California's homelessness crisis is surging — last year, homelessness in the state rose 16% to 151,000 people. “This is decades and decades of failures,” one expert says.
LOS ANGELES — The only thing that kept LaRae Cantley going was her three children.
She grew up surrounded by poverty and addiction, but despite her difficulties, she never expected to be homeless. Yet one day in the late 1990s, a sheriff’s deputy knocked on the door of her South Los Angeles house and told her and her husband they had five minutes to vacate the property. Cantley was stunned. She knew nothing about her husband’s finances and had no idea he skimped on rent.
With nowhere to go, she sent their three children to live with the children's great-grandparents. She and her husband divorced, and she found herself homeless.From left, Rebecca F. Kauma, Jasmine Bridges, Yesenia Jean and Austin Metoyer, take a moment to enter data in a phone app as they volunteer for the 2020 homeless count in Long Beach on Jan. 23.Cantley, 37, lived on the streets for 15 years. She was among thousands of Californians without a home, a problem that continues to grow.
The federally mandated survey stretches to every nook and cul-de-sac. Its mission is simple: using U.S. census tracts, count every person who appears to be experiencing homelessness and report those numbers to the county. The county tallies them up using statistical analysis and sends them to the state, which sends a report to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.Sign Up
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