Homelessness is a national security downside, too – Latest News
Angelenos have been rightly alarmed to be taught final month that the quantity of homeless people is rising again. But the truth is even worse. Homelessness is no longer simply a native problem. It is a national security downside.
A big quantity of the people dwelling in tents on California’s sidewalks are usually not there as a result of they misplaced a paycheck. They are there as a result of they’re hooked on a chemical weapon manufactured in China, smuggled by way of Mexico by cartels the United States has now designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and delivered by way of the identical California ports and highways that carry the remainder of our financial system.
The state’s own information inform the story. Overdose is now the main trigger of death for unhoused Californians. In San Francisco, fentanyl is current within the majority of overdose deaths on the road.
LA County Public Health reviews the identical. Behavioral health surveys persistently discover roughly one in three unhoused Californians admits to common illicit drug use, and unbiased researchers put the actual quantity considerably larger when methamphetamine and fentanyl are counted collectively.
Andy Johnstone for CA Post
Where do the medicine come from?
They come from China. Chinese chemical firms in Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Shandong manufacture the precursor chemical compounds that Mexican cartels cook into completed fentanyl.
The State Department sanctioned Guangzhou Tengyue Chemical final September and accused Beijing of “actively sustaining and expanding the business of poisoning our communities.”
That is the U.S. authorities formally accusing a international adversary of working a chemical warfare marketing campaign in opposition to Americans, and the completed product from that marketing campaign is what is killing our neighbors on Skid Row, within the Tenderloin, and alongside the Santa Ana riverbed.
David Buchan for Ca Post
The Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), each now designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the Trump administration, run the commercial synthesis operations on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
Chinese money launderers wash the proceeds back by way of LAs real estate, Bay Area shell firms, and West Coast underground banking. Every step in that chain is a national security problem, and each step runs instantly into California.
Now stand on a sidewalk in downtown Los Angeles and ask what any of that has to do with a tent on the nook.
Everything.
David Buchan for Ca Post
The particular person inside that tent is fairly often the final buyer in a provide chain that started in a Chinese chemical plant and handed by way of a designated terrorist group.
Sacramento’s response has been to construct housing round that particular person, hand out naloxone, and hope the habit burns itself out. It doesn’t, as a result of the availability doesn’t stop, as a result of Sacramento is not combating the availability. Washington is.
Two units of numbers got here out this month that make the case.
Fentanyl overdose deaths within the U.S. fell 22 p.c in a single yr, from 48,913 in 2024 to 38,084 in 2025, in response to the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intellignce (ODNI). LA County overdose deaths dropped from a peak of 3,220 in 2022 to 2,298 in 2025. The ODNI instantly credited “disruptions to the production supply chain.”
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California’s homelessness downside is going the opposite direction. The metropolis of LA is up 3.4 p.c. Unsheltered homelessness — people dwelling on the streets or in automobiles — is up 7.9 p.c.
Federal enforcement is pulling down the death charge. California housing coverage is not pulling down the tent depend. If Sacramento’s idea of the case have been proper, each numbers could be shifting collectively. They are usually not.
Sacramento is treating a international assault as a social service downside. The Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles collectively deal with roughly 40 p.c of the containerized freight coming into the U.S. The I-5 hall carries northbound visitors from Tijuana to Portland. Every port container that is waved buyer by way of is doubtlessly half of a provide line that ends in a tent on Alvarado Street.
Every unhoused Californian is someone’s youngster. Many are veterans. Many are victims of untreated mental sickness. Many are victims of an habit that a international adversary put in a Mexican cartel’s fingers and shipped up to their neighborhood.
All of that may be true without delay. What can’t be true without delay is that you simply repair this disaster with out combating the availability chain.
Homelessness is a housing story. It is a mental health story. It is a poverty story. And it is a national security story too.
You can’t resolve any of them with out fixing all of them.
Lisa Daftari is a international coverage analyst and media commentator based mostly in Los Angeles.
