: what kind of soul crushing corporate or bureaucratic existence must they endure to stay on that treadmill? Who is really getting scammed here?

Expand full comment

You are living as you wish so are the people on the hill looking down on the homeless living as they wish. It's perfect.

Expand full comment

Everyone is exactly where they want to be!

Utopi.. ahhh.😆

Expand full comment

The homeless have invented the 15 minute city.

Expand full comment

15 minutes of flame😆

Expand full comment

It's part of the new WEF carbon village model, taken from the transient tropical village model.... but instead of moving camp when camp starts to stink of digestive waste and letting the rain wash it away, they sterilize the camp with fire.

Justin Trudeau was seen visiting.. he couldn't resist covering his face with soot and left a webbed feet track of carbon footprints.

Expand full comment

All is well until they burn down the freeway they were living under.

Expand full comment

There are plenty of overpasses.

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

Your works remind me of the novel “The Day of the Locust.” The protagonist wants to create a painting called “The Burning of Los Angeles.” Eventually LA devolves into chaos. I never realized it was a work of prophecy.

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

Why would the city bother homeless people about code violations? They haven't got any money to extort.

Expand full comment

Same goes for cops.

Ticket the ones that can pay.

Expand full comment

I took an Amtrak train to Texas a few months ago. You get a good view from the railroad tracks.

Los Angeles, Tucson, San Antonio...it's everywhere...

Expand full comment

I live in the Smokies in East Tennessee, and oddly, even among the poverty, you don’t see that kind of pervasive filth. I guess “Field of Dreams” had it right: “If you build it, they will come.”

Expand full comment

And yet they keep winning re-election.

Expand full comment
author

They keep "being re-elected," which may not be exactly the same thing, but yes.

Expand full comment

Have democrats lost a mail-in election, ever?

Expand full comment

That's why the democrats want nation wide presidential elections by mail-in ballots.

Expand full comment

Well, time to catch up with the Dems. Let the Republican ballot harvesting begin!

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

I thought they were building $800k condos for the homeless in LA. Good use of money. The last time I was in LA was December 2019 before the world lost its shit. But LA had already lost its shit. I stayed at the Roosevelt. Hollywood was full of homeless camps everywhere. A friend told me a homeless guy with a machete liked to chase tourists down Hollywood Blvd. That was it for me. Never been back and will never go back unless the entire state is brought to its commie knees and overhauled.

Expand full comment

In my nearby deep blue state, we too have periodic sweeps of homeless encampments where the homeless are ever so gently nudged out. Then the city spends hundreds of thousands to clean up the area. The homeless quickly come back and the process is repeated. Why not? It's just taxpayer money.

Expand full comment

Do these sweeps happen to correspond to election years? That's the case around here.

Expand full comment
Nov 15, 2023Liked by Chris Bray

The mayor of KC waived the bus fare for the metro system so that houseless could take a free KCRide to the suburbs, and they do. They are living in the pockets of woods between housing additions, some not even speaking English. Our cars are broken into during the nights and cautious folks keep their homes locked day and night. The mayor was recently reelected.

Expand full comment

Yep. For the longest time, the monorail downtown had a 'free' zone where nobody had to pay to zoom around the area. Predictably, it turned into a rolling homeless encampment and ruined the MAX for everybody everywhere.

Expand full comment

That’s horrible.

Expand full comment

Sometimes. Sometimes I think it's because of the number of people complaining about homeless encampment X. So they clean it up (briefly) to stop the complaining. Meanwhile, most of the people complaining STILL vote for the democrats enabling this. Sigh.

Expand full comment

Or just

when Xi visits??

Expand full comment

Portland did clean up a bit for Biden earlier in the year.......

Expand full comment

It's called "room service." They tell the "campers" to move over so they can clean up, it gets cleaned up, then the campers are told to move again, and so they move back to the newly cleaned site so city employees can clean the newly vacated site. This is repeated many times. Politicians are at a loss as to what to do.

Expand full comment

They don’t GAF about doing anything to solve homelessness.

Expand full comment

Should our "character of a governor-player" ever happen to read this, his only take-away would be something like "Christian Ball, cool" all the while admiring himself in the mirror. What a despicable turd.

Expand full comment

You owe an apology to turds everywhere. 😂

Expand full comment