This is both an admission and an observation: The ramifications of homelessness, for most people, are anecdotal.

Statistics don’t do much to convince people of the seriousness of the problem or persuade them much that it’s getting better or worse. What matters is how it brushes up against them directly.

I was reminded of this last week, when I passed an encampment that is a part of my everyday life in Los Angeles, an unsightly and vaguely threatening bundle of tents and trash beneath the 101 freeway, not far from my son’s Silver Lake apartment. When Mayor Karen Bass took office in 2022 with a promise to make reducing homelessness her central mission, I told myself I’d believe it when that encampment came down.

Nearly three years later, it finally has. At least for now.

I was leaving th

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