Los Angeles is known worldwide as a city of glamour but on a visit this week, US President Donald Trump said its growing homelessness problem could “destroy” it. So how did LA end up in this situation? What is the scale of the problem? You do not have to walk far in Los Angeles to see people sleeping rough. Many spend their nights in temporary shelters, or other places not meant for human habitation – on the street, in an abandoned building, or a transport hub. The number of homeless people in Los Angeles has grown by 33% over the past four years. Every night, nearly 60,000 Los Angeles County residents are homeless, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has found. A total of 85% of Los Angeles’s homeless people are adults without children, 70% are male, and 44% are black, even though they account for only 8% of Los Angeles residents. And Los Angeles has the largest number in the United States of homeless people who do not sleep in emergency shelters: a fifth sleep in tents and makeshift shelters a quarter sleep in the open 30% sleep in vehicles that are often decrepit and inoperable The homeless […]

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