I walked the wooded banks of the rivers that converge in the capital and found just a few dozen spots where men had bedded down on simple mats of cardboard or newspaper. There were no tents or camps.

The word “homeless” was rarely used then. It didn’t appear in my article for the Sacramento Bee.

By 1982, amid a recession, newcomers who had lost their jobs began to appear in the weeds. In 1985, after three years of reporting on the subject, I co-authored one of the first books on contemporary homelessness. In 1988, I spent a week walking 10 miles of Sacramento riverbank and found 125 elaborate camps. This was new.

I returned to Sacramento more recently amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now the tent cities in the woods along the rivers stretched as far as the eye could see, rivaling those photographed by Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression. The most recent federally mandated survey found more than 5,000 unsheltered homeless people in the city.

I can trace several of our modern “doom loops” to the 1980s. The roots of our continuing struggles with police brutality and sexual violence were present in stories I covered then. Meaningful gun control measures could have prevented the proliferation of mass shootings over the past four decades. And pro-housing policies could have negated the presence of today’s tent cities.

I’ve long despaired about the homelessness crisis in particular. In the wake of Ronald Reagan’s election, I blamed conservatives for abandoning the poor. I thought my journalism and others’ could change policy, perhaps even inspire a New Deal-style response equal to the challenge. Such was my naiveté.

The blame, I eventually realized, also belongs to people we might call “good liberals.”

By 1980, baby boomers were in their first decade of homeownership in places such as Silicon Valley and the New York City suburbs of Westchester County. They rapidly became NIMBYs, vehemently opposing affordable housing in their neighborhoods. Many were Clinton Democrats. They went on to plant “Black Lives Matter” signs in their lawns. The message was hollow: We support you; just don’t live near us.

Boomers, especially if they were white, got to buy houses, and then they zoned everyone else out. They watched their lawns and home equity grow. I was one of them.

In 1981, at 24, I bought my first house. At a price of $70,000, it cost less than three times my annual salary of $25,000, which was roughly the median income in Sacramento County. If adjusted for inflation alone, the home’s value would be $218,000 four decades later, and my salary $78,000.

The median household income in the county today is about $84,000, not far from what inflation would predict. But Zillow estimates that my former home is now worth $578,000, more than double what can be attributed to inflation. My annual wages would need to be more than $190,000 to afford the house as easily as I did then. This is what the children and grandchildren of boomers face.

Much was made of the more than 60 housing bills passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year. The legislation will streamline approval of housing in cities that aren’t meeting their goals, limit the use of environmental laws to block affordable housing, allow developers to build more densely when they include affordable units and let faith-based organizations build housing on their land, among other measures.

But it’s not nearly enough. Politicians have to get more aggressive in wresting control of zoning from cities.

Starting in 2018, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) repeatedly tried to advance bills that would have overridden local zoning to allow taller, denser apartment buildings near public transit and job centers. His fellow Democrats blocked them.

Even less ambitious housing-friendly bills often face a similar fate in Sacramento. Last year, state Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Salinas) proposed legislation that would have eased approval of small “starter homes” in areas restricted to single-family housing. That provision was stripped out of the bill.

It’s the same story on the East Coast. Last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed legislation to override local opposition to housing. Fierce blowback came from largely white, relatively affluent “good liberals” in places such as Westchester County, where Joe Biden got 67.6% of the vote in 2020. As in California, Democrats opposed to the plan used code language: “local control,” “overcrowding,” “traffic.”

New York state Assemblyman Phil Ramos cut through the euphemisms: “It doesn’t matter what kind of incentive you give them,” he said at a rally. “A wealthy community, before they allow Black and brown people in, they’ll walk away from any amount of money.” Hochul’s plan was defeated in the Democratic-dominated Legislature.

Republicans, for their part, haven’t gotten any better on these issues. A podcast by the right-wing Cicero Institute suggested that instead of calling people “homeless,” we revert to words like “vagrants,” “bums” and “tramps.”

Such vilification is proved off the mark by the fact that poverty-stricken Mississippi has relatively few homeless people. Los Angeles County has six times as many unhoused people per capita as metropolitan Jackson. Why? An average apartment in the Mississippi capital rents for around $900, compared with $2,750 in L.A.

The Biden administration recently released a report calling for more housing, but the feds have limited power here. “Ultimately,” the report stated, “meaningful change will require State and local governments to reevaluate the land-use regulations that reduce the housing supply.” That largely means undoing single-family zoning.

Sen. Wiener’s push for apartment buildings in transit corridors had it right. Would this make parts of Los Angeles a little more like Manhattan? We can only hope so. If New York City is any guide, it would mean more vibrant neighborhoods and higher property values.

As the struggle over housing continues, tent cities have been normalized in California and beyond. Last year, a student of mine looked puzzled when I explained that homelessness of this kind hasn’t always existed. I couldn’t be frustrated with her, though: This crisis has lingered — and worsened — for more than twice as long as she’s been alive. It didn’t have to.

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WASHINGTON — As a part of ongoing efforts to end Veteran homelessness, the Department of Veterans Affairs published a Notice of Funding Opportunity for approximately $5 million in grants per year (for up to two years) to help Veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

The funds are available through VA’s Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program, which offers financial assistance to eligible community organizations that provide Veterans with transitional housing and case management — including connecting eligible Veterans to VA benefits, community-based services, and permanent housing. These special needs grants support homeless Veterans who are women, elderly, terminally ill, chronically mentally ill, or who have care of minor dependents.

Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority of VA and President Biden, who has made supporting Veterans a key pillar of his Unity Agenda for the nation. Earlier this week, VA announced that it permanently housed 46,552homeless Veterans in 2023 — surpassing the calendar year goal to house 38,000 Veterans by 22.5%. Thanks in part to these efforts, the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen by 4% since early 2020 and by more than 52% since 2010.

“We won’t rest until every Veteran has the safe, stable home that they deserve,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “These grants will allow VA — alongside community organizations —to help provide housing and wraparound services to more homeless and at-risk Veterans.”

VA’s efforts to combat Veteran homelessness are grounded in reaching out to homeless Veterans, understanding their unique needs, and addressing them. These efforts are built on the evidence-based “Housing First” approach, which prioritizes getting a Veteran into housing, then providing them with the wraparound support they need to stay housed, including health care, job training, legal and education assistance, and more. This initiative is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader efforts to reduce homelessness.

Only the 16 existing special need grantees are eligible to apply. Awards will fund two years of operations starting fiscal year 2025 on Oct. 1, 2024, and ending Sept. 30, 2026. Grant applications must be received by 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time on April 15, 2024.

View the special need NOFO, and learn more about GPD or email GPDGrants@va.gov.  For more information about VA’s comprehensive efforts to end Veteran homelessness visit VA.gov/homeless.

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In 2023, VA also engaged with 40,203 unsheltered Veterans to connect them with the housing and resources they need, exceeding the Department’s calendar year goal by 43.6%; ensured that 95.9% of Veterans housed have remained in housing, exceeding the Department’s calendar year goal by 0.9%; and ensured that 96.4% of the Veterans who returned to homelessness have been rehoused or are on a pathway to rehousing, exceeding the Department’s calendar year goal by 6.4%.

Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority of VA and President Biden, who has made supporting Veterans a key pillar of his Unity Agenda for the nation. Thanks in part to these efforts, the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen by 4% since early 2020 and by more than 52% since 2010.

“No Veteran should ever experience the tragedy and indignity of homelessness. More than 46,000 formerly homeless Veterans are going to sleep tonight in good, safe, stable homes — and there’s nothing more important than that,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “While this is an important step forward, we’re not stopping here — we’re going to keep pushing until every Veteran has a safe, stable place to call home in this country they fought to defend.”

VA’s efforts to combat Veteran homelessness are grounded in reaching out to homeless Veterans, understanding their unique needs, and addressing them. These efforts are built on the evidence-based “Housing First” approach, which prioritizes getting a Veteran into housing, then providing them with the wraparound support they need to stay housed, including health care, job training, legal and education assistance, and more. This initiative is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader efforts to reduce homelessness.

VA has also made progress in combating Veteran homelessness in the Greater Los Angeles area, providing 1,790 homeless Veterans with permanent housing in 2023 — which is the most of any city in America and exceeding the local calendar year goal for 2023 by 19.3%.

This is the second year in a row that VA has housed more than 40,000 homeless Veterans. In 2022, VA housed more than 40,000 formerly homeless Veterans, prevented more than 17,700 Veterans and their families from falling into homelessness, and helped nearly 191,700 additional Veteran families who were experiencing financial difficulties to retain their homes or avoid foreclosure.

VA staff and its community partners nationwide help Veterans find permanent housing such as apartments or houses to rent or own, often with subsidies to help make the housing affordable. In some cases, VA staff and partners help Veterans end their homelessness by reuniting them with family and friends.

For more information about VA’s comprehensive efforts to end Veteran homelessness, visit VA.gov/homeless.

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Under the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, VA is awarding 256 grants totaling approximately $799 million to community organizations that help rapidly rehouse Veterans and their families, prevent the imminent loss of Veterans’ homes, or identify more suitable housing situations for Veterans and their families. Through the Grant and Per Diem program, VA is awarding 454 grants totaling approximately $257 million to community organizations that provide Veterans with transitional housing and case management — including connecting Veterans to VA benefits, community-based services, and permanent housing.

Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority for VA and the Biden-Harris Administration. In 2022 alone, VA housed more than 40,000 formerly homeless Veterans, prevented more than 17,700 Veterans and their families from falling into homelessness, and helped nearly 191,700 additional Veteran families who were experiencing financial difficulties retain their homes or avoid foreclosure. Thanks in part to these efforts, the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen by 11% since early 2020 and by more than 55% since 2010.

“We won’t rest until every Veteran has the safe, stable home that they deserve – because none of our nation’s heroes should be homeless in this country they fought to defend,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “These grants will allow VA, alongside our community partners, to help provide more housing and wraparound services to more homeless and at-risk Veterans than ever before.”

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris Administration announced major new actions to prevent and reduce homelessness among Veterans, including launching supportive services to quickly rehouse Veterans experiencing homelessness; providing new legal services for Veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness; and funding programs to help Veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness find jobs and connect to work.

VA’s efforts to end Veteran homelessness are built upon the evidence-based “Housing First” approach, which prioritizes getting a Veteran into housing and providing them with the wraparound support they need to stay housed, including health care, job training, legal and education assistance and more.

For more information about VA’s comprehensive efforts to end Veteran homelessness, visit VA.gov/homeless. To learn more about the Grant and Per Diem program or view the full list of grantees, visit the Grant and Per Diem website. To learn more about the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program or view the full list of grantees, visit the Supportive Services for Veteran Families website.

If you are a Veteran who is experiencing homelessness or at risk for homelessness, call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at 877-4AID-VET (877-424-3838). Visit the VA Homeless Programs website to learn about housing initiatives and other programs for Veterans exiting homelessness.

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These first-of-their-kind funds, available through VA’s new Legal Services for Veterans Grant Program, were awarded to 79 public or non-profit organizations that will help Veterans in several ways, including:

• Providing representation in landlord-tenant disputes to prevent eviction
• Assisting with court proceedings for child support, custody, or estate planning.
• Helping Veterans obtain public benefits, including disability compensation.
• Defending Veterans in criminal cases that can prolong or increase their risk of homelessness, such as outstanding warrants, fines, or driver’s license revocation.
• Assisting with requests to upgrade characterization of discharges or dismissals of former members of the Armed Forces.

Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority of VA and President Biden, who has made supporting Veterans a key pillar of his Unity Agenda for the nation. In 2022 alone, VA housed more than 40,000 formerly homeless Veterans, prevented more than 17,700 Veterans and their families from falling into homelessness, and helped nearly 191,700 additional Veteran families who were experiencing financial difficulties retain their homes or avoid foreclosure. Thanks in part to these efforts, the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen by 11% since early 2020 and by more than 55% since 2010. In 2023, VA has set a goal to house at least 38,000 Veterans.

“For Veterans, legal support can be the difference between becoming homeless and having safe, stable housing,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “With the award of these first-of-their-kind VA grants, more Veterans will have the legal representation they deserve — which will increase their access to housing and employment.”

This initiative is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s broader efforts to reduce homelessness for all Americans by 25% by 2025 and advance protections for renters. These grants were created as a part of VA’s implementation of the Johnny Isakson and David P. Roe, M.D., Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020, which authorized VA to award each recipient up to $150,000 in grant funds, with at least 10% of funding being utilized for women Veterans.

The grant recipients successfully competed under a Notice of Funding Opportunity published Oct. 6, 2022. Each grantee was permitted to apply funding to support legal services starting August 1, 2023. 

For more information, including the list of awarded grantees, visit the Legal Services for Veterans website https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/LSV.asp or email lsv@va.gov.

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A Northern California city said it will let a homeless encampment stay on some public land, agreeing to provide trailers and other services for up to four months.

A group of homeless people, mostly women, have been living on a lot owned by the city of Sacramento, California, for more than a year, the Sacramento Bee reported. On Friday, city officials announced they had leased the land for free to Safe Ground Sacramento, a nonprofit group, for up to four months.

People can park their cars or RVs on the property, and the city will provide up to 33 trailers for people to live in. The city said the site will be self-governed by what it calls a “resident council,” along with an operations plan that must be approved by the City Council in the next 30 days. “I am incredibly proud that through months of hard work and open communication we found an innovative solution for this site that benefits our entire community,” Councilmember Sean Loloee, whose district includes the land, said in a city blog post.

For decades, major cities across California have been grappling with homelessness, a problem that has only worsened in recent years as a housing shortage has increased rents and made it difficult to find an affordable place to live. California now has nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population, according to federal data.

Cities have tried lots of different approaches to address the issue. In San Jose, a city of nearly 1 million people at the south end of the San Francisco Bay, officials installed about 500 small homes for homeless people to live in. The program reduced the rate of the city’s homeless people who were unsheltered for the first time in years, Mayor Matt Mahan said.

Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state would build 1,200 of these small homes across the state — homes that are as small as 120 square feet (11 square meters) that have electricity but no running water. Sacramento is scheduled to get 350 of those homes, most of which will likely be at the state fairgrounds, according to Mayor Darrell Steinberg.

Across California, local governments have plans for a 15% reduction in homelessness by 2025. Those plans originally called for a 2% reduction in homelessness, a goal that angered Newsom because he thought it was too low. Local governments revised those plans after Newsom threatened to withhold state funding. The homeless encampment in Sacramento, known as “Camp Resolution,” is not meant to be permanent.

The city said the initial lease will run for four months. But the lease can be renewed until “all the residents obtain permanent housing.” “We are anxious to assist Camp Resolution residents to demonstrate that homeless people can self-govern and assist each other to obtain permanent housing,” said Mark Merin, executive director for Safe Ground Sacramento.

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This funding opportunity will give organizations the funding they need to hire case managers, who will help Veterans search for, obtain, and successfully transition to permanent housing; troubleshoot challenges and barriers to maintaining permanent housing; connect with services to address issues such as poor credit history, rent arrears, and legal issues; and more.

VA anticipates awarding 100 Case Management Grants for up to $300,000 each to support approximately 150 case manager positions nationwide. Awards will fund two years of operations, starting on Oct. 1, 2023, and ending Sept. 30, 2025. The funds are available through VA’s Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program.

Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority of VA and the entire Biden Administration. The number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen by 11% since early 2020 and 55.3% since 2010. Additionally, during 2022, VA placed more than 40,000 homeless Veterans into permanent housing — exceeding VA’s goal by more than 6%. In late 2022, the Biden Administration released All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, which lays out the goal of reducing homelessness for all Americans by 25% by 2025.

“For many Veterans experiencing homelessness, moving into permanent housing is the first step toward the stability and independence they deserve,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “But our work doesn’t stop there — these case managers help ensure that once Veterans become housed, they get the resources they need to stay housed.”

VA’s efforts to combat Veteran homelessness are grounded in reaching out to homeless Veterans, understanding their unique needs, and addressing them. These efforts are built upon the evidence-based “Housing First” approach, which prioritizes getting a Veteran into housing, then provides the Veteran with the wraparound support they need to stay housed — including health care, job training, legal and education assistance and more.

Eligible entities, as described in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, may apply for these Case Management Grants. Grant applications must be received by the GPD Program Office by 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 4, 2023. View the NOFO and learn more about GPD or email GPDGrants@va.gov.  

If you are a Veteran or know a Veteran who is experiencing homelessness or at risk for homelessness, call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at 877-4AID-VET (877-424-3838). Visit the VA Homeless Programs website to learn about housing initiatives and other programs for Veterans exiting homelessness.

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Thomas D. Elias | Contributor

The spate of heavy rainstorms that swept across California during January’s early weeks exposed a lot of problems: weak bridges, inadequate reservoir capacity, poor drainage on many city streets and helplessness in the face of inevitable mudslides, to name just a few.

The rains revealed nothing more starkly than the failure so far of California’s many programs to help most of the homeless, a failure that exposed how useless most of the more than $11 billion allocated for homeless aid over the last year has been. One video, shot in the stormy early morning hours of Jan. 5, says a lot about this (you can see it on YouTube at youtu.be/xBuOZExJZ8Y).

The video shows homeless individuals huddled in sleeping bags with water lapping at them. It shows people huddled under soaked blankets and in barely covered alcoves leading to building entrances. Most of all, it shows that in one city with a budget of tens of millions for “homeless services,” no one served the unhoused when they needed it most. The official death toll among California’s more than 172,000 homeless was just two, both killed by branches that the storms knocked off trees and into their tents.

No one knows how many more might perish from aftereffects of extreme exposure to cold and wet conditions. Many Californians write off the state’s homeless as some kind of human detritus because many are mentally ill or suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and are often not very functional. That doesn’t matter, as no one deserves the misery inflicted on the homeless this winter.

Some of California’s most prominent and powerful politicians often say they recognize this. New Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose city has more than 56,000 homeless residents, declared a state of emergency over their situation on her first day in office last month. She wants to humanely eliminate some tent cities, but so far has moved only a few dozen people indoors.

Gov. Gavin Newsom put more than $10 billion for homeless services into the current state budget and billions more into his next planned budget. California has more homeless people today than when the 2022-23 budget passed and far fewer shelter beds than before the coronavirus pandemic.

One thing you can safely bet: No executive heading any of the more than 50 state and local government programs for which big money is ticketed slept in the rain Jan. 5. One state report indicates this year’s $10 billion allocation is a pittance compared to what it will cost to house all the currently homeless. That assessment held that it will take more than 30 times as much, or $300 billion.

This sum could house many thousands, but there is no sign even that much money can end the problem. At today’s reported average cost of more than $830,000 per one-bedroom apartment, it would pay for less than 3,600 new one-bedroom units, far from enough to permanently shelter even most of today’s homeless. Yet use of hotels and motels bought up by state and local governments as temporary and permanent quarters for the unhoused did not solve the problem.

Here’s an idea not yet in the anti-homelessness portfolio: Use part of the huge government allocations to buy or lease some of the hundreds of millions of square feet of vacant office and commercial space that now dogs many California property owners, the result of changes in working conditions for white collar workers. Studies indicate about one-third of the state’s former office workers will now likely operate permanently from their homes.

So far, California has seen only about 11,000 conversions to residential units permitted from that vast space, makeovers state law now says can go forward without zoning changes. How about using some of the billions allocated to homelessness for this? It would allow far more units and take much less time than new construction.

Just as it’s time for a complete rethink of the overall housing crisis, where state officials announce new and different need estimates every few months, it’s also time for this kind of fresh thinking about housing the homeless. While no one knows when or where the next big chain of storms may strike hardest, it’s impossible to overstate the misery they’ll cause if California continues hosting as many unhoused individuals as it now does.

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This funding opportunity will give organizations the funding they need to hire case managers, who will help Veterans search for, obtain, and successfully transition to permanent housing; troubleshoot challenges and barriers to maintaining permanent housing; connect with services to address issues such as poor credit history, rent arrears, and legal issues; and more.

VA anticipates awarding 100 Case Management Grants for up to $300,000 each to support approximately 150 case manager positions nationwide. Awards will fund two years of operations, starting on Oct. 1, 2023, and ending Sept. 30, 2025. The funds are available through VA’s Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program.

Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority of VA and the entire Biden Administration. The number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen by 11% since early 2020 and 55.3% since 2010. Additionally, during 2022, VA placed more than 40,000 homeless Veterans into permanent housing — exceeding VA’s goal by more than 6%. In late 2022, the Biden Administration released All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, which lays out the goal of reducing homelessness for all Americans by 25% by 2025.

“For many Veterans experiencing homelessness, moving into permanent housing is the first step toward the stability and independence they deserve,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “But our work doesn’t stop there — these case managers help ensure that once Veterans become housed, they get the resources they need to stay housed.”

VA’s efforts to combat Veteran homelessness are grounded in reaching out to homeless Veterans, understanding their unique needs, and addressing them. These efforts are built upon the evidence-based “Housing First” approach, which prioritizes getting a Veteran into housing, then provides the Veteran with the wraparound support they need to stay housed — including health care, job training, legal and education assistance and more.

Eligible entities, as described in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, may apply for these Case Management Grants. Grant applications must be received by the GPD Program Office by 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 4, 2023. View the NOFO and learn more about GPD or email GPDGrants@va.gov.  

If you are a Veteran or know a Veteran who is experiencing homelessness or at risk for homelessness, call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at 877-4AID-VET (877-424-3838). Visit the VA Homeless Programs website to learn about housing initiatives and other programs for Veterans exiting homelessness.

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Nationally, the total number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has decreased by 11% since January 2020. In total, the estimated number of Veterans experiencing homelessness in America has declined by 55.3% since 2010.

This success is a result of VA efforts to reach out to every Veteran experiencing homelessness, understand their unique needs, and address them. These efforts are grounded in the evidence-based “Housing First” approach, which prioritizes getting a Veteran into housing, then provides the Veteran with the wraparound support they need to stay housed — including health care, job training, legal and education assistance and more.

“There are thousands of formerly homeless Veterans who are going to sleep tonight in good, safe, stable homes – and there’s nothing more important than that,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “This is great progress, but it’s just the beginning: we at VA will not rest until the phrase ‘homeless Veteran’ is a thing of the past.”

Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority of VA and the Biden-Harris Administration. Earlier this year, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness released All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, which set forth President Biden’s ambitious goal to reduce all homelessness by 25% by 2025. As a part of that effort, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which closely partners with VA in the fight to end homelessness, announced today that through HUD and USICH’s House America initiative, communities have housed over 100,000 households since September 2021.  

Throughout 2022, VA staff helped Veterans find permanent housing such as apartments or houses that Veterans could rent or own, often with a subsidy to help make the housing affordable. VA staff also helped some Veterans end their homelessness by reuniting them with family and friends.

VA also continues to focus on combating Veteran homelessness in the Greater Los Angeles area. During 2022, VA provided 1,301 permanent housing placements to formerly homeless Veterans in LA, the most of any city in America.

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