The California Post has reported the shocking story that many homeless encampments around LA aren’t just places where the poor, addicted, and mentally ill take refuge.
According to local observers, many encampments are big businesses — in two ways.
People sit among their belongings at an encampment in an alley.Ringo Chiu
One is the “homeless-industrial complex.” That’s the network of non-profit groups that rake in millions of dollars to address a problem that they don’t really want to solve.
Some homeless non-profits, of course, are above board, and work hard to help the indigent.
But others behave like a front for private and political interests. The public money keeps flowing as long as the encampments keep growing.
The other way encampments are big business is in the underground economy.
That’s what experts tell The California Post.
It’s not just poverty that keeps people on the streets. Criminal gangs use the encampments to make money, stash drugs, stake out turf, and fund their other operations.
Recreational vehicles line a street in Compton.Ringo Chiu
Human trafficking is also taking place in the encampments — and some illegal migrants are finding themselves trapped there.
The California Post spoke to a migrant family from Colombia living on Skid Row with their six-year-old son.
The encampments in their neighborhood are run by gangs — and foreign cartels. They are surrounded by “zombies” constantly overdosing.
One advocate says life was better for them back home. For them, the American dream has become an illusion.
But leaving may not be easy for migrant families — not when many still owe money to the cartels.
They may be living in squalor, but they still owe a debt to those who brought them here.
Some gangsters become victims themselves, succumbing to addiction, stuck in the system they have also enforced.
The “gang shanties” are further evidence of the breakdown in law and order.
As former LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva commented, gangs move in wherever laws aren’t being enforced.
LA has all kinds of laws to prevent the spread of encampments.
Anti-camping ordinances; ordinary criminal laws; and, yes, federal immigration law, which state and local officials oppose.
Until now, there has been no political will to enforce these laws — or to protect the vulnerable people who are not just living in poverty, but who are living in fear.
Roughly 20 planned early childhood education centers in the Big Apple mysteriously sit idle asdemand surges for universal pre-K and 3Kseats close to home, The Post has learned.
More than 25 of 47 3K “initiative projects” at sites first earmarked under former Mayor Bill de Blasio are still unlisted on the official NYC MySchools directory — despite costly construction contracts, rent payments to private owners and official Department of Education signage posted outside some “phantom” schools.
The list of leased shell sites includes a converted Brooklyn warehouse on the Columbia Street waterfront — where nearby young families face waitlists of more than 100 students for a nearby seat, parents told The Post.
“There’s not a lot of seats to go around,” fumed Brooklyn parent Zach Hetrick, who lived on the same block as the Columbia Street waterfront site when his daughter would’ve been eligible.
Without the center, the father-daughter duo must trek to another city-run site over a mile away on foot, or a 15-minute bus ride “if it comes on time.”
Though the 3K location was first slated for completion in 2023 — and later underwent more than $1 million in construction work in 2024 for a “proposed” 3K center, with a total estimated cost of $18 million — the site is still being “evaluated for potential use,” the DOE told The Post in a statement.
“If we’re paying for the school to be built and it already exists, it’d be great to be using that school,” Hetrick said.
“Ultimately, I think we should be using the resources we’re already paying for.”
The news comes after a Post investigation revealed a city-run site on the Upper East Side set to open in 2024 had been sitting empty, angering parents — and prompted Mayor Zohran Mamdani to open the site just three weeks later.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin, a longtime Upper East Side rep, said the opening of the center had been a “long time coming.” She noted a staggering 853 early child care centers closed in recent years, while demand for free programs has skyrocketed — which can otherwise cost parents tens of thousands of dollars a year through private providers.
“I can’t tell you the number of parents that have said to us, ‘if we do not get affordable child care, we’re going to leave the city,’” Menin said last month during the opening of the new preschool on the Upper East Side.
“At the end of the day, this is what we need to do citywide — to open up more child-care facilities, to make sure that every single parent that needs a slot for 3-K and pre-K has it.”
A “Pre-K for All” sign outside the unopened Van Brunt Street preschool.NYPost
The city spent $787 million from FY2020 to FY2024 on early education initiatives, including for the creation of classrooms in existing buildings and new locations, according to the DOE’s five-year capital plan report released last August.
“I believe there’s about 21 of those sitting vacant,” DOE early childhood education rep Jeff Klein said at the time, adding the city was working with the Department of Buildings and health department to “ensure that these can be still viable, because if time has passed and they’re sitting vacant, they need to be up to all appropriate codes.”
“We have a need for seats in our community, and we look at a mothballed site in a private building that we put a bunch of money into the capital repairs, and then we’re paying rent,” North Brooklyn councilman Lincoln Restler said at the meeting.
Planned 3K center at 1972 Broadway on the Upper West Side sat empty without the DOE knowing about the site, council member Gale Brewer told The Post.NYPost
One planned 3K site at 18-31 131 St. in College Point, Queens, a former warehouse set to seat 165 students, underwent a full renovation and brand-new outdoor play area after the city entered into a five-year lease for the building in 2021. But it sits empty, despite an anticipated 2022 opening.
The DOE also shelled out roughly $200,000 for lighting work alone at a three-floor site at 1010 Third Ave. on the Upper East Side, city permits show. Despite the permits on Third Avenue showing work for “3K lighting,” the DOE told The Post the site’s future has not yet been determined.
Other planned 3K and Pre-K sites included in last year’s DOE report appear to have become something else entirely – including a DOE Family Welcome Center on Staten Island, and charter elementary schools for Success Academy Ridgewood and Zeta Charter Schools in Jamaica, Queens.
A proposed 3K center at 11-11 40th Ave. in Long Island City, Queens, is now listed as the address of the “temporary” site of a new elementary school, the Academy of Cultural Excellence PS 439Q. It’s supposed to open this September before it moves to a permanent location.
“It was the de Blasio administration that planned all of these child care centers,” Brewer said, “but I [was the one who] told the Adams administration.”Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post
Council Member Gale Brewer even told The Post the city has shelled out a whopping $24,000 a month in rent — and an estimated total cost of about $22 million — on one site in her district that sat vacant for years.
The planned three-floor 3K center at 1972 Broadway on the Upper West Side was allegedly unknown to the DOE before she notified the agency, the councilwoman said — as the School Construction Authority never told the DOE about all of these centers.
“It was the de Blasio administration that planned all of these child care centers,” she added, “but I [was the one who] told the Adams administration.”
A rep for the SCA refuted “it is 100% false” that SCA didn’t inform the DOE about the site, and that New York City Public Schools is “involved in the siting of every single 3K/pre-K center and also every single school.”
Though the 3K was initially set to be completed in September 2023, per planning documents, one floor of the building finally opened to special needs preschool students in 2025.
The local district is finally “working to fill the other floors with 4 Pre-K classes and 4 3-K classes as an annex for PS 452,” a rep for Brewer confirmed.
When asked about the mystery sites, City Hall rep Jenna Lyle told The Post the new administration is working to evaluate the longstanding phantom sites — and some may finally see the light.
“For years, early childhood programs were slashed and sidelined by the prior administration, despite community need, leaving many of these buildings to sit empty,” Lyle said.
“That is changing under this administration. We are taking a close look at the areas around all vacant buildings and assessing early childhood seat need.”
The benefits of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic are myriad, from weight loss to improved cardiovascular health to potentially preventing dementia, lowering the risk of depression, and reducing the intensity of migraines.
However, new research suggests these wildly popular meds could substantially raise your risk of developing a different serious condition.
The research team found that 4% of GLP-1 users developed osteoporosis, compared with a little over 3% among nonusers, an increased risk of about 30%.Deborah – stock.adobe.com
In the new study, researchers found that 4% of GLP-1 users with obesity and Type 2 diabetes developed osteoporosis, compared with a little over 3% among nonusers — an increased risk of about 30%.
Osteoporosis is defined by a loss of bone mineral density and bone mass, a weakening that makes sufferers more vulnerable to fracture. An estimated 10.2 million people age 50 and older have it, and about 43.3 million more people have low bone mass, which puts them at high risk for osteoporosis.
Researchers also found that osteomalacia, a related condition in which bones soften, occurred twice as often among GLP-1 users.
“It’s not huge,” said lead study author Dr. John Horneff, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, “But within that data that was put in there, you even saw nearly a doubling of the risk of having some sort of bone mineral density issue at five years.”
This latest round of research is observational and did not factor in diet, exercise or vitamin supplementation. However, the results are consistent withresearch published last monththat found an association between GLP-1 drugs and a higher risk of osteoporosis-related fractures in older adults with Type 2 diabetes.
The FDA currently lists “increased risk of bone fracture in older adults and women” on its label for semaglutide.
Why is this happening?
Women in perimenopause and menopause are particularly at risk due to naturally falling levels of estrogen, a key hormone in the bone remodeling process. When levels fluctuate during perimenopause and then plummet after menopause, bone loss accelerates.
Osteoporosis is also common among those who experience rapid weight loss.
The FDA currently lists ‘increased risk of bone fracture in older adults and women’ on its label for semaglutide.RFBSIP – stock.adobe.com
Horneff says that with a suppressed appetite, patients not get essential, bone-protective nutrients like vitamin D and calcium from their diets.
“People are taking these medications, and obviously there’s a tremendous amount of upside,” he said. “But with that, they start to decrease their intake of food and nutrients.”
e also suggests that rapid weight loss could affect how the body builds and loses bone, comparing patients who lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time to astronauts in a zero-gravity environment.
“There’s nothing forcing their bones to hold their weight anymore. A lot of astronauts come back with low bone density. The thought is, these patients, their skeleton was used to maintaining one frame, and then all of a sudden, that’s being decreased.”
The question of whether the increased risk of osteoporosis is due to weight loss or another mechanism of the drug remains unanswered.
Experts assert that exercise — specifically, weight-bearing exercise — can help maintain bone mass and slow bone loss. The force exerted on bones during strength training stimulates bone-forming cells to build more bone, making bones denser and stronger.
Watch out for gout
The study also found that the risk for gout, a type of inflammatory arthritis triggered by a buildup of uric acid in the body, was also 12% higher among GLP-1 users. Rapid weight loss can temporarily raise uric acid levels, which serves to explain this increased risk.
Experts emphasize that the results of this study shouldn’t discourage the prescription of GLP-1 drugs, but rather should encourage providers to offer patients guidance on protein intake, nutrition, physical activity and monitoring of bone health.
