By Noah Bierman | Los Angeles Times
JACKSON, Miss. — Tommie Brown, a homeless outreach coordinator here in the capital of one of the country’s poorest states, saw a lifetime’s worth of desperate people as he navigated bumpy roads in his green Toyota Tundra on a recent morning, including a woman who said her landlord stole her benefits check and then broke her arm by clubbing her with her own walker.
Yet he knew homelessness was an even more serious problem elsewhere. He’s been to Los Angeles, twice, to learn about the city’s homeless population.
“I can’t imagine L.A. being in a situation or position to be proactive anymore,” said Brown, 62, who made weeklong visits to Los Angeles in 2010 and 2016. All L.A. can do is “try to keep up with the situation,” he added.
Related: Mississippi one of the highest in the nation of homeless not living in shelter
Mississippi has plenty of problems, starting with the nation’s second-highest poverty rate, just behind Louisiana’s. Yet the state also has the country’s lowest homeless rate, a combination of statistics that is hard to fathom for those who believe poverty directly leads to homelessness.
Read the full article here.