Homelessness Shrinks Slightly in Los Angeles

This chart appeared on the front page of the LA Times this morning:

This data makes no sense. During the worst recession since World War II, the number of homeless people didn’t increase at all. Then, as the economy got into high gear, the number of homeless suddenly spiked. Why? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Is it because housing prices stayed flat during the recession and then started rising? Maybe:

This doesn’t quite fit the homeless data, but it’s close. And the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority suggests it’s the problem: “Since 2000, median rent in Los Angeles County has increased 32% while median renter household income has decreased 3%.” I guess I can buy this, though it sure seems as if a greater likelihood of having a job would outweigh higher home prices, causing the number of homeless to go down during good economic times. Very strange.

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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