On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher acknowledged that Washington, D.C. suffers from high crime and homelessness, while also conceding that liberals have failed to address the problem. Maher argued that although he disagrees with President Trump’s approach, the former president is not wrong to insist that city streets belong to law-abiding citizens, not to criminals or homeless encampments.
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) attempted to link the state’s ongoing homelessness and quality-of-life crisis to President Trump during an interview with Fox 11 Los Angeles’ The Issue Is. In remarks released Friday, Newsom described the state’s efforts to handle street encampments as a “roller coaster on progress,” but then shifted the discussion toward “authoritarian tendencies” he claimed were tied to Trump.
New York City Councilman Robert Holden (D), who is backing Republican Curtis Sliwa for mayor, accused city officials of manipulating crime statistics to make conditions look better than they are. In a Friday interview on Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade Show, Holden said he believes the city is “playing with the numbers” and reclassifying crimes to downplay the surge in violence and disorder since the pandemic.
More than $700 million was spent last fiscal year to tackle homelessness in the Portland region, yet the crisis only deepened, according to a new report from the research group ECOnorthwest. Multnomah County, home to Portland, saw a staggering 26% increase in homelessness from January 2024 to early 2025 despite massive public and private investment.
As homelessness surges across Colorado, experts and advocates remain sharply divided on the best strategy to reverse the crisis. A new report from the Common Sense Institute of Colorado challenges the effectiveness of the widely adopted “housing first” approach, arguing for greater emphasis on work and treatment-based models.
A Los Angeles business owner has adopted an unconventional method to deter homeless encampments near his property by playing the children's song "Baby Shark" on a continuous loop.
