BHS – 8A – Unsafe Homeless Shelters | Earlier with Mo Kelly

California passed a law to fix unsafe homeless shelters. Cities and counties are ignoring it. Venmo payment requests are straining friendships. Parents don’t mind if their kids don’t marry.

Episode Transcript

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You're listening to bill Handle on demandfrom KFI AM six FORTYFI AM six forty
bill Handle. Here it is aThursday morning, July eighteenth, as we're
looking at yet another heat wave.You know, as hot as it is.
I guess it's been cool the lastcouple of days relative to what it's

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going to be. And some ofthe top stories we're looking at. Jd
Vance accepts the GOP nomination for Vicepresident. What a shocker that is.
And tonight it's going to be thecrowning of Donald Trump as the official nominee
and he's going to give a speechtonight. Can't wait for that one.

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Now, I want to talk aboutanother issue of homelessness. Supreme Court granted
city's more power to ban sleeping outside, So you got homeless people have to
make a choice, try to getinto a shelter or maybe going to jail
or getting a fine which keeps going. And you've got public records this is

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obtained by cal Matters, show thatmost cities and counties have ignored a recent
state law aimed at reforming dangerous conditionsin those shelters. Now, when you
think of shelters, do you thinkthat there are dangerous places to be.
You don't, and yet they are. In twenty twenty one, after reports

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of maggots, flooding, sexual harassment, and shelters, the state legislature created
a new system requiring local governments toinspect the facilities after the complaints, file
annual reports on shelter conditions, plansto fix safety issues, on building code

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violations. Okay, that's the law. Five of California's fifty eight counties actually
complied, and I filed shelter reportsLA and Orange County two out of the
five, which is kind of neatthat we actually have complied. But I
think LA and Orange County more committedto sheltering the homeless and many other counties

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why well, La County has almostsixty thousand homeless Orange County. I don't
even know how many are Orange CountyAnd how do they get this information?
Police call log, shelter incidant reports. Wreckords obtained by cal Matters show that
a lot of these reports aren't beingfiled. There was a information, but

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not a report filed, of achild falling out of an unreinforced window in
San Mateo. Multiple allegations, sexualharassment, deaths, mold vermin food shortages.
California spent at least one point fivebillion dollars on shelters and related solutions

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since twenty eighteen, and none ofit seen to work. Because here's what's
happening with shelters their store. Theyare a short term solution, a stop
gap solution for people until they getinto medium or long term housing. That's
the ultimate goal. The problem is, long term housing is hideously expensive.

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I mean half a million dollars perunit expensive. So what's the cheapest way
of dealing with the homeless folks?Put them in shelters. It's bunk beds,
it's a single room, it's akitchen, one mental health provider maybe.
And the law says you have toreport serious violations. But here's the

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problem with the law. It's upto the county and the city to figure
out if the violation is serious enoughto report. It's the cities and counties
that have that responsibility on this law. So you have a violation, let
me give you an example. Youhave a violation, a serious violation of
a city shelter and the city mustinvestigate and then if it's serious enough,

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off goes the report to the state. Now, what if the city views
that it's not serious enough. RightIf I'm running a city government and I
send an investigative team out to oneof my shelters, one of our shelters,
and there are kinds of violations,Do I turn around then and send
the report to the legislature, tothe California authorities, and then turn around

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and have to fix the shelter perwhat the legislature wants. In other words,
guard yourself. So like airplane manufacturerssubmitting their inspections of their airplanes to
the FEDS, same thing with maintenance, but a Southwest got nailed because maintenance

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has to be reported to the FAA, inspectors have to come out. Well,
you don't need an inspector will tellyou what we've done. And of
course all kinds of problems arise.The same thing happens with shelters. So
this bill needs a lot more,many more teeth. And here is something

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as we look back, and Ijust I'm reminded of this. You know,
until the nineteen eighties, people werepoor, poor, poor in California
could still afford rented rooms or cheaphotels. People who otherwise are living in
shelters. Today we go back tothe eighties, they could actually afford to
live someplace. Well, you havegentrification, wage stagnation, federal cuts to

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housing and cash AIDS AIDS itself,drug epidemics. So this is a wild
figure. In less than three decades, the state went from thirty seven thousand
dedicated beds for mental ill patients thirtyseven thousand the state had to nineteen eighty

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three. By nineteen eighty three itwas twenty five hundred. This is a
problem that becomes insurmountable. Is itfixable? It is, And I've said
this over and over again. Youhave to throw lots and lots of money
at this to the exclusion of everythingelse if you're going to make a real

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den or it's incremental, which itis, because I don't know at what
point we've reached more beds than peoplebecoming homeless, more shelter space than people
becoming homeless. I think right nowwe're still beating it. You build a
bed, one point three people becomehomeless, Well, that is unsustainable,
and when it turns around, thenyou get little bits and pieces and hopefully

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it works. Okay, Venmo,I do not use Venmo, Kono said,
he uses Venmo and said she usesVenmo. Neil. Neil uses Venmo,
and I don't use Venmo because Idon't like paying people for anything.
It's you know, using Venmo meansyou're paying. Now using Venmo also means

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you're receiving, So you know,I have sort of a mixed bag.
And of course with the Venmo amongother apps, allows you to send money
seamlessly. And what happens is we'returning into each other's accountants, is what's
happening. So tools like Venmo andsplit wise make it easy to ask friends

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to chip in for a pizza ifsomeone pays. All right, let's say
I'm buying a pizza and my understandingis you're helping me buy a pizza,
and then you really they don't thinkthey're helping you buy a pizza. Sort
of a misunderstand This happens all thetime, and there actually is a reason

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I'm saying this. It's kind ofdifficult to say, hey, yesterday we
went to the pizza parlor or wentto a meal and I paid for it.
You sort of misunderstanding. So Iinstead of you go, instead of
saying hey, yeah, I wantyou to pitch in, you just send
a Venmobill. That's it. Youjust sort of send, you know,
please pay for this, and themoney is sent, and what it does

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is take all of the conflict outof it. And so a deep friendship,
I don't care how deep it isor how old or how treasured it
is, always contain some degree ofscore keeping payback. You know. For
example, let's say you cover thecheck at a dinner next time out,

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do you what do you expect?Matter of fact, I think one of
the few places where money is notexpected to be paid back is when I
take Neil to lunch. I alwayspay, And that has happened ever since
the early days. When I wastaking Neil out for lunch, I went

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to the restroom and I asked thewaitress, the female waitress in this case,
for the check, and she said, it's already been taken care of
by the gentleman you're with, Neil, and Neil, if you remember,
I looked at you and I said, Neil, not only do I think
you're a moron, whatever a steamI have for you just dropped ten points.

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Okay, I just want to letyou know I'll pay for lunch,
because what is my rule? Whoevermakes the most money pays. It's that
simple. And not only do Imake a good living, I also know
that Neil works for iHeart and sotherefore, if I didn't have my law
practice, Yes, if I didn'thave my law practice, if I didn't
have everything else going, it wouldn'tit would be a different deal. I

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don't even reach for my wallet anymore. No, No, you actually,
if the check is thrown in frontof you, you toss it to me
like a frisbee. Yeah, I'mnot touching it. Yeah, exactly.
But you know ninety million US Venmousers. And this goes way back started
with PayPal. You know who createdPayPal. One of the founders of PayPal,

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Elon Musk. That's where he gotall his money to start SpaceX and
Tesla, et cetera. And soasking for here's another one. Asking for
anything less than five bucks is consideredso cheap, is considered so penny.
Anti is that the word is consideredsuch a drag and people are doing it

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now changes the way social intercourse isbeing handled. Amy, do you use
Venmo? I don't. I usezell, but I think I have a
Venmo account, but don't use it. Yeah, I don't. I mean
it's I'm just not interested. Youknow, if I'm buying dinner, I'm
buying dinner, and I'm not shyabout saying, hey, I paid for

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dinner last time, you're buying thistime, and or we split the bill
or whatever. But that is interactionthat that may be an uncomfortable That may
be an uncomfortable encounter because, asI said, I think you're buying and
it's on you, and you think, no, we're gonna split it and
all of it, and it getsuncomfortable. What do you say, Let's

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split the bill? Sometimes? Whatdo you do? Sometimes I tell the
server, Hey, I'll put iton two bills here, let's take two
credit cards. That's uncomfortable when oneparty thinks one way and the other one
and that and Venmo makes it somuch easier to do that, and it
is just the way we change.It's just another way the internet is taking
away interactions. You don't talk asmuch. You certainly don't write as much

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when you do, for example,texts, it's all in little bits and
pieces. Certainly if you tweet,it's in little tiny bits and pieces.
We just live a different life,all right. Fun story. They came
out of the Atlantic. And thishas to do with parents not caring if
their kids get married anymore. Usedto be oh my god, my kids

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are getting married. They're gonna haveany kids. They're gonna have kids,
so that's great. Yeah, parentsdon't care anymore, and they shouldn't.
And I'll tell you why, becausethey shouldn't. My daughter Barbara is getting
married. Oh god, how excitedis she? Dad? You're excited?
No, I'm not. Oh mygod, I want to have kids.
I don't care. Really, that'sright, you know, go ahead,

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not your socks off, doesn't matter. By the way, I'm not alone
at all. Marriage used to bereally interesting. Marriage used to be political.
Literally, marriage had nothing to dowith anything other than politics. Your
families combining. You would have royalhouses combining for alliances, the Medici,

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the King of France, the Kingof England, and I mean it's just
all it was all political alliances.Then you have arranged marriages, which still
happen among orthodox super fundamentalist Jews.And you have arranged marriages India for example,
arranged marriages, and sometimes that's politicalor making sure that the spouse is

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on the same economic and social level. And so then this crazy ass idea
somehow came into being that you wantto get married for love, and getting
married was still a socioeconomic issue becausefor women it was the end all be
all women in work. You finda good husband that can support you,

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that is the win for women.Well, of course that changed completely,
and what you have now is womenthat are basically equal. They's still a
glass ceiling. But the majority ofpeople dual income families and have kids.
And it used to be that itwas really important. Well, let me
give you an example. My parentshad no business having kids. I mean

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clearly. I mean, you know, you listen to me and you understand
that. But they had no businesshaving kids legitimately. And why did they
have kids? Because they were supposedto, because that was just a thing
to do. You got married andyou had children. It's that simple.
It was societal pressure. You know, I got married. Why did I

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have kids? Because I'm out ofmy mind, That's why I had kids.
My daughter I went to lunch theother day with my daughter, Pamela,
and she said, Dad, youreally didn't want us. I go,
yeah, I did. I'm finewith that, or maybe I didn't,

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you know, I was sort ofup in the air. Certainly your
mother wanted children far more than Idid. But oh, come on,
dad, you really didn't want itto have us. I go, no,
come on, stop it. Imean, I love you guys.
If I had to do it overagain, that's exactly a dad. If
you had to do it over again, you wouldn't do it. And I
said, come on, that's nottrue. Until the check came and I
realized how much money I would havesaved if Pamela was not there for lunch.

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And I looked at her and go, you know, you're absolutely right.
But here's what it's about about havingchildren and not caring if you're married
or not. It really is todayabout putting kids in this world, and
it is a very different world thanit used to be. I'm actually pretty

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happy that I'm at the end wellnot the end of my life certainly,
but I'm not starting my life andI'm not in my twenties and I'm not
beginning my career because frankly, formy kids and their kids, it's not
going to be a fun place tolive with climate change, with what's going
on politically, with the wars thatare coming, water wars because there's not

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enough water cyber wars, the pollution, particularly climate change, that's changing everything.
Look at every day, the stormsare here, the heat wave.
It's getting hotter and hotter, andit's getting wetter and wetter, and it's
getting more hurricaneer and hurricane here,and droughdier and drowdier. I mean,

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it's not a place to be particularly, And you know what, most most
of parents just want the kids.They just want stability. Don't care if
you're married, I want you tobe stable kids. Yeah, it doesn't
matter. There's no social stigma anymore. And by the way, the vast
majority of people who do live together, I mean not the vast majority,

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but the majority of people who justlive together and have kids are unmarried.
It's a whole new social interaction.There's new social contracts involved. So my
daughter is getting married, Barbara,And of course I'm paying for the wedding
naturally. Isn't that fun? Yeah, And we were going to have it

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at a major venue and I said, no, I don't think so.
To give you an idea of thesocial end of my life, okay,
and I'm not talking about social endend of my life, but the social
part of my life, I've limitedmy daughter's wedding to one hundred guests.
That's it. No, I'm notgoing to no more than one hundred.

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I do not want one of thosebig two hundred people weding. I don't
want to pay for it. Soit's one hundred. That's it. You
know what my side is out ofthose hundred eight ninety two. On Brandon's
side, he's got a big family. Everybody hates me. Moe Kelly,

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who is heard every single day Mondaythrough right here on KFI. He's host
of Later with Mo Kelly, Ourentertainment Maven, Good morning Mo, Good
morning Bill. Who's writing your lifestory? You know what? Nobody?
Nobody, No, nobody, Imean no one. Yeah, I've had
Yeah, I had a book publishercome to me and said, do you

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want to write your story? Andit was a vanity book, one of
those vanity guys that you pay themfor it. No thanks, Yeah,
it's not that interesting, Mo.Now, Emmy nominations, let's start with
that. Any surprises because those droppedyesterday. I wouldn't say it's a surprise,
but if you've been watching the industryoverall, I think you can officially

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pronounce broadcast television dead. You haveNetflix at the top spot with the most
Emmy nominations, and then FX,which is a cable network slash streaming in
second Netflix had one hundred and sevennominations. FX got ninety three, and
HBO Max got ninety one, andyou have to go down about seven or
eight spots to get to ABC,which is behind Apple TV. Apple TV

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Plus got seventy two nominations in ABCat thirty eight, which just means that
broadcast television as we know it,with the exception of a very few shows,
is completely irrelevant. Hey, whendid that happen? Well, first
of all, when was non broadcasttelevision even allowed to bring it to come

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into the Emmy world. I can'tremember the exact year, but I know
around twenty fourteen there was this shiftand HBO started moving to the forefront because
you have shows like Game of Thronesand The Newsroom, and HBO really expanded
their television programming that people started lookingat. Then cable and also Netflix was
starting to come on the scene andoffering television offerings beyond just the movies in

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the DVDs where you saw this shiftin viewing habits, But now it's completely
it's complete let's quickly shift gears.Do we only have a co couple of
minutes. And that's the tent polepicture this year, Twisters, And I'm
assuming it's named after the Chubby Checkersfan club. That's it. What is
it about? And when you takebig budget, what are you talking about

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big budget? Well, it's ina two hundred million dollar range. And
this is a movie which is inthe same universe as the nineteen ninety six
movie Twister, which stars Helen Huntand Bill Paxton. But it is not
a continuation of that storyline. Itis not a sequel. I've already seen
and I was able to go toa special a screening of it. It's
an homage, if you will,to the nineteen ninety six movie. There

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are a lot of Easter eggs andthrowbacks, but it's not a story continuation
other than thematically where you have twopeople who are thrown together in this particular
iteration and they are trying to findout a way which they can better predict
and also understand what is happening insidethe funnel cloud of a tornado. The
whole thing is about tornado, andI'm assuming they end up in Oz And

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then you have the witches flying aroundor do I have that wrong? You
don't have it completely wrong. Butit's very, very similar to the nineteen
ninety six movie. It doesn't covera lot of new ground. Glenn Powell
also stars in it. He's he'seminently watchable, he's I think he's a
fine actor, and he has agreat career in front of him. But
not a lot of is asked ofhim in this I'm assuming that the real

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star of something like this would bethe CGI. Oh. Absolutely. The
tornadoes are or twisters in this case, are definitely the villain and an on
screen character in persona. You feelthem. There's an dominance about them,
and there's a brooding feeling where aroundany corner that you may look there will
be a tornado, and the moviedoes a good job of capturing that feeling.

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All right, did you enjoy it? Did you think it was well
crafted? I think you walk outsaying yeah, pretty good. No,
No, I thought it was okaywhen I waked out of the nineteen ninety
six this was wow. This onewas not wow. Okay, all right,
mo, we'll talk tonight Monday,Well today's a Thursday, but Monday
through Friday later with Mo Kelly everysingle day seven to ten pm. Mo,

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you have a good one. Talksoon. Okay, that's it.
We as done once again. Thisis a Thursday. Tomorrow is Foody Friday,
and it's Neil and I come hereat six o'clock. Amy starts five
am with wake up call, andas always, you've got Kono and and

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who will not be going home todaybecause they live right here at KFI.
Okay, guys, you have agood one until tomorrow. KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to the Bill Handle
Show. Catch My Show Monday throughFriday six am to nine am, and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app