A Disturbing Juxtaposition

 After saying goodbye to our friends in Palm Springs, we decided to swing over to Los Angeles to see the sights before we made the journey back to Yuma. I have heard of the state of Los Angeles but wasn't prepared for just how truly shocking and awful it is. The politicians of the area have enacted policies, whether out of laziness or a messed up view of compassion, which have devastated the city. Homelessness is rampant. Most of the homeless are drug addicted and/or mentally ill and rather than providing help to these people, the leadership "compassionately" allows them to set up camp along sidewalks, streets, freeways, under overpasses, and in all the parks. 

Someone sleeping under a tarp in the rain in the park 

Makeshift dwellings lining the streets

Camped out next to a 7 Eleven downtown

The scene as we waited at a stop light. Notice someone is camped in the median between the traffic lanes as well as both sides of the street.

The streets and sidewalks are scattered with incredible mountains of garbage and piles of human waste and needles are scattered everywhere. Addicts are given free reign to shoot up in the streets, many of them overdosing every day. "Medieval" diseases have cropped up in the area such as typhus and tuberculosis due to the unsanitary conditions. 

Someone carrying their belongings down the middle of the road

Many windows were smashed out of businesses downtown from recent riots

An encampment next to the ramp to the interstate

As we drove through the downtown area, huge multi-million dollar skyscrapers lined both sides of the street while at the base of these buildings people huddled under tarps and piles of filth blocked the sidewalks. The amount of filth and garbage is something you have to see to believe. It was truly incredible. 

As we made our way out of downtown toward the Beverly Hills area the filthy streets suddenly gave way to huge mansions, tall metal gates, manicured lawns, and luxury cars. We wound our away around the streets in Beverly Hills and admired the homes of the ultra wealthy and celebrities who live there.

But I had to think, the people who live in Beverly Hills have no choice but to drive by the incredible poverty and human suffering occurring at their doorsteps. And yet somehow the wealthy and powerful in this place have decided that allowing people to live in filth and die of typhus or overdose is more compassionate than taking measures to help these people. It was hard to believe as we drove around the streets of Los Angeles that we supposedly live in a first world country. 

"For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, "You shall open wide your hand to you brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land." Deuteronomy 15:11