The first time I was ever in California was to spend two days at a convention center, where there was a huge packaging trade show; I had been sent there to find a company that could provide the company where I worked with an automated tube-filling machine. I spent those couple of days in Anaheim, and since I was busy with my task, never paid any attention to my surroundings. I didn't even make it to the beach. That was in 1999.
The second time I was in California was from 2007-2009, when I was working on a huge project to set up and validate a new medical manufacturing facility. I had an apartment there in the Santa Clarita Valley and spent a lot of time mooching around the area on weekends.
I learned a few things about California on that gig: First, that the rumors of California being home to lots of beautiful women were true (!) and that, even then, California's state government was a huge Charlie Foxtrot, even under the mildly-Republican Governator. On one of my first weekends in the area, I went down to Hollywood, thinking it would be a cool place to spend a Saturday afternoon. I was wrong. Even then Hollywood was a dump, with bums sleeping in doorways and hitting everyone up for handouts.
I've been back a few times since. And every time, it seems to get worse. Now, in a development that did not surprise me in the slightest, the SoCal town of Modesto is dealing with a homeless encampment in a series of caves tunneled out of a riverbank. These people are, literally, living in holes in the ground.
Rough sleepers in California were found living inside furnished caves dug into the banks of a river 20 feet below street level.
The groups were removed from the eight caves - along the Tuolumne River in Modesto - over the weekend, and they were emptied of belongings, furniture and 7,600 lbs of rubbish, filling two trucks and a trailer.
Some of the caves were decorated with murals, had broken floor tiles and one even had a makeshift fireplace with a chimney.
Modesto Police Department said: 'This particular area has been plagued by vagrancy and illegal camps, which have raised concerns due to the fact that these camps were actually caves dug into the riverbanks.'
It comes as Los Angeles carries out its annual homeless count to try to take an accurate snapshot of the rough sleeper population in the city, after 75,500 were found to be sleeping rough in the county on any given night last year.
It's not enough that Californians have to put up with punitive taxation and fees, bad roads, and incompetent government. It's not enough that California has to put up with runaway street crime and flash mob robberies. They also have to put up with massive homeless enclaves, garbage-strewn and filthy. All of this has combined to drive a lot of honest, productive Californians out of their own state.
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During the Great Depression, it was common to refer to camps where migrant families stayed as "Hoovervilles." Perhaps "Newsomvilles" is the appropriate term to use for California's huge homeless enclaves.
It wasn't the first time police have gone to clear out the caves and they are frequently inhabited.
Volunteer Chris Guptill said: 'It's already been proven that people will dig these out, so I don't think filling them in with any material would work.
'We really don't have a known solution on how to deal with it.'
It doesn't seem all that complicated. Fill the caves with gravel and concrete. Pave the riverbanks where these people are tunneling in with concrete or asphalt. Arrest anyone found to be digging into these riverbanks, charge them with trespassing, and give them 30-90 in the county slammer to dry out and think about what they've done. But the state of California and the city of Modesto seem unwilling to do anything about it, and under that layer of government unwillingness is another layer of voters who still keep putting the same lunatics back in charge of the asylum.
People in these cities have to wrap their brains around the fact that most of the urban outdoorsmen aren’t honest folks who are just down on their luck, nor are they stand-up, working-class people tossed aside by the evils of capitalism. Most of them are addicts to one substance or another, be it meth or heroin, or booze; many of them are on the streets by choice, especially in those jurisdictions that support them financially.
And the people who live in those cities are, justifiably, getting sick of it. They are sick of being unable to go out at night. They are sick of stepping over poop, discarded needles, and lakes of urine during the day. They are sick of the thievery, the breaking and entering, the vandalism, and the smell. And now they’re making their voices heard -- a lot of them are doing so by just packing up and leaving.
California, once one of America's greatest states, is on the edge of a precipice. The question remaining now is this: How high will the Golden State bounce when it hits bottom? Or will that landing be more of a splat? I suspect it won't be too much longer before we find out.
