California's Decline: Crime, Homelessness, and Economic Chaos

Proposition 47's flawed policies fueled California's homelessness crisis and rampant crime.

### The Dystopian Decline of California: From Paradise to Crisis
* 🌞 California, once celebrated for its **sunny beaches and vibrant culture**, has transformed from a **dream destination** into a **nightmare for many residents**.
* 💔 The state's largest cities are now plagued by **economic turmoil, rising crime rates, and a growing homeless population**, leading to **exorbitant rents of $2,500 to $3,000 for tiny apartments**.
* 📉 The disastrous effects of Proposition 47, which reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors, have resulted in **rampant shoplifting** and a **significant rise in organized crime**, with California now **leading the nation in retail theft**.
* 🏚 Small businesses are suffering immensely, with **75% losing between $500 to $2,500 monthly** due to theft, forcing many to **close their doors**, as exemplified by the struggles of Clement Street in San Francisco.
* 💰 Despite billions spent on homelessness programs, the situation has only worsened, with over **180,000 homeless individuals in California**, representing a **quarter of the nation's homeless population**.
* ⚖ The decriminalization of drug possession has led to a normalization of open drug use, contributing to a **staggering increase in overdose deaths** from around **100 to over 500 annually** in San Francisco alone.
* 🏙 As housing prices soar, many families are pushed onto the streets, with California's strict regulations making it difficult to build affordable homes, resulting in a **30% increase in homelessness** between 2017 and 2022.
* 🚪 With a significant exodus of residents and businesses leaving California for states with **lower taxes and safer environments**, the state's once-glorious reputation is now in jeopardy, leaving regular people to **bear the brunt of these changes**.

California's sunny beaches and Mediterranean climate have made it seem like a dream come true. For centuries, people traveled from across the entire world to the state, hoping to build a new life. Hollywood pictures romanticized life in

California; its beautiful nature and all the money circulating there made it seem like a paradise on Earth. But today, everything seems to be changing in California. California is paradise; you have to work really, really hard to ruin paradise, but we did it once and they're

doing it again in California. They did it in the Garden of Eden, and now they're doing it in California, unfortunately. What used to be paradise on Earth has now become a living nightmare for most who live there. California's largest cities have been decimated by economic chaos, an explosion

in crime, and a rapidly growing homeless population. So, if you want to pay $2,500 to $3,000 a month in rent for a tiny one-bedroom apartment, all while surrounded by crime and poverty, then Los Angeles or San Francisco could be the right city for

you. It's a tragedy how far California has fallen. Its cities were always a little rough around the edges—any large city in the US is—but 10 years ago, a controversial change to state laws pushed California off the edge. That was called Proposition 47, and it came

into effect in late 2014. And since then, the entire state seems to have been plunged into a dystopian vision. Now, the changes it made were relatively simple: lots of crimes that used to be felonies were recategorized as misdemeanors. In the US, a felony is a

A felony is a charge for a serious crime, which often leads to jail time, while a misdemeanor is less serious—more like a parking ticket.  The most important crimes that got downgraded were theft, shoplifting, and fraud. If the value of whatever was stolen or defrauded was under $950, then

the most you could expect to see was a fine. It also decriminalized the use and possession of hard drugs. If you got caught with any amount worth under the $950 cutoff, then it was barely worth it for the police to even take notice. It

might seem obvious now how bad an idea this was, but there was a vision behind it. The lawmakers who pushed it through said it was designed to ease the pressure on police by changing the government's focus away from punishment and towards rehabilitation and education.

They thought they could tackle the root causes of the state's problems, which sounds great on paper. With fewer people to arrest and imprison, money could then be diverted away from the police and towards better things, like schools or care for the homeless. Of course, when the

law actually came into effect, this wasn't even close to what ended up happening. One of the most obvious and destructive effects has been the rise of serial shoplifting in California. It didn't take long for criminals to realize they could pretty much take what

they wanted from shops as long as each hit didn't add up to the $950 felony amount. They could get off scot-free, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Now, these were still technically crimes, but they just weren't really punished anymore. The police had been

Made powerless to intervene through underfunding and more hoops to jump through before a conviction, it meant that shoplifters could only get in trouble if a security guard caught and detained them, often waiting hours for the police to show up. When they did,

the guard would then have to go to court on his own time and provide evidence to prove the crime. Then and only then would the shoplifter get punished, but because it was now a misdemeanor, it usually just resulted in a fine of around $1,000.

It's hard to say how many of these fines themselves were even enforced. The homeless people who committed the offenses are hard to track down, and then you'd have to somehow get the money from them, which is pretty hard considering they'd almost certainly spent it already.

This is what caused those infamous videos of people shamelessly looting stores in broad daylight while powerless customers and shopkeepers watched helplessly. And it's made it so that California is now the top state in the country for retail theft, even despite the fact that most shoplifting goes

unreported. It's mainly because there really isn't any point in even making the phone call anymore. Small businesses have been hit the hardest by this. They've tried to come up with ways to stop it, of course. Most shops in places like San Francisco or San Diego now keep

most of their products behind protective glass, but even treating all customers like criminals hasn't really worked. 75% of small businesses lose between $500 to $2,500 in products every single month because of this epidemic of theft. There have been casualties across the state.

But one example comes from Clement Street, a road in San Francisco. They used to support tons of shops and small businesses. Unfortunately, they've been dealing with multiple break-ins and thefts, as well as shoplifting, which has pushed them further towards bankruptcy. In an interview with local TV news, one

of the business owners told reporters that, quote, "We just want to do our business peacefully, and we want to feel safe when we're doing it, because running a business is already hard, and we don't need something like this to add on top of it." But before we continue, I want to tell

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It brings us to another issue that comes from

Proposition 47: a steep rise in more organized smash-and-grab heists. Gangs of criminals will often target entire high streets in one night, breaking into shops one by one and taking whatever valuables they can find. It can only add to the massive pressure being felt by

small businesses across California. Lots of them have been pushed to their breaking points or forced to close down. Cafe International, which has survived for 35 years in San Francisco, was forced to temporarily close in 2021 to deal with the damages. In a social media post,

The owner blamed the massive rise in shoplifting and petty crime, as well as multiple break-ins. Thankfully, it did manage to survive despite the continued assaults, but other businesses haven't been so lucky. Large retail chains like Target or Nordstrom have had to close a

bunch of their stores in L.A. and San Francisco because of this atmosphere of fear and apathy from the government that has led California down the sorry road. The majority of the crimes have come from a small group of repeat offenders, but police have been prevented

from actually cracking down on them. Proposition 47 is now widely condemned by the California people; the majority supporting harsher punishments because of the crime spree. The question still remains: where did all of the money go? If Proposition 47 was meant to free up

resources to solve these problems, what did that end up looking like? Part of the plan was to put more money into California's homeless problem, which was only getting worse in 2014 when it passed. Looking at the state of things now, though, it clearly hasn't worked. Over

a quarter of the homeless population in the entire US lives in California; there are around 180,000 of them, and that's only counting the people we know about. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of homeless people went up by over 30%, and just

the year after that, it went up by another 5.7%. But why is it getting so much worse in California compared to other states? Homelessness and substance abuse go hand in hand; you can't understand one without factoring in the other. On the one hand, using hard drugs

Like amphetamines, riots often can very easily lead people towards homelessness. It's the final stop in a tragic journey, the very bottom of the pit. A lot of the time, though, it works the other way: people become homeless because of other reasons, then they start using as a

coping mechanism. It doesn't matter how it starts, though; frequent use and addiction keeps people on the streets. It traps them in a cycle of using up everything they have to make sure they can get the next dose. By pretty much decriminalizing both drug possession and

theft—well, drug legalization is a good thing towards liberty and it generally makes a lot of sense—Proposition 47 almost makes it so that open drug use on the streets is now normalized, and it makes it that much easier for people to get trapped in the spiral. First, there's

shoplifting and petty theft, which we've already talked about. Now that it isn't really punished, addicts always have a way to make enough money to get their next hit. With drug possession effectively decriminalized as well, there really isn't any need to hide it anymore. The

cops don't have the time, the resources, or the permission to deal with it, so people buy, sell, and use drugs in public. Far from trying to stop this, Proposition 47 is actively encouraging it. A large part of the money that is freed up went towards harm reduction for addicts, and

they're generally well-intentioned programs. Giving addicts access to free healthcare can only be a benefit, but they also offer other services like giving people access to clean needles and even, in San Francisco apparently, alcohol. If they're using clean and sterile equipment, then addicts are less

likely to get bloodborne diseases, which is a good thing. And it might have helped if that were the only danger of drug use, but the kinds of opiates that we see today on the streets are so potent and harmful, it doesn't really matter that

they will often just kill people far quicker than the disease.  But it's also meant that any addict has everything they need to keep using, all completely for free. They have everything they need, and the police aren't putting them into mandatory rehab programs either, like they used to. And the results have been

tragic, to say the least. In years after Proposition 47 was introduced, overdose deaths exploded in San Francisco, rising from around 100 a year to over 500. There were other factors at play here, like the increased potency of the drugs themselves, but it's undeniable that

Proposition 47 hasn't played a major role. In New York, for example, overdose deaths have increased, but only by around half the rate. We just haven't seen the same spike in other cities across the country. The last nail in the coffin is the ratio of homeless people who aren't

living in some kind of shelter. Around 70% of California's homeless population lives outside of shelters—far more than any other part of the country. First, the problem of who they let in: lots of the money that went towards shelters really aren't suitable for most homeless

people. They often have strict rules, banning drug use and pets, which already blocks a massive part of the homeless population from using them. California's near-perfect climate actually makes things worse in this case as well. In New York, around only 5% of the homeless

A large part of the population actually sleeps on the streets for much of the year; it's simply too cold to survive outside with just a sleeping bag or a tent. But that's not true in places like Los Angeles. There, the fact that addicts have most of their needs provided for...

...anyway, and the police really don't interfere, so why not set up your tent on the main High Street? The result of all of this has been 10 cities and open drug markets that we see on the streets of California today, and they've simply...

...made these cities far worse places to live in. In their estimation, 85 to 90% of police calls for service deal with the homeless in some fashion. Most of these crimes are committed by mentally ill or drugged-up homeless people, rather than some group of organized criminals,

...which is something you see a lot in LAPD jurisdiction. Even though there are plenty of facilities aimed at helping these people, the harsh reality is that most transients are either suffering from severe mental illness or drug use. They then went on to say that it's not...

...an easy fix and ultimately it needs to be handled on a much bigger level if we're ever going to see any progress. Take the Hollywood Walk of Fame; it used to be one of the biggest tourism landmarks in the state. Now most people avoid it; it's known as being a dangerous area,

...especially according to locals who already know what's going on there.  I'm living somewhere where I don't feel safe taking my mom for a walk; I don't feel safe sending my nieces to the store if they came to visit me. The homeless encampments nearby make it a hostile...

The environment, even the smell, is apparently awful. The crime, though, is the worst part. Assaults, stabbings, and murders are much more common now. Each bad experience someone has chips away at California's reputation. Now, people do still come to see Hollywood today, but it's hard to say

how long they'll keep coming with families if it continues to stay this way. Even just recently, Graham Stephan released a video about Santa Monica showing how many shops are closing down and how crime is through the roof there. Which means, theoretically, you could walk

into a store, steal up to $950 of goods, and then walk out without really any fear of consequence. Especially when most employees are told not to get involved. By the time the police do show up, the suspect is long gone, and a lot of

the cases honestly just aren't heavily prosecuted. This is supposed to be one of the nicest places in Los Angeles. Now, local governments across California have tried to deal with this, moving the homeless encampments around or trying to uproot them entirely, but many of these initiatives

have failed, like in San Francisco. Now, San Diego is often pointed to as a better example, but it's not really all it seems. Recently, they passed laws allowing the police to actually deal with the homeless encampments and move homeless people off the main roads, which has

gotten them away from the schools and the main streets, but it hasn't solved the problem at all. They're still there, just in different places, like under bridges or next to the highways. It's definitely not a long-term solution; in fact, it mirrors the early stages of what

Could become a much larger problem. Brazil and its largest cities are home to absolutely massive slums.  For VAs, they also began as the equivalent of 10 cities; large amounts of people living packed together in impoverished homes. As they grew into permanent shanty towns,

the crime and the poverty only got worse. The environment creates gang culture and chaos. Today, pictures of the favelas contrasted with the upper-class mansions on the other side of the hill are known around the world, and favelas are seen as one of the most dangerous places in the

world. This is potentially a future that's unfolding right now in California, as you've got million-dollar apartments completely surrounded by desperate people without a penny to their name, and the results are clear to see: entire communities are now crumbling under the pressure. Issues like homelessness can

seem so complicated that you can't get your head around them, but one pretty simple reason it's getting worse in California is how expensive the alternative has become. Each time the rent goes up, which has been happening every year since 2011, it puts more families out on the streets. LA and

California's other large cities are now some of the most expensive in the world, especially when it comes to housing. If you're living in some parts of California earning the minimum wage, you'd need to work the equivalent of three full-time jobs just to scrape by.

It means that a lot of people working essential jobs, which society couldn't function without, are now being forced out of the system. It's completely unsustainable. But why has it gotten so bad? Well, a massive part of the problem is that there simply isn't enough homes.

Being built in California is the most regulated state in the USA. Their code of regulations, the body of administrative rules, is over 21 million words long. This means their regulations are around three times stricter compared to the average state, and so building anything

here is way more expensive than it should be. The fees, permits, and fines if you make any mistakes can lead to building a home or a block of flats costing 18% more than it should. And then there are the delays, and it can take

years of waiting and therefore years of legal fees to get through all of the red tape. With all of these extra costs, it makes it far riskier for construction companies to actually build anything in the state. You can easily go bankrupt waiting for your permit to come through.

They could go pretty much anywhere else in the country and make more money in a much shorter time. Proposition 47 was meant to help with this in a roundabout way; the money taken from the police was meant to build more shelters and housing to help solve the

homeless problem and to relieve the state's massive housing shortage. But a state audit in April showed how ineffective they've really been. It was revealed that despite throwing billions of dollars at the problem, the state of

California rarely kept track of where the money was actually going or if it was actually helping. It's a statewide problem. They spent $24 billion on programs to solve homelessness between 2018 and 2023; in the same period, the homeless population swelled by 30,000.

More people, and it's really bad on just an individual city level as well. San Diego spent over 2 billion on homelessness programs between 2015 and 2022. It's really confusing how they could spend so much money while the problem still gets worse, but it makes a

lot more sense when you look at what they've actually been buying with that taxpayer money. Recently, Santa Monica officials gave the go-ahead for building a set of basic apartments to house homeless people. You might think that it's a step in the right direction; it's

better than them living on the streets, at least. But the twist is that each of these units will cost over a million dollars to make—an insane amount for basic homes, especially considering the city already owned the land itself. Contracts like these are probably the only reason any construction company

stays in California anymore. It all stinks of corruption. Billions of dollars have disappeared; the state doesn't even write down where it all went, and they've been pulling scams like this for years. It's not going to fix it; they're bankrupt. This state is bankrupt because

they're incompetent. They're not going to become competent if you give them more money. You know, it's just they've managed the money that they got very poorly. They already have high taxes; there's a 13.5% state income tax here in

California, and the place is still [ __ ] up. In 2022, the city of LA spent over 50 million on buying a 50-story luxury apartment building to move homeless people into. It already seems like an awful decision to begin with, but over 2

Years later, and they still haven't filled even a single one of those apartments. There's no way the best solution for homelessness was to buy luxury apartments at crazy prices and then not even use them. They haven't even bothered to hide how corrupt it all is.

This all amounts to millions and millions of taxpayer dollars that went out of the city's budget and into someone else's pockets. It should hopefully be clear now that California's idiotic laws are only the tip of the iceberg; they enable the corruption that's keeping

California cities incredibly expensive while also full of homelessness and crime. It's why the recently announced plans to scrap Proposition 47 are a little too late. It's taken years and years for people's voices to finally be heard, and now the damage has already

been done. Even now, though, with so much overwhelming evidence of its failures, Gavin Newsom and other Democratic lawmakers are dead set on keeping Proposition 47 in place. But eventually, people couldn't keep ignoring what's right in front of them, and now there's

bipartisan support to get rid of it. There's enough support to get rid of it that reversing the law is now going to be on the ballot in the November election. At least that's if Newsom and his cronies can't put a stop to it first.

Newsom tried to get it removed completely, but he had to back down when even his fellow Democrats wouldn't let him. So he's moved on to a different option: delaying and complicating it. Despite his outward support for Proposition 47, he's now been trying to get his own way.

a watered-down version of the reform onto the ballot instead; his version wouldn't actually deal with the problems. Proposition 47, as creators for example, it would only make selling other drugs laced with fentanyl a major crime, rather than actually dealing with fentanyl

itself. Other than that, he's also introduced new laws to combat specific cases of serial theft. Now, it might put an end to the videos of people shoving shop merchandise into garbage bags, but it wouldn't really do much else, suspiciously close to the upcoming

general election. He's also suddenly been making public appearances, clearing up homeless camps and passing laws to finally let police move them off the main streets. The common factor is that these are all moves designed to help with appearances while keeping the same moldy status quo. It isn't surprising

that people have been leaving California in droves for years now. High prices, rents, crime levels, and taxes have taken their toll on the people, and a huge exodus has begun. Over 2021 and 2022, nearly 750,000 people left the state alone, and that's

after you offset the people that moved in with people instead moving to states like Texas or Florida, which offer far lower taxes and much safer cities. It hasn't just been people and families either, but small businesses are getting sick of the massive costs. As a former

resident of California, I had the question whether or not these are actually strict enough to make a difference because, let's be real, for this to really go into effect, a shoplifter would first have to get caught, likely on camera with proof; their items would then need to be counted, most

likely across counties, and then the state would have to keep proper records of everything just to be able to prosecute. I mean, why would you pay double the rent and way more taxes just to open a shop next to a homeless encampment? The larger companies that

used to call California home—the same Tesla and Chevron—have been moving their factories to Texas. Tons of tech companies, like M&P, have abandoned San Francisco. Businesses leaving California doubled from 2012 to 2019, but over 30 years the state has

experienced a net loss of 177,000 businesses. The study says it's high taxes, heavy regulation, and a generally unfriendly business environment. And it's really a terrible shame that this place of amazing natural beauty and rich culture has fallen so far. But today it's

clear that the only people welcoming California either have tens of millions of dollars or no money at all. And it's the regular people that are suffering the consequences of this. [Music]

California Is Everything Wrong With Society

Moon

California's Transformation from Paradise to Nightmare

California's idyllic image, fueled by its climate and Hollywood, contrasts sharply with its current reality.

The state's transformation is described as a fall from paradise, marked by economic chaos, rising crime, and a growing homeless population.

Major cities are significantly impacted by these issues.

High living costs and unsafe conditions are highlighted.

Proposition 47, a 2014 law reclassifying certain felonies as misdemeanors, is identified as a turning point.

Proposition 47 reclassified several crimes, including theft and drug possession, reducing penalties.

The law's intent was to shift focus from punishment to rehabilitation, but this didn't materialize.

Serial shoplifting increased due to the reduced penalties.

California now has the highest rate of retail theft in the US.

Small businesses are severely impacted, facing break-ins and financial hardship.

Organized smash-and-grab robberies are on the rise, further stressing businesses.

Proposition 47's failure to improve the homeless situation is discussed.

The link between homelessness and substance abuse is highlighted.

Decriminalization of drug possession and theft is linked to increased drug use and homelessness.

Overdose deaths increased significantly after Proposition 47's implementation.

Underlying Factors Contributing to the Crisis

High housing costs are a major factor driving homelessness.

Strict building regulations and high costs hinder the construction of affordable housing.

Funds allocated to address homelessness have been poorly managed and ineffective.

Examples of wasteful spending on homelessness initiatives are given.

Corruption and mismanagement of funds are implicated.

Efforts to repeal or reform Proposition 47 are discussed.

Governor Newsom's attempts to delay or modify the reform are highlighted.

The mass exodus of people and businesses from California is mentioned.

The challenges of effectively enforcing stricter laws are pointed out.

High taxes, regulations, and an unfriendly business environment are cited as reasons for businesses leaving.