Add Phoenix, and Arizona generally, as a place to avoid as homelessness grows for veterans and families while illegal aliens are given hotel rooms and three meals a day by the Biden (Americans last!) administration.
Take a couple of minutes to watch this youtube video below sent by a reader.
For those of us fortunate to live rural, or small town America, lives we are insulated from the deplorable conditions in most major Democrat run cities, including Phoenix where gated communities separate the elite from the homeless population.
In fact, some cities, like socialist San Francisco went so far as to sanction homeless camps to help fight the virus.
According to the Toronto Star, Phoenix was one of those cities, run by Democrats, that has normalized homeless encampments supposedly to keep the poor from getting sick.
Just for ‘fun’ search for images of homeless camps in America and you will wonder if this is really America, or some third world hell hole you are seeing.
Here is NPRon the rise in homelessness in America—even without the virus excuse.
HUD: Growth Of Homelessness During 2020 Was ‘Devastating,’ Even Before The Pandemic
The nation’s homeless population grew last year for the fourth year in a row. On a single night in January 2020, there were more than 580,000 individuals who were homeless in the United States, a 2% increase from the year before.
The numbers, released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Thursday, do not reflect the impact of the pandemic.
“And we know the pandemic has only made the homelessness crisis worse,” HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said in a video message accompanying the report. She called the numbers “devastating” and said the nation has a “moral responsibility to end homelessness.”
Among the report’s more sobering findings: homelessness among veterans and families did not improve for the first time in many years.
[….]
As has been the case for years, a disproportionate share of those experiencing homelessness were Black — about 39% of the total, though African Americans make up about 13% of the nation’s overall population. Twenty-three percent of those who were homeless last year identified as Hispanic or Latino.
I had no idea so many ‘people of color’ make up such a large percentage of the homeless. It seems, at least to me, that most photos of homeless people in corporate media reports show White drug-addled derelicts.
So why isn’t Black Lives Mattersupporting their Black brothers instead of encouraging more immigrants who will continue to compete with Blacks for jobs and social services?
It could get worse….
“I think we’re going to see homelessness increase,” said Sean Read, chief program officer at Friendship Place, a nonprofit that serves homeless individuals in Washington, D.C. Homelessness is “generally a delayed response” to economic setbacks, Read noted.
Nevertheless, NPR goes on to say a lot will depend on how much money the Biden administration will make available for America’s homeless people.
But, not a word about what the border jumpers will add to the cost of stemming the tide of America’s growing poverty. And, we haven’t even talked about crime growingalong with poverty.
I’m wondering what kind of world are we leaving for our children and grandchildren?
Related!
Not just illegal aliens, see that the Biden refugee contractors are out and about in America looking for fresh territory in which to place legal third world migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
So, if your town doesn’t have homeless camps yet, don’t despair, Biden’s Open Borders will surely get you to poverty-parity real soon!
Readers ask me that question from time to time as they see life becoming more challenging in states the Left is turning blue (or live in ones already deep blue).
Red Counties Trump won in 2020. A lot of counties to choose from, but not so many state choices to call home as the urban Democrat Socialists dominate governments in many otherwise red states.
If you like the arid West, I usually say Wyoming because it is the only state in the nation with no refugee program. Diversity through migration will happen slowly there. North and South Dakota are still promising. Montana is beautiful, but also has an expanding cabal of Leftwing woke activists.
Conventional wisdom says Texas is a good bet, but I’m not pushing Texas for one obvious reason—the US southern border with Mexico!
A few heartland states are doing okay.
If you like the warm South, conventional wisdom recommends Florida, but I would look to a few of the gulf states as good choices. And, then further north up the coast, South Carolina hasn’t yet swallowed the Kool-Aid, well, maybe just a sip.
A lot of conservatives are rushing to Tennessee, but they have no idea about what is happening in Nashville which has become a mecca for the diversity is beautiful crowd. Don’t believe me, see that I have an entire category at RRW on Nashville.
Going north, West Virginia still holds promise, but forget North Carolina and Virginia, goners both in my opinion. Most people don’t know that NC has a huge refugee population from Muslim countries. North of Virginia there is no real hope for a peaceful conservative life in the years to come.
LOL! I bet all of you are now ready to tell me your choices—please do! Send comments to this post!
But, what got me thinking about all of this again today is a story a reader sent a week or so ago. It is an article by a young woman moving out of Minnesota where she was born and raised.
A local guy at my Maryland door just a few days ago said he wished we could just divvy-up the country giving us some safe states and giving them states like Minnesota, California, New York and so on. He isn’t talking about racial diversity either, it is about conservative values vs. woke liberal ones.
And, then yesterday when I wrotethis post at RRWabout Winchester, Virginia possibly jumping on the refugees-welcome bandwagon, I wondered again, so where should one move in order to live in peace and raise families with others who share an America first world view.
Anyway….here is the story from Minnesota (hat tip:Bob). Of course, Minneapolis isn’t all there is in Minnesota, it is a lovely state, but….
I’ve lived in Minneapolis my entire life. I’m leaving Friday. I no longer recognize my hometown.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Minneapolis is my home. My happiest memories are here. It’s where I learned to ride a bike, had my first date, received my high school diploma.
But today, I’m too afraid to even walk in my neighborhood by myself.
The ACE Hardware down the street? The one that I used to bike to in the summer? Robbed twice in the past five days.
The Walgreens next to my elementary school? Molotov cocktail thrown into it.
The Lake Harriet Bandshell, where we spent countless Mother’s Days? Homeless encampment popped up next door.
How did it happen so fast? That may be the question you are asking yourself where you live?
She goes on with all of it, including the George Floyd riots and then wraps with this:
It’s easy to look at (for lack of a better word) disaster zones like these and mentally distance yourself from them. Yeah, that’s awful, but those people choose to live there. They’re the ones electing these leaders. This is their problem.
Yeah, it is. It is our problem.
And I can’t help but look around and wonder, “What happened here? Where exactly did it all go wrong?”
Was it the liberal mob? Identity politics? The cries of “RACIST!” when someone disagreed with a particular reaction or policy?
Was it conservative silence as the loudest voices got more and more radical?
Was it our acceptance that “we live in a blue area, this is just the way things are?”
How did it all happen so fast?
Whatever it was, I’m leaving this dark, surreal, twisted version of Minneapolis on Friday. And I pray to God that I never have to come back.
Protests reveal generational divide in immigrant communities
She (one of the ‘stars’ of this article) agreed that the United States offered opportunities for education and a “better life,” but she had also made up her mind that such a life would not be complete without justice for Black people.
After moving to Brooklyn Center from Liberia in 2015, she said she was treated differently as a Black person. People commented on the color of her skin, disapproved of the clothes she wore and once called the police on her and a friend for being too “loud.”
I will bet a buck that not one white person “commented on the color of her skin!” Then this:
“I started to realize like, ‘Oh, America is not what it says on TV,'” she said.
[I know what you are thinking! Maybe just go home then!—ed.]
Then Floyd’s death sparked protests, and she decided that “this was not the American dream I was promised.”
Kromah is not alone. Young people in the city’s East African communities came out to protest in droves following Floyd’s death.
Despite tension, at times, between Black immigrants from Africa and Black people whose long history in the U.S. began with slavery, protesters united around decrying police brutality they said plagued their communities.
The verse “Somali lives, they matter here,” often followed the protest refrain of “Black lives, they matter here.” And one of the most widely shared images of last year’s protests was a video posted on social media showing a protester in a hijab and a long skirt kicking a tear gas cannister back toward law enforcement officers in riot gear.
“I am Somali, I am Black American, I am Muslim,” 21-year-old Aki Abdi said. “If a cop pulls me over, he don’t know if I’m Somali or Black. They go hand in hand.”
There is more. So is it any wonder that many are leaving Minnesota!
Of course, then that leaves the question we started with—where could people, of any race, who love America and want to live in peace, find a home?
That would be in any state that is not rolling out the welcome mat to massive numbers of migrants unwilling to assimilate as they import their third world values to America.
Ethnic diversityweakens the social fabric. It does not build strength.
But, at least in some states Republican governors are saying NO!
“I do not want our kids harmed as the result of President Biden’s bad policies.”
(Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts)
One Republican Governor who apparently doesn’t mind helping Biden out of the border crisis mess is never-Trumper and Jeb Bush pal Republican Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland.
MD Republican Gov Larry Hogan apparently okay with UACs taking Maryland foster care slots.
Or, does he even know that an organization in our state, which received $55 million in the last 12 months from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement specifically to care for the UAC kids, is using Maryland’s foster care system to place the mostly teenaged ‘children’ (who have so-far found no relative in America willing to take them) into Maryland homes?
Makes me wonder what Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)is doing with $55 million (75% of their federal boodle) that is for the children if they are simply placing them in other taxpayer-funded foster care as this news at CBS suggests.
For months now, we’ve seen images of federal facilities packed with thousands of unaccompanied minors at a time when there are a record number of children reaching the southern border, most coming from Central America. The sheer volume of children is overwhelming the federal government’s resources with thousands of children packed into facilities never meant to handle this amount.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, LIRS CEO previously was a candidate for governor of Maryland and before that she worked for Michelle in the White House.
But one Baltimore based organization, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, is working to move kids out of those facilities and into the homes of families eager to help.
[….]
“Our focus is getting these children out of Customs and Border Protection facilities,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah***, CEO of LIRS.
[….]
LIRS pairs kids with foster families across the country, including dozens here in Maryland.
[….]
But in the meantime, Vignarajah says the need is still great as the children continue to arrive at the southern border. “We have seen unprecedented numbers of children coming across the border and so we need more parents than ever before and so if anyone out there is willing to open up their home and hearts, these children could use their care,” she said.
(Just so you know, until a few short weeks about the ‘children’ illegally crossing our borders were referred to as Unaccompanied Alien Children, however a Biden administration edict now directs all media to refer to them as Unaccompanied Migrant Children, or simply Unaccompanied Children! Here Pew does what they are told!)
Republican Governors Block Unaccompanied Migrant Children
FORT WORTH, Texas — The federal foster care system was unprepared to house the record nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children who came to the United States in March, so the Biden administration asked some states to temporarily house them.
Republican governors in Iowa, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming said no.
“This is not our problem,” said Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. “This is the president’s problem. He’s the one that has opened the border and he needs to be responsible for this and he needs to stop it.”
The governors claim that unaccompanied children would displace those already in state foster care or limit states’ ability to make new placements.
“Nebraska is declining their request because we are reserving our resources for serving our kids,” Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said in an April 13 news release. “I do not want our kids harmed as the result of President Biden’s bad policies.”
Who is paying?
But federal officials note that care providers for unaccompanied children are paid via federal grants and operate separately from state child welfare systems.
Is LIRS paying the families directly out of their federal payola? If so, they need to explain it! And, explain who is monitoring the care the illegal alien kids are getting once placed in foster care homes.
Of course as Pew admits there are still costs to state taxpayers:
Caring for unaccompanied children does require some limited state resources, because states license and monitor foster care providers contracted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the federal agency in charge of housing unaccompanied minors.
However, there currently are no federally funded foster care providers for unaccompanied minors in any of the five states where Republican governors have expressed concerns, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services records analyzed by Stateline show.
Pew goes on and on consuming many column inches on the subject of bed space and how much, or how little, Trump left us with when the Dems stole the 2020 election.
Contractor middlemen….
Pew reports something we already knew (at least for LIRS and the USCCB).
Foster care providers who care for unaccompanied children include the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, BCFS Health and Human Services, Upbring, and Urban Strategies.
But, still unclear is how does this contract system work? And, why are middlemen even necessary? Couldn’t the feds just send money directly to state agencies willing to participate?
I wondered where Endeavorsis in all of this? That is another give-or-take $500 million for housing the ‘children.’
I guess we can conclude that our tax dollars (to care for the illegal alien kids) go through a bunch of contractor middlemen masquerading as non-profits (skimming off generous salaries and office overhead) as they go about looking for states willing to put unaccompanied alien children into their state’s foster care system thereby displacing needy American kids.
As I have been saying all along, federal refugee contractors put Americans Last!
Is that what your governor is doing as well?
*** I just had a look at a recent IRS Form 990 for LIRS, and Vignarajah is pulling down an annual salary and benefits package of a quarter of a million (apparently a pay cut from the previous CEO who left under a cloud).
Since LIRS is about 87% federally funded, they are a fake non-profit. LOL! You can be assured that this ‘religious’ federal contractor is not passing the plate on Sundays to pay for their ‘charitable’ work.
See this post I wrote a year ago at RRW about Krish and her hubby, the Washington DC Leftie power couple, working another angle—we must welcome more migrants of all stripes due to global warming!
And, somehow that is going to help America’s wildlife and our great outdoor spaces—say what?
Apparently the fascists running Joe Biden’s government these days don’t like what Nick Fuentes says since he has not committed any crimes. Scary stuff!
The story is at VDARE, a website the Left abhors and so therefore you should visit it often even if you don’t agree with every word they publish.
Fuentes is apparently being harassed because of his political activities in support of America First and Donald Trump and because his speech is uncomfortable for some tender ears.
Remember the old adage….First they came for Nick!
America First Patriot Nick Fuentes Put On No-Fly List
America First host Nick Fuentes can no longer fly on an airplane. He announced Tuesday that he couldn’t check into his flight because the authorities didn’t clear him to fly.
[….]
Fuentes believes he was put on the no-fly list due to hysteria over the Capitol protests. He has suffered numerous bans since January 6.
Fuentes was on his way to Florida for a press conference and rally against Big Tech and for Governor DeSantis push to rein-in the power of the tech giants in his state.
Here Fuentes posted news on the gathering of free speech advocates on Twitter last Friday.
You probably noticed that Fuentes is at least still on Twitter when yours truly was suspended back in January.
VDARE notes that Glenn Greenwald, a staunch defender of American civil liberties no matter which side of the political divide one resides on, came to Fuentes’ defense.
This could be you someday, but that is no reason to pull any political punches in these difficult times.
And if this is the first time you have heard of Nick Fuentes, he is the host of a podcast America First Live.
Check it out!
LOL! By singling Fuentes out like this, those seeking to silence him may just have broadened his audience.
See the history of Endeavors, formerly Family Endeavors and before that San Antonio Family Endeavors which was focused on taking care of veterans. That is, until the paying migrants came along! https://endeavors.org/history/
Earlier this month news broke that a little-known nonprofit, Endeavers, was awarded one for the largest contracts ever to help house and manage the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC)flooding the US border.
By the way, the Biden feds have dropped the word ‘Alien.’
The story interests me since I have spent a lot of time over the years pointing out the millions of taxpayer dollars flowing to nonprofit refugee resettlement contractors (with inside tracks into government pots of money) for the initial care of the new Americans the Democrats are moving to Anytown, USA.
And, of further interest to me is the fact that the main player in this story touts on his resume his time with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service(LIRS) (one of nine federal refugee contractors I have been writing about for nearly 14 years).
Exclusive: Texas nonprofit got massive border contract after hiring Biden official
A Texas nonprofit that recently hired a Biden transition official got a contract worth as much as $530 million to help manage the influx of migrant children at the southern border, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The contract is by far the largest ever awarded to Family Endeavors. It’s potentially worth more than 12 times the group’s most recently reported annual budget — a sign of the demand the new work will place on its operations.
~The no-bid contract also is the second largest ever awarded by the agency overseeing the migrant child program.
~The award comes as the Biden administration rushes to deal with an influx of migrants at the border, including more than 21,000 unaccompanied minors currently in government custody, according to the latest data.
Between the lines: Family Endeavors won the contract just months after it hired Andrew Lorenzen-Strait as its senior director for migrant services and federal affairs.
Therein lies the rub.
Andrew Lorenzen-Strait landed his job at Endeavors (formerly Family Endeavors) in January straight off the Biden transition team following a stint with one regional Lutheran refugee contractor, and a little over six months at LIRS, the national organization.
He had spent years in the federal government, at ICE in fact, before hitting on this likely lucrative gig.
GOP lawmaker wants answers on massive border contract that went to nonprofit with ties to ex-Biden adviser
Republican Rep. Jim Banks is demanding answers from the head of the Administration for Children and Families after revelations that a nearly $530 million contract was awarded to a Texas nonprofit to help manage the influx of migrant children at the U.S. southern border — after the organization hired a former Biden transition official.
Andrew Lorenzen-Strait Senior Director for Migrant Services & Federal Affairs at Endeavors.
Axios first reported the contract, which is the largest ever awarded to the nonprofit, Family Endeavors, from the Department of Health and Human Services. The nonprofit also received a grant from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement worth $87 million.
Family Endeavors, according to the report, recently hired former Biden transition official Andrew Lorenzen-Strait to serve as senior director for Migrant Services and Federal Affairs. While working on the Biden transition team, Lorenzen-Strait reportedly vetted political appointees for HHS and worked on the DHS policy team.
Banks, R-Ind., in a letter obtained by Fox News directed to the acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within HHS, JooYuen Chang, questioned the timing of the grants and whether they were related to Lorenzen-Strait’s work.
“The two unprecedented and massive grants Family Endeavors received were approved by HHS and DHS—the two agencies Lorenzen-Strait oversaw while a member of the Biden transition team,” Banks wrote. “And both grants were no-bid contracts, meaning they were awarded directly to Family Endeavors bypassing the normal competitive process.”
Banks went on to call the grant “especially concerning” due to Lorenzen-Strait’s responsibilities on the transition team, and said it was “probable” that he “played some role” in Chang’s appointment.
Banks went on to accuse Chang of having “played some role in awarding Lorenzen-Strait’s firm about a half a billion dollars.”
“Some may view this as a conflict of interest,” Banks wrote.
Visit USA Spendingfor the skinny on grants and contracts….
Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of this windfall for Endeavors, here is a screenshot from USA Spending of Endeavorsprevious federal funding and its huge payout (so far!) this year in the wake of Lorenzen-Straits arrival.
It almost makes you wonder if when Lorenzen-Strait came on board at Endeavors on January 25th, only a few days after the inauguration, that someone knew then that the rush on the border was about to be unleashed.
When I saw these mind-blowing numbers I had a good chuckle wondering why Lorenzen-Strait didn’t bring some of this payola to his pals at LIRS because LIRS is in the same business—getting the Unaccompanied Alien Children (aka New Americans) set up in America.
In 2018,Endeavors paid a top salary of around $300,000 in a year they raked in just over $40 million from American taxpayers. So, I can’t wait to see the salaries for this year with an anticipated half a billion coming in! Just saying!
Sure beats working for the likes of ICE. As I have said on many previous occasions: tell your kids to grow up to be execs at nonprofits funded by us—the taxpayers.
They only got on the federal gravy train four years ago with their little nearly $11 million dollar award. They surely haven’t had time to demonstrate any great track record of managing the mostly teenaged border invading ‘children.’
