Homeless filth in Berkeley goes viral; here’s what – Latest News
It’s long been referred to as Berserkely for a purpose.
Berkeley, birthplace of the Sixties free speech motion, has at all times had its quirks, its grit, its radicals and free spirits.
But it hasn’t at all times had complete avenue corridors swathed in rat-infested homeless encampments.
That shame is of more latest classic.
A homeless encampment is seen close to the University of California Berkeley in Berkeley, California, on Wednesday, August 19, 2026. Nathan Weyland for CA Post
And it exhibits that Berkeley –– like Los Angeles and different California cities with laissez-faire homeless insurance policies –– must get actual.
As a mother’s viral video confirmed this week, the 1150 block of Harrison Street is filled with tents, junk, rubbish, graffiti, blocked sidewalks and whole chaos.
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“I just dropped my son off at @UCBerkeley housing and as we were approaching we saw this behind his apartments. Shame on @CityofBerkeley @CityofAlbanyCA @UCBerkeleyNews,” the mother, TV reporter Lyanne Melendez, wrote on X.
All this, much less than 3 miles from the enduring campus.
A homeless encampment is seen close to the University of California Berkeley in Berkeley, California, on Wednesday, August 19, 2026. Nathan Weyland for CA Post
Lyanne Melendez speaks out in opposition to a homeless encampment close to the University of California Berkeley in Berkeley, California, on August 19, 2026. X/@LyanneMelendez
The metropolis, in the meantime, has been sued from each side: Homeless people and their advocates oppose razing the mess, whereas close by business and property house owners of course need it gone.
Berkeley officers are pushing to clear the chaos on health and security grounds, however a choose has mentioned town should help some of the tent-dwellers earlier than finishing the cleanup.
The battle for progress raises a primary query: Why did Berkeley let it get this unhealthy in the primary place?
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The identical will be requested of different cities, together with Los Angeles, Oakland and Long Beach.
The filth, illness and decrepitude show the implications of fake compassion, unchecked permissiveness and “nonprofit” profiteering off the taxpayers beneath the guise of offering endless companies.
Homeless encampments grow out of control and, to some, are normalized.
A homeless encampment is pictured close to the University of California Berkeley on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, in Berkeley, CA. Nathan Weyland for CA Post
That makes eradication all of the more troublesome when issues attain a disaster level after which some.
And Berkeley’s avenue junkyard is yet one more signal that “housing first” insurance policies fail wherever they’re tried. Not solely is there by no means enough “housing” to clear the homeless from the streets, however merely sticking addicts indoors does nothing to unravel underlying substance abuse and mental-illness points.
Cities, together with the state of California itself, need to shift to treatment-first fashions that middle on the causes of power homelessness.
And lastly, the rat-infested catastrophe in Berkeley exhibits simply how far public security has fallen off the precedence radar of many “progressive” lefty cities.
Rats trapped close to the Harrison Street encampment have examined constructive for leptospirosis, a harmful bacterial an infection that may trigger respiration issues, organ failure and even death.
Also this week, a Berkeley homeless man allegedly attacked three contractors with a steel pipe once they tried to clear him from a church close to the college.
Enough. Berkeley, Los Angeles and different permissive California cities are long overdue for a return to law, order and public areas which can be saved in clean working order for the public.
Berserkely can keep its quirky appeal. But the failed homeless insurance policies? They’ve received to go.
