Homelessness in Los Angeles and Shanghai: Causes, Perceptions, Consequences

Mendy Kong

Amidst global urbanization, housing insecurity has become a visibly growing problem. From the U.S. to China, specifically Los Angeles and Shanghai, cities often share issues of homelessness in spite of the reputation of cities as innovative, economic powerhouses. In comparing these cities, the uneven distribution of resources in urban areas is made clear, but it is evidence that homelessness is more often intentionally created when a group is deemed, or is acting, undesirable, rather than a simple miscalculation by political and economic officials. In Los Angeles, as the population of disenfranchised, racialized groups migrated for labor prospects in developing urban areas and grew, policy was wielded to limit and crystallize political power differentials in the form of homelessness. In comparison, in Shanghai, homelessness arises from the strict migration hukou policies and gaps in the uneven, rapid urban-rural development of China in the past 70 years. However, as a result, lesser policing of homeless groups, historical variance in the most marginalized ethnic groups, and the nationalist unity of being Chinese, there is less, if no, racialized perceptions of homeless populations in Shanghai. However, across Los Angeles and Shanghai, the same issues of stigmatization of and lack of proper social safety nets for homeless people exists and reveals how urban policy, even across political systems, fail residents economically and socially in similar ways.

I. Homelessness in Los Angeles
A. Historical Background/Causes

In Los Angeles, when predicting homelessness, factors like a person's being in certain zip codes and interactions with law enforcement or mental and physical health systems demonstrate a higher risk than others to be homeless (Von Wachter, 2019, p. 13).

L.A.'s Skid Row has existed for at least 150 years. It was originally dominated by poor white migrant men doing seasonal work, and people would build makeshift homes on the undeveloped land. L.A. City viewed them as a menace and threat to public welfare and the value of middle class homes, so they were thrown in jail, making up 98% of the jail population in 1905 and more were built just to contain them (Ward, 2021). The city defaulted to using police to deal with unhoused populations. In addition, substandard housing where ethnically diverse poor found housing were subject to citation or torn down by the city for "public health" threats (Ward, 2021). In the 1950s, there was increased policing on Skid Row that led to greater arrest for petty crime such as sleeping, sitting, or lying on the sidewalk, street, or other public areas (Ward, 2021). Policy around homelessness only started changing when homelessness left Skid Row and became visible in other areas of L.A. The 1980s was an era of "new homelessness" (Ward, 2021). While white men made up the majority of Skid Row until the 1980s, as of 2020, it is 59% Black and 23% Latinx (Ward, 2021). In 2006, a "Safer Cities" initiative continued to enforce a zero-tolerance crime policy, which further criminalized unhoused people, especially those of color. Clearly, police have been a key actor in creating and perpetuating homelessness, as the LAPD has a budget of $3 billion and $8.9 million is allocated for services related to people experiencing homelessness, dropping from $14.1 million last year. In 2010, 1 in 10 arrests by the LA

Homelessness also is the result of incarceration, which makes it difficult for those newly released to find a job. Similar to the homeless rates, Black people make up 29% of the jail population today (Ward, 2022). In addition, inadequate mental health resources tied to incarceration are responsible for the crisis. In 1967, California passed the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act which allowed "authorities to take people into custody for.... psychiatric holds," which led to many people rotating in-and-out of hospitals that would not follow up and instead, discharge their unhoused patients into the streets (Ward, 2021). The L.A. County jail system "'became the de facto mental health institution and homeless shelter for mentally ill homeless people'" (Ward, 2021).

The changing demographic rates of homelessness have also been due to the historically racist housing policy of the Great Depression era and prior. Black people were sucked into predatory mortgage and home buying schemes, which included things like higher rent burden (Ward, 2022). Moreover, in the 1980s, 80% cuts to the Housing and Urban Development budget under the Reagan administration made nonprofits responsible for the housing crisis instead of the state (Ward, 2022). Moreover, the city cut up Black and Latinx working-class neighborhoods with freeways in order to reorient the region around growing suburban populations (Ward, 2021). In addition to these barriers, recently immigrated Latinx populations were–and are still –often pushed to external suburbs and unable to pursue stable jobs, living opportunities, or public benefits due to language inaccessibility or lack of documentation (Arroyo, 2021) (Chinchilla, 2021).

Most recently, in 2020, L.A. had 66,436 recorded unhoused residents, a 13% increase from 2019, and is consistently one of the top rated cities for homelessness in the U.S (Yee, 2022) (Ward, 2021). For L.A.'s recorded sheltered unhoused population, Black people made up 42.6% and Latinx people made up 38.7% (Ward, 2021). These stunning numbers are even more noteworthy considering that Black people make up only 8% of its population but are 34% of the total unhoused population and are "four times more likely to experience homelessness," which is unprecedented in any other city (Ward 2021; 2022). Most unhoused people are men, but about a third are women, and/or are chronically homeless, and/or facing substance use problems (Palta, 2018). In addition, 65% of unhoused people are local L.A. residents, living here for 20 or more years. 60% of L.A.'s unhoused population has cycled through the criminal justice system (Ward, 2021). 50% deal with serious mental illness (Ward, 2021). They are overwhelmingly made unhoused because of poverty and the high cost of housing, as homeless rates went up in 2018 and how Los Angeles County has the highest poverty rate in California, which has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. (Palta, 2018). In conclusion, Los Angeles has enforced long-time, unchanging carceral policy towards unhoused populations of color which has only allowed systemic problems to fester.

B. Mainstream Perceptions Towards Homelessness in Los Angeles

Encampments are significant because they are almost functional territories in and of themselves, with wide visibility and different perceptions amongst Los Angeles residents. Encampments are safer areas where unhoused populations choose to gather and reside for longer periods of time, and in Los Angeles, these are notably located in Skid Row or Echo Park, amongst other areas around the city. In the present day, encampments often get sweeped or forcibly evicted due to political actors who pour money into law enforcement and hostile anti-homeless policy, instead of housing. Rather than solve the problem, the government prefers to just hide or remove it, evidenced just as recently as the Super Bowl sweeps conducted by LAPD and ICE agents (Levin, 2022).

As a result, residents of all income levels may also view unhoused people as an eyesore, and there is wide not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) sentiment around the issue because they do not view unhoused residents as neighbors, nevermind as human beings (Palta, 2018). While there are more sympathetic understandings actively advocating for and assisting unhoused groups, mainstream conversations more often blame individuals for being homeless, rather than the system.

In addition, an LAist article notes that "Racism hides behind classism," (Palta, 2018). Housed people who are not of the same demographics may often weaponize stereotypes of Black and Latinx people alongside their perceptions of unhoused people, viewing them as "lazy" or "leeching off of government benefits," despite welfare programs being a solution proposed by the local government and despite Latinx groups being unable to access those said-benefits. These perceptions only further contribute to the dehumanization and racialization of unhoused people, and solidifies the problem as not of their concern.

C. Response and Proposed Solutions to Homelessness in Los Angeles

The Union Rescue Mission opened in 1891 to offer help to unhoused people in the country (Palta, 2018). The city would open up other Bureaus and Missions in 1914, 1928, and 1933 for men, women, and as a public shelter, but it would be segregated (Ward, 2021). Black people would go to Black-operated and funded centers instead. There was also no city policy created to address employment and housing issues for Black people as homeless policy primarily targeted unemployed, family-less white homeless men in the 1970s (Ward, 2021). In 1976, city officials decided to contain Skid Row to the 50 blocks that it is today, relocate the soup kitchens and mission to the zone, and use LAPD to discourage Skid Row from expanding (Ward, 2021).

Today, L.A. claims they have a "housing first" philosophy to get people in permanent homes, but officials have actually called this "unsustainable" and instead opted for eviction prevention, rental subsidies, and encouraging signing up for social security, veterans, and disability benefits (Palta, 2018). Mayor Eric Garcetti proposed temporary homeless shelters, but wanted to criminalize camping out (Palta, 2018). Specifically, the city has most recently implemented ordinance 41.18, the anti-camping law, which follows historical precedent and makes it illegal to sit, sleep, and store things on the sidewalk (Ward, 2022). In general, evictions are the premier contemporary policy approach taken towards homelessness, as the 2021 sweep of 183 unhoused people in Echo Park was considered "single largest housing event in the history of the city" (Levin, 2022). Two million dollars were spent on removing residents and placing them into a shelter by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). However, LAHSA lost track of 97 of the 183 people it monitored and only 17 people were confirmed to be living in some form of longer-term housing, and six people died after the removal (Levin, 2022).

Other homeless initiatives by the city include Project Homekey. Project Homekey's goal was to rehabilitate hotels and motels into permanent housing and it has successfully served more than 1,100 people (Ward, 2021). Other recent measures have included eviction moratorium extensions and rent relief (Ward, 2021). In addition, there have been voter approved measures like Proposition HHH and Measure H, that was a $1.2 billion fund, and a sales tax raising $355 million annually over 10 years, used to build permanent housing and homeless services (Ward, 2022). However, these are long term projects that do not address immediate needs, and to the dismay of those utilizing the services, ultimately closed (Guevarra et. al, 2022).

The immediate needs of the unhoused are often addressed by local organizations. Although there is variation in their effectiveness, there is a growing number of groups primarily organized by local residents of color that support and actively work with–but most importantly–alongside encampments and unhoused people. These are individuals like Shirley Raines and organizations like Echo Park Rise Up, Street Watch LA, and All Power Books, and they occasionally personally identify with the struggles of those who are unhoused. They run programs like community fridges, weekly food drives, hair salons, and other free and community supported services (CNN Wire, 2020). They also politically platform residents of encampments by supporting them to speak in public events like city council meetings, and attempt to directly support them through social media fundraisers. Despite their effectiveness in making sure unhoused populations are getting their basic needs met and advocating for their human rights and beneficial policy, they are very limited by carceral state responses and even mocked by mainstream media like the L.A. Times (Streetwatch LA, 2022). Few, if no, political figures share their same values, which was evidenced by every 2022 L.A. mayoral candidate criminalizing homeless populations in their platforms (Streetwatch LA, 2022). As such, the organizations often are opposed to and not supported by the state, either at the national or local level.

D. Effectiveness

The most problematic aspect of L.A.'s homeless approach is the level of policing that exists because it does not truly address the causes for homelessness and only seeks to punish and remove those affected. It creates an environment that seeks to harm rather than rehabilitate, and has implications for all of L.A.'s homelessness efforts. For example, although Project Roomkey seemed promising, other unhoused residents felt that it was a "glamorized jail," and would eventually be kicked out for various reasons (Levin, 2022). They were subject to strict rules on their possessions, curfews, and visitor bans that made them feel isolated from their community, or made it difficult for them to continue jobs or find work.

Activists for groups like Black Lives Matter argue that the money put into policing should be spent on permanent housing instead, as the same amount of money could "house everyone in the city" (Ward, 2022). In addition, the focus on policing has also distracted from other areas of concern, such as the sanitation and safety problems in L.A.'s current shelters that make them unused, despite being so expensive to build and operate.

Research groups like the UChicago Poverty Lab state that homelessness prevention programs should be effective, which means stopping people from becoming houseless, and efficient, which means targeting those who are at high risk of homelessness. Based on their findings, they stress the importance of setting up long-term programs for individuals exiting institutional settings, such as the foster care system or mental health or correctional facilities (Von Wachter, 2019). For Chicago and New York, programs that were previously successful included setting up a hotline where people could call for $1,500 grants and long term community-based programs like job placement, legal assistance, and benefits counseling (Von Wachter, 2019, p. 6). While some non-government L.A organizations certainly pursue such action, it is not large enough to combat the greater acts of the city. L.A. continues to pour millions of dollars into addressing the homeless problem through policing, but has routinely failed due to their refusal to truly listen to unhoused populations and community organizations who have been clearly advocating for their preferred solutions.

II. Homelessness in Shanghai
A. Historical Background/Causes

When considering homelessness in China, it is necessary to understand the rapid economic development that occurred after its founding in 1949 and its feudalist history marked by British colonization. Specifically, in 1937, there were 25,000 white, stateless Russians living in Shanghai because it did not require a passport or work visa, and other white foreigners were immune to Chinese law (Newham, 2005). However, Russians were not, and while they were not recorded to be unhoused, they were certainly penniless. They faced barriers to unemployment due to lack of skill and language, and a quarter of Shanghai Russian women were sex workers. While much of the Shanghai Russian population would end up migrating elsewhere after the People's Liberation Army's victory in 1949, Shanghai Russians altered racial relations "for the first time" by being "a white group" in the "serving class," and it was to global alarm as League of Nations believed Shanghai was conducting a "white slave trade," with other contemporaries fearing it was damaging the imperial racial hierarchy system that Shanghai was part of (Newham, 2005).

Following the war, there were many unhoused individuals, from defeated Nationalist soldiers to others fleeing disaster zones or in other precarious economic situations. In China, cities nearly quadrupled in amount from only 60 official cities in 1947, to 239 cities in 1982 (Zhou, 1987, p. 16). However, as people migrated from rural areas for urban jobs or to escape famine in the 1950-60s, their mobility was continually restricted and was ultimately what brought about the household registration hukou system (Zhang, 2012, p. 376). The national government would continue to pursue anti-rural migration policies until the 1980-90s. This meant that unhoused people tended to be migrant workers, and when they were discovered, they would be reported to get sent back by law enforcement through the "'detention and deportation' systems" (Zhang, 2012). Once they return to their registered areas, they are provided with shelter and money from the government. Thus, they were effectively rendered invisible or nonexistent in urban areas like Shanghai.

Additionally, because the hukou system is identified with the ID card, not having an ID can disqualify individuals from urban jobs, and even deprive them of their citizenship. Many homeless people did not have an ID card due to being orphaned at a young age, not knowing where their hometown was, having parents unaware of the process required for an ID, or even losing it as they were homeless and being too ashamed to return to their home regions for the in-person ID application process (Zhang, 2012, p. 382).

Fortunately, official policy improved in 2003, when the mandated returns ended and were replaced by requirements for local governments to establish social assistance centers, or shelters, for unhoused populations. This increased the amount of people accessing government-funded homeless shelters nationwide from 670,404 in 2004 to 1.72 million in 2010 (Zhang, 2012, p. 375). In Shanghai, the Renewal Centre has been a significant and "pioneering" NGO for unhoused people and has successfully worked in partnership with both public and private actors (Zhang, 2012, p. 374, 379).

B. Mainstream Perceptions Towards Homelessness in Shanghai

Prior to the 1950s, low-income, non-Chinese groups like the Shanghai Russians were viewed negatively, as British Shanghai estimated they made up 85 percent of foreign criminals (Newham, 2005). However, interestingly, it was also a status symbol to employ a Russian worker, as other white foreigners and wealthy Chinese enjoyed the idea of being served by former "Russian elite."

Then, during the more restrictive rural-to-urban migration period of 1950-1990, perceptions of China's homeless, specifically detained migrants, by law enforcement continued to be very poor. There were also economic incentives for police to arrest unhoused individuals and they were criminalized by the detainment policy. They were seen as dirty or as a source of a disease, and faced mistreatment like forced labor and beatings (Zhang, 2012, p. 376). In 2003, there was a turning point due to the Sun Zhigang Incident, when the 27-year-old migrant worker Sun died in detainment in Guangzhou (Biao, 2013). Chinese civil society reacted strongly to this injustice. This response ultimately moved the state away from punishing homelessness and instead combating the contributing factors to homelessness.

However, popular media in China still tends to be largely negative as it depicts unhoused people as being criminals or thieves, similar to the pre-1950s period. In general, unhoused people continue to face unequal treatment, social exclusion, and stigmas (Zhang, 2012, p. 378). They are often viewed as lazy, when in actuality they migrated to places like Shanghai to find better jobs but were put in precarious situations, due to lack of family resources, job prospects, or being victims of crime themselves (Zhang, 2012, p. 380).

C. Response and Proposed Solutions to Homelessness in Shanghai

After 2003, nationwide, the 832 former detention centers were converted into assistance stations, and by 2010 there were 1593 government-funded shelters–almost double the amount. Moreover, police and security were removed completely from matters of shelter operations and administration (Zhang, 2012, p. 377-378). The shelters themselves, which offer tickets back home, medical aid, food, shelter, hygiene facilities, and entertainment, also operate on the basis of consented aid, rather than past coercive practices (Zhang, 2012, p. 378). In Shanghai specifically, there are 21 official shelters, in addition to three other NGOs, including Renewal, which assist unhoused people who are disabled or are involved in substance use. The shelters assist 30,000 people a year (Wang, 2010). Renewal itself receives more than 1000 visits a month, and over half of its visitors are young males from rural areas, alongside some local Shanghainese.

To fill the gap, non-governmental organizations, which have increased since the 1990s, have primarily driven the response towards unhoused populations. Chinese civil society has also expanded due to these NGO efforts (Zhang, 2012, p. 374). The state has been encouraging this because it allows services to be provided to groups the state alone is unable to reach.

D. Effectiveness

For the converted shelters, while the facilities are better than NGOs, they are in remote places so there is low awareness of its existence. In addition, the 2003 measures have not changed the goal of wanting to send the unhoused populations back, which does not truly solve their problem or the desires of the unhoused people (Zhang, 2012, p. 378-379). In fact, state facilities only offer food and accommodation for a maximum of 10 days and then they will attempt to persuade the unhoused person to return home (Zhang, 2012, p. 381). However, they do provide quilts and warm weather material for those who refuse shelters, and rescue teams monitor the conditions of unhoused populations in the winter time in areas like train stations, underpasses, and bridges (Wang, 2010).

For the NGOs, there is a shortage of resources due to the high volume of unhoused populations. The Renewal Centre has two full time staff but is mostly made up of around 50 volunteers. However, they do have support from local police and residents (Zhang, 2012, p. 378). They are more effective because they have interviewed unhoused people and adapted accordingly to needs. In addition, the Renewal Centre also provides "sustained support" like skill and employment training, in which they work with private businesses to create entry-level internships opportunities with mentorship. In order to qualify, the participant has to be a regular visitor and demonstrate basic life skills from personal hygiene to time and money management. After two months, during which they are paid and still hosted by Renewal, the "intern" is hired or let go of, with the Centre accordingly providing other opportunities (Zhang, 2012, p. 381-382). As a result of the program, Renewal cites a number of successful cases in which formerly unhoused visitors are now employed, no longer reliant on Renewal, and with stable shelter.

Overall, NGOs and their long-term approaches are more effective than the government-funded shelters even while lacking resources. However, local level work is still limited by the overarching national hukou problem. Evaluating the broad, housed migrant worker populations in Shanghai, they are still often restricted to low-cost private housing either in dilapidated city areas or far-away suburbs (Lau, 2020, p. 175). This is because the hukou system prevents them from buying houses and accessing social services, and such separation and isolation makes it difficult for them to build community with local residents outside of the migrant enclaves, ultimately limiting their social mobility (Lau, 2020, p. 172).

III. Differences Between LA and Shanghai: Homelessness Policy, Racialization, and Nongovernmental Actors

What is especially striking when comparing these two cases is the difference between the much greater policing towards unhoused populations that exists in LA compared to Shanghai. On the local and national level this is evident, as China has completely removed police from handling issues of homelessness. In comparison, police are the primary state force handling LA's urban unhoused population, when considering the funding that LAPD receives in comparison to other state options like the shelters or affiliated homeless research and facilitation organizations like LAHSA. Moreover, it has been outlined in China to address systemic problems that lead up to homelessness, whereas U.S. federal and local government and politicians, as well as mainstream discourse, have historically and contemporarily shirked blame for the existence of their large unhoused populations. This reinforces how homelessness and the glaring discrepancy in distribution is intentionally wielded by Los Angeles in order to control low income populations of color, for the benefit of wealthy and often white communities. As stated previously, homeless policy only really changed–for the negative–once it became more visible to housed residents when unhoused populations moved outside of Skid Row.

This connects to discussion of racialization. In China, the landmark case was the death of the detainee in Guangzhou, and this single incident led to the complete overhaul of their previous system because the state responded to the concerns of the civil society. In comparison, in Los Angeles, in 2020, 1,383 homeless people died, with the number only increasing from years before, and not counting those who died while living in temporary shelters (Levin, 2021). While around half of these deaths were accidental, due to drug or alcohol doses, even the 6 deaths that L.A. was responsible for after the Echo Park sweeps made little waves in local news (Levin, 2022). Despite the anger that is occuring from the groups at the forefront of the crisis, their resistance is being overlooked and intentionally ridiculed by detached political and economic elites, who directly benefit from covering up such issues. The constant repression faced by unhoused populations of color has made such deaths a distant yet expectant statistic, rather than a shock of human rights abuses.

This raises another difference in how Shanghai's unhoused population are primarily migrants, while LA's are often longtime residents who have continually been harmed by LA policy. The most similar demographic to Shanghai's migrant homeless population would be LA's Latinx unhoused population, who may have also migrated for economic reasons and are often in similar ethnic enclaves on the periphery of the major city. However, race and ethnicity is not as rigid of a factor in China due to how one, Chinese nationalism has allowed its residents to broadly see one another as Chinese and two, the history of different races shuffling their relative power against one another. In comparison, in Los Angeles, and the United States as a whole, even within the same city, there is stark stratification between races that often goes hand-in-hand with class. Even those who are white and homeless are disregarded as human beings due to other factors like their class and ability, and that dehumanization is only compounded for other groups of color that fall outside of the societally accepted mold. This is what enables deaths to so senselessly occur, and for such homelessness to persist without widespread action to be taken on solving or fighting it. Even when action is fought for, those who are not unhoused may face the very same violence by the state and its policing, as evidenced by how frontline unhoused advocacy organizations have been treated poorly–if not brutally–by law enforcement and local government in L.A. This is to say that in L.A., the goals of homeless advocacy groups are completely not in alignment with the state's goals, while in Shanghai they tend to be more so.

On this note, there is also more support of local NGOs by Shanghai and the state, than in Los Angeles and the U.S. government. This has great implications for the services the NGOs can provide. While Shanghai's NGOs can offer long-term programs in partnership with companies that set up its homeless visitors for success, Los Angeles's local organizations are limited by the funding they receive from community support, which is more often than not other fellow low-income people of color with little to give. In addition, Los Angeles's shelters and–even Project Roomkey–have much less career and mental support for its residents, which sets them up for a return to the streets in spite of the latter's promise of being a permanent shelter. This is similar to China's shelters, in which they also set limits and view their aid as short term rather than long-term because they do not actually want the unhoused migrants to stay, despite its economy benefiting from their cheap labor.

Another key difference between Los Angeles and Shanghai is clearly the hukou system, and that comes with benefits and disadvantages. In theory, while unhoused people in the U.S. are free to move where they want, this also leads them with no real pathway or region that bears the responsibility of their care. In comparison, unhoused migrants in Shanghai, for the most part, have a region that can receive and assist them, in addition to the shelters that exist in Shanghai. At the same time, the hukou system leads to less visibility or documentation of the unhoused population in Shanghai, as people are either already sent back, or hesitant to utilize shelters based on their insistence to send migrants back.

This also raises the question of visibility between the two cities. The unhoused population in Los Angeles is highly visible, with community advocacy uplifting them, yet they have no better–if not worse–treatment from local authorities. In Shanghai, the migrant unhoused population may be less visible, but do have services provided to them by the local community organizations similar to Los Angeles. This area requires more research, as there is little documentation done on the outcomes that exist for unhoused individuals who choose not to use Shanghai's services, and what their treatment is like–if any–by law enforcement.

IV. Similarities Between LA and Shanghai: Causes, Perceptions, and Effectiveness

In both Shanghai and LA, people are made unhoused due to similar circumstances outside of their control, such as disability, being orphaned or aging out of a foster care system, facing drug addiction or mental illness, or facing legal barriers to economic stability. In both cities, there are demographics of unhoused people who moved to a city specifically to work but failed, or their work had insufficient wages, and they became unhoused or put into a precarious housing situation. They became–or already are–unusable or not valuable to the state, and so there is little incentive to meet their needs, only addressing them for the comfort of valuable residents.

Another tragic similarity is how in both Shanghai and LA the state will have much more punitive measures than local groups because they want to "solve" homelessness short-term, and are not willing to put in the effort, time, money, and consideration to solve issues long-term. Just as unhoused people in LA were eventually kicked out of Project Roomkey and are hesitant to frequent Los Angeles government affiliated shelters, Shanghai unhoused people often do not frequent state shelters, and Renewal is a more viable option despite having lesser manpower. For both Shanghai and LA, there is a sentiment on "getting rid" of unhoused populations and simply removing them from sites, whether it is in violent evictions or quiet deportations, instead of making sure people don't become unhoused in the first place.

In addition, there is the interesting similarity of isolation that exists between housed and unhoused populations, which only makes it more difficult for unhoused populations' circumstances to change, and for local residents to assist or even understand them, which leads to further stigmatization of unhoused groups. For LA, these are Latinx enclaves that primarily have immigrants who are low-income and non-English speaking. Although this may allow more mental comfort in terms of being in proximity to people they can actually understand and relate to on an identity-level, unhoused people of color are also unable to access higher-income economic opportunities that come from different networks. In daily life, they would not interact with different local demographics. In Shanghai, this is similar, because migrant workers will often live together in enclaves near their place of labor, or in the suburban areas of town where it is more affordable. This separation allows housed groups to view the unhoused as lazy, dirty, or criminal. These beliefs are then used, at worst, to argue that the unhoused population don't deserve basic human rights and, at best, allow housed populations to believe that homelessness is is a personal failure that is not of their concern, rather than effect of a community or of a government's systemic failings.

On the more positive end, in both cities, there are non-government groups who actively work with and alongside unhoused populations to fill in the gaps created by the government. In LA, there is a focus on making sure that the unhoused people are in charge of how they are treated and represented when discussing responses to political actions. This has looked like passing homeless community members the mic at government meetings, sharing their image and story on social media for financial support, and providing items to them as needed and requested.

This has also been done in Shanghai, with Renewal surveying unhoused people on what they needed and creating curriculum around their news. While Shanghai's Renewal has had more power due to their support from their state and local corporations to intake unhoused job candidates, this ultimately shows that the effectiveness of such organizations depends on whether they are given the support they are needed, and the failures of urban governance and resource distribution.

V. Conclusions

Overall, LA's homeless response has been largely ineffective because the city relies on law enforcement and pursues violent eviction measures, instead of incorporating the long-term demands of visible, self advocating, and primarily Black and Latinx unhoused populations and local advocacy organizations whose goals are deemed to be at odds with their own and the interests of wealth, white actors. In Shanghai, homelessness response has improved since the government has been more responsive to civil society and removing law enforcement from facilitation, however, problems persist in government shelters, due to a preference on short-term removal of unhoused migrant demographics over long-term assistance, and nationwide, with the hukou system that makes unhoused populations less visible. In both cities, people become unhoused due to not having social safety nets for problems like financial instability, loss of family, physical and mental disability, and drug use. Negative perceptions of homelessness by popular media take advantage of these characteristics to create greater social separation and reduce social responsibility between housed and unhoused populations. Local non-governmental groups attempt to fill these gaps but are only so effective due to the amount they are limited or supported based on the local government. Above all, this shows that all residents, housed or unhoused, are being harmed when an urban government chooses to preserve inequality and scarcity of housing.

References

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