FULL COVERAGE: Homeless in America -- latimes.com

Rehab ranch's operator is jailed over living conditions

If San Luis Obispo County rancher Dan De Vaul was daring the courts to take action against him after a jury convicted him on two counts of illegally housing homeless addicts, he got his response Monday. More...

Comedy shows to benefit homeless programs

Ninety-seven-year-old Bessie Mae Berger was living in a car with her two sons six weeks ago when comedian Kevin Nealon encountered them at a Hollywood gas station. Nealon, who was on his way to perform at the Laugh Factory, bought a tank of gas for their 1973 Chevrolet Suburban before heading off to work. More...

Service providers take issue with census of L.A. homeless

An L.A. city-county report showing a 38% drop in the homeless population has been met with consternation by the region's homeless service providers, who say the findings are inaccurate and could hurt their fundraising efforts at a time when the need is great. More...

Los Angeles County's homeless population is down by 38%

Los Angeles County's homeless population has dropped 38% since 2007, according to a survey conducted earlier this year by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. More...

COLUMN ONE

Woman, 97, has a front seat to homelessness

She's 97 years old and homeless. Bessie Mae Berger has her two boys, and that's about all. More...

Blowback

Santa Monica: the good guys on homelessness

Like any smart lawyer, UCLA law professor Gary Blasi hides in his closing sentence the weakness of his July 30 Times Op-Ed article, " Santa Monica’s homeless headache." There he concludes that "if" Santa Monica's alleged mistreatment of homeless individuals is proved, the city ought to do something about its "policies." Both Blasi and the ACLU (in its lawsuit against the city) get people's attention by talking about police mistreatment of homeless individuals, but it's clear the goal is to force Santa Monica to build even more shelter beds to make up for other cities' failure to do their fair share to reduce homelessness. More...

New housing projects for homeless go beyond basic shelter

It's the day before the grand opening of the Abbey Apartments, where 113 formerly homeless men and women will try to rebuild 113 broken lives. Mike Alvidrez, executive director of the Skid Row Housing Trust, swings through the sunny courtyard, shows off the TV lounge, then climbs to the fifth floor sun deck where striped patio umbrellas sway in the afternoon breeze. In the distance: a panorama of the downtown L.A. skyline that would make most loft dwellers envious. More...

Santa Monica homeless apartment complex offers hope

For eight years, Craig Blasingame dined out of dumpsters and called the bushes at Rose and Centinela avenues home. More...

Upward Bound House gives homeless families a new home

Here at Upward Bound House, extreme makeovers are happening every month -- just without Ty Pennington, the cameras or the network TV budget. More...

Witness says he feared accused killers

A few years ago, a stranger made Jimmy Covington an irresistible offer. More...

Jurors view car allegedly used to kill homeless man

It wasn't the typical murder weapon viewing. More...

SCOTT GOLD | Out There

Joy is permitted on Fridays

Thirteen-year-old Kevin Cedano steps onto the stoop of the Ohio Hotel. More...

A crack in a safe -- and a dent in their lives

Like a number of skid row's poor and "unbanked," Robert Baker trusted his cash and future dreams to a half-ton safe in downtown's bustling Union Rescue Mission. More...

Berkeley's new cause: Make homeless behave

Even this college town, traditionally the defender of the downtrodden, protector of the left and arbiter of political correctness, has had enough -- enough of the homeless. More...

THE STATE

Attempt to Settle Skid Row Suit Fails

Defying Police Chief William J. Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday rejected a legal settlement that would have allowed homeless people to sleep on the sidewalks of skid row at night and permitted police to remove them during the day. More...

No Skid Row Accord for City, ACLU

Los Angeles officials and the American Civil Liberties Union failed to reach an agreement Monday on a lawsuit that would prevent the LAPD from arresting homeless people for camping on public sidewalks. More...

EDITORIAL

Help the Homeless Don't Need

AFTER NEARLY 12 MONTHS of platitudes from civic leaders about confronting the homeless crisis, skid row in downtown Los Angeles this summer looks worse, not better. And the people who claim to be helping the downtrodden bear a good portion of the blame. More...

Sharp Debate on Skid Row Efforts

The push to clean up Los Angeles' skid row reached an unlikely milestone Tuesday morning when downtown business leaders moved in to steam-clean the sidewalks on one of the district's filthiest streets. More...

OUR SO-CAL LIFE

Homeless in Life, Nameless in Death

THE OLDEST cemetery in Los Angeles, opened in 1877, is Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights. Some of the most well known families in Los Angeles — including the Boyles, for whom the neighborhood is named — are buried there. So are thousands of Angelenos whose names we will never know. More...

FINDING A WAY HOME

Housing Homeless Families

CHristine elks, a mother of three young children, has lived in so many places in the last four years that she must stop to count them on her hand. There was a friend's couch in North Hollywood. A shelter on skid row so dangerous they spent their days in a park across town. And, perhaps most horribly, there was a "pay shelter" in South Los Angeles: a dark, cramped space the size of a small gym where the Elkses slept, for three years, with 11 other families — nearly 50 people in all — separated by little more than sheets. Colds and other maladies were common inside, as were fights and gunshots outside. More...

FULL COVERAGE: Homeless in America