Los Angeles is home to movie stars and Hollywood glitz and glamour — as well as America's second-highest population of homeless people, with numbers growing rapidly amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Second only to New York City, the 2020 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count showed that 66,436 people in the county were experiencing homelessness. This represents a 12.7 per cent rise from 2019, with the city of Los Angeles reporting a 16.1 per cent jump to 41,290.
The number of older people and families in that count has risen at alarming rates.
“Today, the face of homelessness is your next-door neighbour. You've got all races, all ages, all genders, everybody is becoming homeless,” Faisal Gill, a civil rights lawyer working in Los Angeles, told The National.
“And I think, unfortunately, it's going to get a little bit worse because the cost of housing in Los Angeles is going through the roof. The rent moratorium is about to be over. There's a lot of folks who have lost their jobs, who've had their hours cut back and they're just not going to be able to afford to live in LA.”
Currently, the average monthly rental price for a studio apartment in Los Angeles is $2,173, $2,546 for one bedroom and $3,288 for two bedrooms, rental website Apartments.com shows.
Born in Pakistan, Mr Gill served as a lawyer for the second Bush administration. Now, he’s running as a Democrat for the position of city attorney.
“My approach, the number one thing, is to make sure that we don't criminalise the homeless issue. And I think that has been the city council's approach for a long time is to criminalise it and to remove the encampments,” said Mr Gill.
The Los Angeles City Council this year voted 12-2 in favour of banning people from camping, sitting, sleeping and storing property near fire hydrants, building entrances, driveways, libraries, parks, elementary schools and several other locations.
Last week, a bulldozer was used to remove homeless veterans camped outside the hospital for former military members in Brentwood, an upscale neighbourhood adjacent to Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. Before that, the city tore down a camp in Venice Beach.
In March, more than 300 people in Echo Park were kicked out of their tents. Protesters and homeless people confronted police in a stand-off that resulted in the handing out of hotel vouchers as part of a programme called Project Roomkey.
Recipients of the vouchers are given a hotel room for 90 to 120 days, though they are not allowed to bring their belongings or pets, must obey a curfew and are subject to drug testing.
“There's only one solution to this problem. It's not rocket science. You have to build housing and you have to provide wraparound services,” Mr Gill said.
A shady past
California’s inability to provide low-income housing for its most needy citizens is not a new phenomenon. The tarnish on the Golden State's reputation began in 1967, when the governor at the time, Ronald Reagan, deinstitutionalised state mental health hospitals.
Patients, many of them living with mental illness, addicted to hard drugs or alcohol, were put out on the streets and were expected to rely on community treatment centres — which Reagan never built.
Not only did the number of mentally ill patients in California’s criminal justice system double, but the homeless population exploded.
Los Angeles has long had an issue with homelessness, however. As early as the 1900s, an area of central Los Angeles near the railyards was populated by rough-sleeping rail riders and war vets.
The area, Skid Row, now encompasses a 50-block radius and is home to anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 people.
Though the situation of the needy residents of this area should engender compassion, it often provokes the opposite.
In recent years, several area hospitals have been sued for dumping homeless patients on the streets of Skid Row — some still in hospital gowns, IVs attached.
One cause described how a paraplegic patient was dumped on a pavement with no wheelchair.
Los Angeles city law states that the only place a health facility can leave a patient without written consent is their residence — but the lines are blurred if the patient is homeless.
'It's just got worse and worse'
Not all Angelenos are turning a blind eye to the problem.
Painter Christopher Chinn moved to Los Angeles for school and is now an art teacher at Long Beach City College.
When Mr Chinn came to the Skid Row-adjacent Toy Factory district, he was confronted with homelessness on a daily basis.
“I saw it every day, right outside our door,” Mr Chinn told The National.
“I knew I had to deal with it emotionally.”
For Mr Chinn, that meant volunteering and painting both the encampments as well as homeless people's portraits.
“It really is the issue that defines Los Angeles and it hasn't got any better. It's just got worse and worse,” he said.
“The stories were told by journalists. They’ve been told in photography. For me, it's got to show up in fine art and painting. It can't be missing from that line of our cultural memory.”
Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
F1 drivers' standings
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes 281
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari 247
3. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes 222
4. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull 177
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari 138
6. Max Verstappen, Red Bull 93
7. Sergio Perez, Force India 86
8. Esteban Ocon, Force India 56
More coverage from the Future Forum
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Springtime in a Broken Mirror,
Mario Benedetti, Penguin Modern Classics
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Tuesday results:
- Singapore bt Malaysia by 29 runs
- UAE bt Oman by 13 runs
- Hong Kong bt Nepal by 3 wickets
Final:
Thursday, UAE v Hong Kong
HOSTS
T20 WORLD CUP
2024: US and West Indies; 2026: India and Sri Lanka; 2028: Australia and New Zealand; 2030: England, Ireland and Scotland
ODI WORLD CUP
2027: South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia; 2031: India and
Bangladesh
CHAMPIONS TROPHY
2025: Pakistan; 2029: India
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More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Ashes 2019 schedule
August 1-5: First Test, Edgbaston
August 14-18: Second Test, Lord's
August 22-26: Third Test, Headingley
September 4-8: Fourth Test, Old Trafford
September 12-16: Fifth Test, Oval
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
The specs
Price, base / as tested Dh100,000 (estimate)
Engine 2.4L four-cylinder
Gearbox Nine-speed automatic
Power 184bhp at 6,400rpm
Torque 237Nm at 3,900rpm
Fuel economy, combined 9.4L/100km
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets